Fine art of travel writing
27 October 2016
The great master Confucius once said, 'Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life.' I have followed this precept for a long time and in that way, neither the research nor the journeys I undertake, nor too the writing is hard work. In fact, it is not even work for me. This is a life of my choice and for me everything comes easy.
In the West, travel writing is a recognised genre with a large following and travel writers make money - not as much as fiction writers, though. There are also prizes to be won (the annual Thomas Cook Award for the best travel book, for example). Though travel writing prizes are paltry as compared to those given out for fiction, there is nevertheless an incentive.
Read more »
In Pakistan, there is no money to be made from travel writing. There are no awards to be won and little recognition. It really is a labour of love. Or as I sometimes say, this is the only thing I can do which is appreciated by a few people. That keeps me going.
Labels: About, Travel, Travel Literature, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
,
The north face of Chhogho Ri
25 October 2016
On the left, Chhogho Ri (K-2) the Great Mountain of the Baltis (that is what the name means), Chogar of the Uighur and Kirghiz people of Xinjiang and Chogoli of Chinese. At a little before eleven when I became the first Pakistani to see its north face, the mountain was blue clad. This image was only for the record.
Labels: Gilgit–Baltistan, Photo Stream, The Apricot Road to Yarkand, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
,
Riding Steam
24 October 2016
On the eleventh day this past April, a train steamed out of Lahore Cantonment railway station after thirty-four years. No, I have not taken leave of my senses, as you may suppose when several trains go this way and that every day. A train literally, physically, steamed out of the station, as in being powered by steam, Not by diesel.
The West values its steam heritage. In Pakistan we have been unkind to it. On a trip to Britain in December 1997, friends took me to Loughborough to see steam locomotive No. 71000, known as the Duke of Gloucester, undergoing maintenance. It was told that only a few years earlier, this magnificent locomotive was spotted in a junkyard by a railway buff. Word got around, steam buffs came together, raised the money and purchased the machine before the cutter’s torch could destroy it.
Read more »The West values its steam heritage. In Pakistan we have been unkind to it. On a trip to Britain in December 1997, friends took me to Loughborough to see steam locomotive No. 71000, known as the Duke of Gloucester, undergoing maintenance. It was told that only a few years earlier, this magnificent locomotive was spotted in a junkyard by a railway buff. Word got around, steam buffs came together, raised the money and purchased the machine before the cutter’s torch could destroy it.
Labels: Pakistan Railways, Railway
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
,
Sri Mata Hinglaj
20 October 2016
The setting is idyllic. A narrow gorge with walls of contorted rock rising up to heights of several hundred feet. The streambed, all of fifty metres wide, with a trickle of water richly endowed with trees of all sorts where white-cheeked bulbuls sing with abandon. Overheard, the tawny eagle quarters the peaks on broad wings with splayed primaries and, if you are lucky, you may espy a wolf warily eyeing you from a thicket of reeds before melting away as if it was never there in the first place.
Here and there, the dun-coloured walls of the gorge have been eaten away by eons of flowing water to create dramatic overhangs. And occasionally the streambed, gouged out by the infrequent flash floods sweeping down it, forms a deep pond of liquid emerald. One of these overhangs is the shrine of Durga and right below it is the sacred pond. Considered unfathomable, it is the recipient of coconuts thrown in with full force by pilgrims. The quantum of bubbles that escape tells the thrower of impending happiness or misery: the greater the fizz, the happier the person. Fast bowlers, take note.
Labels: Balochistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
,
Khwas Khan
07 October 2016
Just inside the Khwas Khani or north gate of Rohtas, as one enters, there is a rather smallish grave with a green-domed roof. The sign on the wall says, ‘Hazrat Syed Sakhi Khwas Khan Shah’. Legend has it, this holy man, known never to have refused whatever was demanded of him (hence ‘sakhi’), struggled against the Sikhs. When finally overcome, he got into some silly wager with his antagonists. “Ask and you shall have your demand”, he is said to have challenged.
The Sikh was craftier. He said he wanted the sakhi’s head. And so the reputedly large-hearted saint chopped off his own head and handed it to the Sikh. Then his headless torso, so the story goes, went airborne and disappeared into the wild blue yonder. The version I heard did not have the Sikhs converting en masse to the ‘one and only true faith’, but we do have someone burying the head just inside the gateway which became a shrine for the superstitious. The northern entrance to Rohtas thence came to be known after this man of god.
Read more »Labels: People, Punjab, Rohtas Fort
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
,
Deosai Life
04 October 2016
Excerpt: Land of the Giant, Review - Deosai Romance, The Little Long tailed Marmot
Book is available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100), Lahore
Labels: Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Nadeem Khawar, Photo Stream, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
,
‘Problem with the Backbone’
03 October 2016
My all-time favourite movie is Scent of a Woman, the movie that won Al Pacino his first ‘best actor’ Oscar award. And what a win it was! Pacino plays the abrasive, overbearing retired Lieutenant Colonel Frank Slade. And he is blind too. I have to admit I have watched this film no fewer than three dozen times. And that should be a cautious estimate!
Slade hires young Charlie Simms (Chris O’Donnell) as guardian for a Thanksgiving Weekend and ends up defending him in front of a school disciplinary committee. One of the things Slade says in favour of young Simms is: ‘Well, gentlemen, when the shit hits the fan, some guys run and some guys stay ....’
The upshot of Slade’s spirited defence of Simms’ silence on the question of an indiscipline he saw occurring in school is simple: integrity and moral character.
Read more »Labels: People
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
,
