On Mintaka
29 April 2017
Labels: Gilgit–Baltistan, Mintaka, Mountains, Northern Pakistan, Urdu
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Rupal: the south face of Nanga Parbat
28 April 2017
May 1994. Javid Anwer (JA) who heads Green Earth Organisation (GEO), an NGO that ‘cares for the environment,’ asked if I would like to join a cleaning expedition to the south face of Nanga Parbat in August. I had never seen this mountain close up and I did not have to think twice to say yes. In the end the expedition got delayed and it was in the third week of September that we arrived in Rawalpindi to fly to Gilgit.
As expeditions go Nanga Parbat Saviour 1994 was a pretty fancy one – with a name as pompous as that it was bound to be fancy. To begin with, it was to be multi-national, and it had a TV crew to film the operations. Naturally there was going to be an immense amount of equipment and a whole team of porters – just like any old climbing expedition. This meant not having to carry anything but your camera bag and some personal belongings while the food and tents were to be with the porters or the donkeys that were to be hired. After years of mountain walking on shoe string budgets where I had to carry everything myself this was a grand treat for me and I looked forward to it.
Read more »Labels: Gilgit–Baltistan, Mountaineering, Northern Pakistan, Prisoner on a Bus: Travels Through Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Saruna Valley
27 April 2017
The lake teems with crocodiles. Local legend has it that one accused of theft or mendacity thrown into the water will either be taken or rejected: the guilty, so they say, will be eaten. The innocent can swim and gambol in the water even as the crocs look on unconcerned.
In 1987, there was one grave said to be that of Ari Pir along with its ancillary burials of lesser saints and one little tea shop and eatery. Ari Pir, so I learned, was a staging post on the route from Sehwan to Lahut Valley that became active in the month of Ramazan when hundreds of bhang-quaffing malangs passed through from the former to the latter. But there was no story about Ari Pir.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Pakistan - a multi regional state
26 April 2017
The Great Asiatic Divide or the Great Asiatic Watershed formed by the line of the Himalayas and Karakorams divides the Indian subcontinent from Central Asia - the former being south of the line and the latter north of it. This line runs through K-2 to the west, sweeping northward to pass just south and west of Shuwert, the summer pasture in Shimshal. That is, Shuwert sits north of the Divide and therefore, geographically speaking, is located in Central Asia.
The windswept summer pasture of Shuwert has the unique distinction of being the only habitation in Pakistan that is actually in Central Asia
Shuwert can be reached the easy way (and you only know how easy (!) it is when you go) from Shimshal. Trek up the Shimshal River and if you are very fit you can get there in a single day's hike. If not, you overnight at Shuijerab and then climb up Shimshal Pass and reach Shuwert in about three hours.
Labels: Geography, Northern Pakistan, Shimshal
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Deosai: Land of the Giant
25 April 2017
From DEOSAI: THE LAND OF THE GIANT - available at Sang-e-Meel Publications (042-3722-0100), Lahore
Labels: Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Nadeem Khawar, Photo Stream, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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No quiet place
24 April 2017
Now, Seattle was chief of the Suquamish Red People of North America when the president of that new country offered to buy the Red Man’s land and put him on reservations. Now, also, the letter is somewhat of a controversy because there exist two versions of it — quite alike in essence, however. Some attribute the prose to a 1970s screenwriter instead of Chief Seattle (also spelled Seathl); others to an earlier writer in the 1930s.
Read more »Labels: Ecology
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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On the edge
22 April 2017
Rabat is an ancient caravanserai situated at the edge of Pakistan. Read in Urdu about history of the place. This article appeared in newspaper Roznama Pakistan [double click the image below to enlarge].
Labels: Balochistan, History, Urdu
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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SALMAN RASHID – ODYSSEUS OF PAKISTAN’S TRAVELOGUES
21 April 2017
by Fatima Arif
This quote by Martin Yan sums up the role travelling plays in the developing our minds. “People who don’t travel cannot have a global view, all they see is what’s in front of them. Those people cannot accept new things because all they know is where they live.”
When it comes to travelling it is not just travelling to other countries that help form your perspective (though that definitely is a plus) but visiting places can introduce to experiences that would help your intellectual growth.
Read more »Labels: About, Salman Rashid, Travel Writer
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Grandeur in the wilderness
20 April 2017
The Kalhora dynasty ruled over Sindh for a full century from 1680 to 1783. Whereas the decline of this house of religious and military leaders owed all to inept bumblers, there were in the early years of the rise and power of this dynasty men of remarkable acumen and administrative skill who guided its fortunes.
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| Drigh Bala necropolis |
Many remember the Kalhoras as builders of the most elaborate irrigation system in Sindh prior to the British advent that turned vast desert regions into fertile farmland. The Kalhoras were noted also for raising the new city of Khudabad (Dadu district) and virtually rebuilding Hyderabad from scratch to give it that name after Ali (RA) the last of the rightly guided caliphs.
Read more »
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Inana or Nani
19 April 2017
There is in south-east Balochistan, on the banks of the Hingol River, a shrine called Bibi Nani. Muslims resort here to celebrate and worship a saint of whom only the vaguest of stories are told. Hindus, on the other hand, believe that the spot marks one of the places where the goddess Durga’s body parts were flung to the earth when she died. They call it Sri Mata Hinglaj. At any given time, followers of either religion can be met with at Hinglaj; both sides wonderfully tolerant of the other’s practices and worship.
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There is another Bibi Nani shrine 10 kilometres west of Sibi, at the foot of the Bolan Pass. Here, too, a vague story of her and a pious brother is told. Having come to this country, she and her brother invited the heathens to Islam. But the king took rather unkindly to them and sent out his soldiers to bring them to him in chains. The brother walked into a rock face and disappeared, leaving only a copious spring to mark the spot. We don’t know how the sister Nani met her death and was buried on the banks of the Nari River.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, Historic Myths
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Jalebi Bend
18 April 2017
I called the bends in the Kuday Dawan jalebi from the name of a stretch of road in Zanskar (near Kargil in India of which I have seen some images). These bends in the Kuday have no similarity with our Khyber Pass. For one, the scale is much grander in Kuday at 3300 metres as against the 600 metres of our Khyber. Secondly, I have seen fewer places as dreadfully desiccated as the Kun Lun Mountains; the Suleman Mountains would be a virtual oasis in comparison. Also there are villages in the Khyber, boys grazing livestock, traffic driving past etc. The Kuday is utterly, utterly uninhabited.
From The Apricot Road to Yarkand - Book is available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100), Lahore
From The Apricot Road to Yarkand - Book is available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100), Lahore
Labels: Photo Stream, The Apricot Road to Yarkand, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The Wonder Woman of Dadu
17 April 2017
The land around village Kabir Panhwar, a few kilometres from Johi in Dadu district, has remained unirrigated and uncultivated for centuries. Only hardy desert trees can grow in its sandy soil. Amid the prosopis and acacia, the thorny mesquite provides rich and poor alike with excellent fuelwood. The only patches of cultivation that one sees are owned by landowners who have their own tubewells. The landless of Kabir Panhwar and nearby villages can either work on the farms of the rich or, if they are free-spirited, can be wood cutters. The remarkable Laalan Khatoon used to be among the latter.
Every two or three days, Laalan would hire a donkey cart, spend the whole day hacking away at the mesquite even as the thorns cut her skin and tore her clothing to make a cartload of firewood. In Johi she would sell the load for 1,000 rupees. Paying cart rental at 200 rupees per day she would share the rest of the profit with whoever partnered with her, each person ending up with, on average, a little under 300 rupees per day.
Read more »Labels: People, Profile, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Moola Pass
15 April 2017
Read in Urdu about Moola, the wonderland in Balochistan. This article appeared in newspaper Roznama Pakistan [double click the image below to enlarge].
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, Moola Valley, Urdu
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Roghan Sheher – the city of Caves
14 April 2017
The ravine of the Kudi Kor, one of the several tributaries of the Porali River that flows by Lasbela town in Balochistan, is wild and desolate with water in the bed only when it rains. The sheer sides of the gorge rise from about fifty to a hundred metres above the floor and would be unremarkable but for the caves that pock them.
Carefully hewn into the walls of conglomerate, the caves form proper dwelling places with a veranda in front that gives access to a room behind through a doorway. The rooms have windows looking through the veranda and niches for lamps. In at least one or two, remnants of in-house grain storage vats can still be found tucked into a corner. Locals know this site as Roghan Sheher.
Labels: Balochistan, Book of Days 2010, Sights Less Seen
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Gandava
13 April 2017
One of the cities he visited was Kandabil and Abu Ishaq Istakhri wrote: 'Kandabil is a great city. The palm tree does not grow there. It is in the desert and within the confines of [the province of] Budha. The cultivated fields are mostly irrigated. Vines grow there and cattle are pastured. The vicinity is fruitful.'
A hundred years before Istakhri, we have Ahmad al Bilazuri telling us that Kandabil sat atop a hill. Now mounds signify age because as habitation decays and crumbles new buildings rise on old ruins and over time a mound is created. And so, a town on a mound back in the year 850 would mean a town that was ancient even a thousand years ago.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, History
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Sincerity
12 April 2017
This piece appears in the January 2015 issue of Herald
Going by his name, this Glyme cannot possibly be a Pakistani. I therefore suspect this piece of very useful wisdom so much in use in Pakistani politics, as well as in daily life, was actually thought up by a local sage who put it into practice without taking out a patent on it. Unprotected by law, the formula was filched by smart aleck Glyme whose name then stuck to it. I suspect it was fear of legal action from Pakistan that kept old Glyme from passing on his full name to Bloch.
Read more »Labels: Herald, Humour, Society
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Deosai People
11 April 2017
Image from DEOSAI: THE LAND OF THE GIANT - available at Sang-e-Meel Publications (042-3722-0100), Lahore
Labels: Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Nadeem Khawar, Photo Stream, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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When there is nothing to write about
10 April 2017
In Chunian I met a pigeon man - the typical kabootar baz. And did he have interesting stories to tell and hundreds of pigeons to show! And I by mistake deleted his interview from the recording machine. That was pure bad luck. Though Chunian is just an hour away, I have not returned in three years. Perhaps next winter. The pigeon man's story needs be told.
What I need when I go someplace is an interesting historical tale to hang my piece on. Travel writing is something more than just a piece about beautiful bazaars and good food. For me it has to be history; stories that are untold; facets undiscovered. Besides Chunian there have perhaps been four or five other occasions when I failed to turn up something.
What I need when I go someplace is an interesting historical tale to hang my piece on. Travel writing is something more than just a piece about beautiful bazaars and good food. For me it has to be history; stories that are untold; facets undiscovered. Besides Chunian there have perhaps been four or five other occasions when I failed to turn up something.
[Click the image to enlarge]
Labels: About, Travel Writer, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:30,
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Baghsar Fort
08 April 2017
Read in Urdu about history of Baghsar Fort situated right on the Indian frontier, near Bhimber. This article appeared in newspaper Roznama Pakistan [double click the image below to enlarge].
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posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Train tourism
07 April 2017
Railways is among the more enduring legacies of the British Raj in the subcontinent. There is virtually an inexhaustible body of extremely interesting lore and history of the building of this great system of transportation discussed in a few excellent books and in the esoteric journals in the Punjab Archives. It is another story that the ignorant and asinine bureaucrats do not permit access to that great treasure trove.
Even if one has not read about the intricacies and heroism of the laying of the line from, say, Ruk (near Shikarpur) to Sibi, one can still stand on the platform of Ruk and wonder what the letters KSR and IVSR that adorn the façade in blue on white ceramic tiles mean. The lettering signifies that this little-known station was the junction of the Indus Valley State Railway coming up from Kotri and the new line to Quetta and Chaman called the Kandahar State Railway.
Read more »Labels: Pakistan, Pakistan Railways, Railway, Tourism
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Security Risk
06 April 2017
I don’t know when they started it – it seems to have always been around – but this paranoia of security against the ‘enemy state’ (dushman mulk) pervades the national psyche deeply. This so-called security entails only a moratorium on photography, all else like blowing up PNS Mehran or Kamra apparently being kosher.
In nearly seven decades of the country’s existence, the painter of the ‘Photography Prohibited’ sign has never known poor business. Though the powers-that-be keep the identity of this person a tantalisingly guarded secret, his artwork adorns every bridge, culvert, railway station, airport, dam, power grid and rubbish dump around the land. For his meritorious and assiduous service to the country he must have received the highest awards from the government.
Read more »Labels: Herald, Humour, Travel
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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The Talpurs’ last stand
05 April 2017
Hard by a farm-to-market road outside the village of Sahib Khan Chandio, ten kilometres north of Hyderabad and just off National Highway 5, there stands amid the fields a yellow sandstone obelisk. The white marble plaque on one of its faces tells us that the monument was ‘Erected by Major General Sir Charles Napier GCB and the officers, non-commissioned officer and soldiers of the British army under his command in memory of their comrades who fell in the battles of 17th February and 24th March 1843 fought with the Ameers of Sind.’
The plaque then lists the names of those three hundred or so British and Indian men who gave up their lives fighting for control over Sindh. Understandably, the monument commemorates the men who were in the service of the British crown, not those who fought for the independence of the country of Sindh.
Read more »
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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‘Dust unto Dust’
03 April 2017
In the year 1902 parts of the Shikarpur and Karachi districts of the province of Sindh were carved away to establish the new district of Larkana. Long before that this area was known as Chandka after the well-established Chandio tribe that still lives in great numbers in the western hills of the district. Now the newly established district was to get its new name from the Rajput clan of Larik.
In a paper submitted to the Government of India on 31 December 1847 Hugh James, the Deputy Collector (equivalent to the modern Assistant Commissioner) of Shikarpur, did not hesitate to call Chandka the ‘Garden of Upper Sindh.’ His reason for this appellation was the number of waterways, both natural and man-made, that meandered across the district bringing it great fertility.
Labels: Books, Sea Monsters and the Sun God, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Ancient history of Taxila
01 April 2017
Read in Urdu about history of Taxila - seat of ancient civilization. This article appeared in newspaper Roznama Pakistan [double click the image below to enlarge].
Read more »Labels: Alexander, History, Taxila, Urdu
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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