Salman Rashid

Travel writer, Fellow of Royal Geographical Society

REDISCOVERING THE GRAND TRUNK ROAD
05 June 2023

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Nyla Daud

Cutting through the burgeoning Mughal Empire in the 1540s, the Bihar-born Pakhtun soldier Farid Khan — better known as Sher Shah Suri — banished emperor Humayun to Persia. He utilised all five years of his reign to create some semblance of order in a land divided by tribal allegiances and equally strong perfidy, only to be pushed back, leaving behind a sorry dynasty that fizzled away in just as many years.

Yet, Suri has stayed long in our collective memories as the builder of the Grand Trunk Road, a legacy bequeathed, in part, to present-day Pakistan.

But was it really so?


It took travel writer Salman Rashid years of research, countless cross-country treks, rides on rickety two- and four-wheelers, frog-jumping the parapets of numerous forts, gingerly stepping down the decaying brick steps of ancient baolies [water reservoirs], conversations with both the simplest of minds and internationally certified authorities and generous dollops of his one-of-a-kind humorous and satirical asides to make short — read: long — work of the well-kept secret that the Grand Trunk Road is. Simply put, it has far more to it than meets the eye.

The road’s Pakistani trajectory begins from the town of Landi Kotal at the rugged edges of the Khyber Pass, in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP). Shady trees line either side of the ancient route that flows towards Wagah near Lahore, before crossing into India and ending in southernmost Bangladesh. On the way, it has touched many settlements, been ground for historic monuments and peace treaties and branched off at the whims of various invaders and kings.

All that the road has weathered in its centuries of existence — facts and fables, history and folklore, cultural ethos and a landscape painted, in part, by deliberate intent — makes for an amazing conglomerate of knowledge that has been glossed over by crediting its construction to Sher Shah Suri.

Hence, Rashid’s latest travel treatise, From Landi Kotal to Wagah: Cultural Heritage Along the Grand Trunk Road. This absorbing, beautifully produced book is testimony to the fact that the Grand Trunk Road — about which much has already been written — was waiting to be rediscovered and recorded from an angle other writers have failed to highlight.

This angle is essentially that, although Suri probably did build some segments of the road, the numerous landmarks along its Pakistani length prove the presence, passing or settlement of travellers, preachers and warriors from as early as the fourth century.

Rashid writes a zesty story of this extensively traversed highway’s origins, beginning from the fourth century in the time of the Mauryans, to the sixth century when Cyrus, king of the Achaemenid empire, annexed modern-day Pakistan. The author then takes us through the Buddhist, Mughal, Sikh and British eras to bring readers to the status of the road in the present day.

Rashid’s findings draw a line between fact and fiction, verifying historical record and simultaneously debunking myths that have come to be over the years, either in ignorance or purposeful design to benefit contemporary needs and populations.

For instance, he writes of a small fortification in Torkham, KP, that shows all the signs of having been constructed in the early 20th century, most likely by the British. However, his local guide refuses to venture inside because he has grown up believing that it was actually the site of Timur’s gallows, where the Mongol conqueror had had many a dissident hanged.

Hardly anywhere else might we have read of the second-century warrior king Kanishka following a darting rabbit along a swamp, only to meet a local shepherd who told him that Buddha had prophesied that a victorious ruler would raise a stupa in that particular location to house the largest portions of the sage’s earthly remains. Eager to prove himself the ‘one’, Kanishka promptly had a stupa built and planted a peepal tree, marking a site to where every Buddhist pilgrim gravitated for 400 years.

By referencing records such as the Tuzk-i-Babari — also known as Babarnama or History of Babar — and Tuzk-i-Jahangiri [History of Jahangir] as well as a good deal of investigative good sense, Rashid creates a marvellous balance between historical accuracy and folklore. The local populace would even today rely religiously on hearsay — the authors of such yarns might never even have been near any source material — but any attempt to counter them will result in one being “drummed out of town.” Such situations give Rashid’s book a wry humour to which only he can do full justice.

Rashid addresses the Grand Trunk Road — originally called the Rajapatha [Royal Highway] and, in the area that is now Pakistan, the Utra Rajapatha [Northern Royal Highway] — as a living entity that is at times vibrant, at other instances bloodthirsty and, at yet other moments, a detour for specific political, social or religious invasions. Sometimes it is buried in anonymity, yet it continues to be very much part of an important line of communication down centuries of political, religious and social invasions.

The rich, historical story of the grandest highway in the Subcontinent criss-crosses a spread of beautiful geography and landscapes of wondrous culture, heritage, fable and folklore that is much deeper and more intriguing than its kilometres of surface.

We see the crumbling kos minars [milestones], which once numbered in the hundreds along the length of the road, but now only two survive in the Pakistani section. Also surviving in various states of despairing disrepair are the tomb of one Lala Rukh — purportedly either the daughter or granddaughter of Mughal emperor Akbar — and the baradari [garden] of Behram Khan, son of the Pakhtun poet and warrior Khushal Khan Khattak.

On this excellent adventure ride into antiquity, we also read about the Macedonian king Alexander’s trek through what is now Pakistan and stories of princesses who sponsored great architectural projects. In his trademark humorous style, Rashid comments that it seems the British government’s decision to lay a railway track between the tombs of the Mughal emperor Jahangir and his beloved wife Noor Jahan was intended to “accentuate the intellectual difference between the two” because Jahangir was “scarcely worthy” of the lady who “towered” above him.

This makes the opinion of the octogenarian village matriarch, with which Rashid begins his book, all the more poignant: “Roads make all the difference to women. They have little meaning for men who can ride horses that we women can’t.”

Yesterday, today and tomorrow. From Landi Kotal to Wagah is quite the stylistic tapestry of contemporary comment and the mystique of antiquity. And Rashid’s technique of breaking up scholastic historic content with first-person anecdotes adds much flavour to what may, at times, be a somewhat taxing read for those who might pick it up for entertainment purposes only.

From Landi Kotal to Wagah: Cultural Heritage Along the Grand Trunk Road

By Salman Rashid

Sange-e-Meel, Lahore

ISBN: 978-9231003875

250pp.

The reviewer is a freelance journalist, translator and creative content/ report writer who has taught in the Lums Lifetime programme. She tweets @daudnyla

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Happy Birthday to Me
21 February 2022

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I am 2300 years old!

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Gwadar: Song of the Sea Wind
27 December 2021

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Rizwana Naqvi

For long, images of the golden, unspoiled beaches of the Makran coast had “captured the imagination of the romantically inclined” as a place where one could “actually be away from the madding crowd.”


Other images, showing hills in “crumpled disorderly piles devoid of every shred of vegetation”, would tempt the wilderness enthusiast. But reaching the coast was not easy and, hence, the place remained unexplored.

However, things are changing fast and Gwadar — on the Makran coastline — is poised to become a bustling seaport and industrial city, mostly because of the much-celebrated China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). Ever since Gwadar became easily accessible by road from Karachi, via the Makran Coastal Highway, there has been a regular inflow of tourists to the city, though foreign tourists are still to discover it.

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Mithi: Whispers in the Sand
26 July 2021

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Ali Bhutto
   
Up until the early 1990s, the portion of the Thar Desert that lies within Pakistan was largely devoid of blacktop roads, with the nearest one ending at the desert’s western periphery in Naukot. All travel from this point onwards was done either by camel, vintage Reo trucks from the Second World War — locally referred to as kekrra [crab] — or privately owned jeeps.


Back then, the journey from Naukot to Nagarparkar, which lies at the easternmost edge of Tharparkar district — today, a five-hour drive — would take up to 14 hours, writes Salman Rashid in his new book, Mithi: Whispers in the Sand.
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Happy Birthday to Me
22 February 2021

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I am 2300 years old!

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From Landi Kotal to Wagah
12 February 2021

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The Unesco and the government of Pakistan launched a new joint publication titled “From Landi Kotal to Wagah: Cultural Heritage Along the Grand Trunk Road” on February 10 at the Pakistan National Council of Arts.


The result of a collaboration of more than two years, the coffee table book explores the built and intangible heritage along the Grand Trunk Road (GT Road) in Pakistan, combining a thoroughly researched narrative with a wealth of photos that illustrate the diverse and rich panorama of this 2500-year-old historical trade road. Over the centuries, the road has been extensively travelled by traders, pilgrims and great civilizations like the Greeks, Turks and Mughals who left their marks, perpetuating the mythical status of this legendary road.
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From Landi Kotal to Wagah: Cultural Heritage Along the Grand Trunk Road
02 February 2021

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This is the story of one of the grandest highroads in the subcontinent richly steeped in legend and history. From the rugged contours of the Khyber Pass it bears the reader through a wondrous land of culture, heritage and a remarkably beautiful geography. From the middle of the sixth century BCE when Cyrus, the greatest king of the Achaemenian empire, annexed modern day Pakistan right down to the present times, the road has been extensively travelled. If there were invaders and plunderers on this grand highway, there were also pious pilgrims and common traders. Sprinkled along the length of the road like milestones to an ancient past are signs of those who traversed it. The Greeks, Mauryans. Scythians, Parthians, Sassanians and Turks all left their mark with a distinctive Mughal and British overlay. This book is a celebration of the Grand Trunk Road and those who left their mark on the history of Pakistan.
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Tell them a story: Salman Rashid charts his journey with travel filmmaking
07 December 2020

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By Shayan Naveed


Salman Rashid is a historian and the only Pakistani to have seen the North Face of K-2. He also has the unique privilege of calling himself the late VS Naipaul’s friend. Today, he sits adjacent to me in a cacophonic coffee shop in Lahore, sipping overpriced coffee. He strains his ear to make sense of what I ask him but gives up, shaking his head as we drag our chairs outside, away from the clutter.

“Restaurants here are set up in a way where you can’t even converse,” he says.

Our coffees start to look like muddied water.

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Major Sharif, Punjab Regiment
25 March 2020

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The story of my six and half year-long career in the army can be described in one word: Quixotic.

I never did anything right. I was always getting into mischief. And, worst of all, I had the tactless habit of talking back to my seniors. In this case this was mostly the adjutant who hated me with a vengeance.

Unsurprisingly, I was promoted captain a year later than my course-mates. That meant officers a course junior to me were also promoted, and I was steadfastly stuck in the lieutenant rut. I have no recollection now why or how I became a captain, but I did in April 1975 when I had completed three years of service.
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Happy Birthday to Me
21 February 2020

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I am 2300 years old!

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Legend of a Traveller
10 December 2018

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Salman Rashid - Odysseus of Pakistan's Travelogues
27 September 2017

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By Fatima Arif

Salman Rashid is a renowned travel writer who has nine books under his belt. Although travelling was a childhood passion, this was not the future his father imagined for him. As any parent of the subcontinent, he wanted Salman to become an engineer and despite all indication he was persistent to the point that he pressured him to join Government College Lahore's BSc programme to study physics and mathematics. In his third year, Salman failed, dropped out and joined the army where he served for seven years. "I didn't have a mathematical mind and I was unable to grasp both these subjects." As a child when Salman Rashid could not travel, his alternative hobby was to look at maps in atlases. He was interested in seeing the world but his first attraction was to explore Pakistan and thus kept going back to the country's map.

After leaving the army in 1978, Salman Rashid worked for Siemens Pakistan in Karachi, where he stayed for six and a half years. He wanted to be a gentleman farmer and although his family had some 200 acres of land in Thal, his father didn't trust him to earn a profit from it. He believed that Salman would waste whatever money he had along with that of his uncle's (who had promised to invest in the land). So between the period of his resignation in February 1978 to his release from the army in September 1978, his father sold all the land the family owned for around PKR 60,000, a pittance even at that time. "I never had the idea that I was capable of writing. In 1983, Talat Rahim, Director Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation, pointed out that I have a skill and told me to write the stories that I tell of my travels. They had a magazine at that time for which I then wrote. My first piece was published as it was without any editorial work done on it!"

Roaming the wilderness was where it all started for Salman Rashid along with an auxiliary interest in exploring monuments, which later became a passion. "People ask me where I did my PhD in history from! My knowledge base has developed through self study and exploring places first hand." Walking on foot for hours on the Karachi Super Highway, going upstream along the Malir River and camping in the area alone is an experience that, in Salman Rashid's words, taught him to appreciate nature as it is, without getting revolted by any part of it, be it lizards or snakes.

His travels are also what led to his interest in environment and ecology. For someone who doesn't take up things at a superficial level, Salman Rashid started reading about various subjects, combining what he learned with ground realities. When he was first invited to write he knew that he had to conduct extensive research. Not a lot of studies were available on Ranikot Fort and as a result Salman Rashid had to do his own research and learnt the process. He discovered the library of the Department of Archeology and by the end the staff was fed up with him because of all the time he spent there. During the same period he found the book, Blank on the Map by Eric Earle Shipton, which has been the biggest inspiration of his life. In the 1990s, Rashid used to visit WWF-Pakistan's office on his bicycle just to consult one book or the other!

"The majority of people have no understanding of ecology. Environment they do, to some extent, but no one understands the word ecology. Since we don't understand these things as a nation we are completely insensitive towards them."

In his lifetime, Rashid has seen a consistent deterioration of the environment and what saddens him the most is the insensitivity of the majority of Pakistan's citizens - be it individuals, officials or institutions. Despite the obvious degradation of places like Lake Saif-ul-Maluq, Narran, Shogran, and Head Sulemanki to name a few, people simply turn a blind eye. Places that were once pristine have deteriorated for one reason or the other, often for economic development. For locals who are otherwise financially strapped, they are willing to compromise on the sustainable and environment-friendly use of Pakistan's tourist areas.

It is a mammoth task to make adults unlearn and then relearn concepts and ideas. However, in order to save the future it is important that the next generation be taught from the very onset about our environment and the need to conserve it. They will be the changen makers as they are the future and have the ability to monitor their elders' behaviour, as well. The same can be said about eco-tourism - if practiced in a sustainable manner, it can help the local economy and also contribute towards the preservation of our cultural and natural heritage.

"Our issue is that we are confused about our identity and are not proud of it the way we should be." Salman Rashid is of the opinion that brainwashing plays a key role in this identity crisis. Our disconnect with our heritage was started by the system under Zia-ul-Haq's dictatorship and continues to this day. If the state decides to take on a counter narrative, it is capable of inculcating a sense of ownership of our diverse heritage in the country's people.

Talking about travelogues and a declining interest in them, Salman Rashid points out that in his experience there is a language barrier. A very small percentage of the local population reads English for the love of it. Urdu is still comparatively more widely read but there is no quality content available in it. What is available misleads people and does not fit the definition of what a travelogue is supposed to be. In Pakistan people in general visit tourist spots for two reasons: to get away from the heat or to go on a picnic. They are not interested in history, culture or architecture. Some of Salman Rashid's work is in the process of being translated and he hopes that people will develop an interest and appreciate the value of knowledge in his writing. However, he also fears that people might reject his work because it lacks the frivolity that they are accustomed to.

"A travel writer educates. He has to be a historian, geographer, geologist, anthropologist, sociologist and at the end maybe even a biographer."

As the only Pakistani who has seen the North Face of K2, Salman Rashid's trip, although inspired by Western explorers, ended up in his book and was a celebration of the people of Baltistan. "When you know your history, you also get to know your culture. Baltis have lost their language, which was a part of their identity some hundreds of years ago and they are known to be scared of these high altitudes. However, the fact is that the glaciers of the area are named in their language (Drand-mang, Khojolinsa, Chogoree etc), bearing testimony to the fact that Baltis travelled along this area well before any Western explorer."

Intellectually unspoiled folk wisdom has an inbuilt mechanism, where stories with nature preservation as their theme, are passed down from generation to generation. Preserving them and promoting local and international tourism, with a focus on environment and nature conservation needs to be promoted, while on-ground arrangements to accommodate the resulting influx of visitors also needs to be to ensured.

Though he does despair at times, Salman Rashid feels that there is still hope. A beacon of light, from individuals and organizations that are committed to the cause, will eventually guide us along the right path.

Also at Natura

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ترکی ریڈیو اور ٹیلی ویژن کارپوریشن کے سلسلہ وار پروگرام پاکستان ڈائری میں سلمان رشید سے ملاقات
03 June 2017

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Click to listen the podcast [vLog] at Turkish Radio and Television. 

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SALMAN RASHID – ODYSSEUS OF PAKISTAN’S TRAVELOGUES
21 April 2017

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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.
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Happy Birthday to Me
21 February 2017

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This is what I wrote On My 2362nd Birthday!

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Years of Publications
04 May 2016

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Riders on the Wind published [1st ed] in 1989, [2nd ed] in 2004

Gujranwala: The Glory That Was published [1st ed 1992], [2nd ed] in 2000

Between Two Burrs on the Map: Travels in Northern Pakistan published in 1995

Salt Range and Potohar Plateau published [1st ed 2000], [2nd ed] in 2005

Prisoner on a Bus: Travel Through Pakistan published in 2003

Jhelum: City of the Vitasta published in 2005

Sea Monsters and the Sun God: Travels in Pakistan published in 2006

The Apricot Road to Yarkand published in 2011

Deosai: Land of the Giant published in 2013

All books are available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100), Lahore

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Happy Birthday to Me
21 February 2016

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Today, Sunday 21 February 2016 is my 64th birthday. Since I poke fun at all those morons who claim to be 144 years old because they ‘remember’ the time of, say, the 1857 struggle against the Raj, I assert I am 2364. That is because I ‘remember’ Alexander the Macedonian so well.

I have been asked how it feels to be 64. Well, for starters it feels like 64. Which is that I am more susceptible to cold. Time was when I could shock people with my immunity to it. In July 1997 I was working with Himalayan Wildlife Foundation on Deosai Plateau (4300 metres, 14,000 feet) where the camp cook told me they had a bathroom with hot water.

The hot water in the tiny tent turned out to be a teeny bucket with just enough water for me to wash my... Errrm, sorry cannot write here what I told the cook the water was sufficient for. I got a tin jug from the man and told him to watch how men wash themselves.

At the bank of Bara Pani, I stripped, turned around to check that the man was watching and poured the first jugful over myself. A blood-curdling scream escaped my lips and that was all. Then I was speedily pouring jug after jugful. I came back smelling good and Eesa spent the next few years telling all visitors of this man from Lahore who was impervious to cold.
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Pakistan International Mountain Film Festival
22 June 2015

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Hassan Karrar, is thin as a rail, stands six and a half feet tall and teaches history at LUMS. He walks with a long step and is known in Baltistan as ‘lumbi tango walla’ – long-legged man. At Pakistan International Mountain Film Festival he and I talked of the philosophy of mountaineering and the question of ‘conquering’ peaks.


First things first. No one conquers peaks. We conquer enemies; not peaks. The only thing anyone has ever conquered attempting a summit is their own fears. That’s all.
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Weekend World With Sophiya
28 March 2015

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Happy Birthday to Me
21 February 2015

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This is what I wrote On My 2362nd Birthday!

Join the party here and here

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My Books

Deosai: Land of the Gaint - New

The Apricot Road to Yarkand


Jhelum: City of the Vitasta

Sea Monsters and the Sun God: Travels in Pakistan

Salt Range and Potohar Plateau

Prisoner on a Bus: Travel Through Pakistan

Between Two Burrs on the Map: Travels in Northern Pakistan

Gujranwala: The Glory That Was

Riders on the Wind

Books at Sang-e-Meel

Books of Days