OBITUARY: THE NAIPAUL I KNEW
09 September 2018
It was September 1995 when Nadira (then Alvi) phoned me and said V.S. Naipaul was in town and that I should see him. I refused. Why, he was an abrasive, disagreeable old man who had destroyed journalist Nusrat Nusrullah in his book Among the Believers. I didn’t want the same done to myself.
No, said Nadi. I had to be myself and since I always was, I would hit it off with him. It was after much coaxing that I agreed. In fact, I took a couple of days telling her I was busy with something or the other. And then I said I couldn’t because I was going away to Islamabad. Good, said Nadi because he was already there and since we were going to be in the same hotel it would be easy.
Read more »Labels: About, People, Sir Vidya Naipaul, Travel Literature, Travel Writer, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:56,
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کیا آپ نے کبھی دیوسائی کے بارے میں سنا ہے؟
18 February 2017
آپ پا کستان کے شمال میں واقع فلک بوس پہاڑی چوٹیوں کے بارے میں تو ضرور جانتے ہوں گے۔
کیا آپ نے کبھی دیوسائی کے بارے میں سنا ہے؟
یہ پاکستان کے شمالی علاقے سکردو کے قریب ایک بلند چوٹی پر واقع ایک مقام ہے۔ سفر نامے ویو سائی: ’لینڈ آف جائینمس‘ دیوسائی اور اس میں بسنے والے جائینس کے بارے میں ہے۔
یہ کون سی مخلوق ہے، اور دیوسائی کیسی جگہ ہے، اس بارے میں سنیے سفرنامے کے مصنف سلمان رشید سے بی بی سی اردو کی ماہ پارہ صفدر کی خصوصی گفتگو۔
Labels: Baltistan, BBC, Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Gilgit–Baltistan, Nadeem Khawar, Northern Pakistan, Podcast, Travel Literature, Urdu, Wildlife
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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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,
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Years of Publications
04 May 2016
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
All books are available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100), Lahore
Labels: Books, Pakistan, Salman Rashid, Travel Literature, Travel Writing, Travels in Pakistan
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:30,
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Meeting Sir Vidya Naipaul at home ground
09 October 2015
I with Lady Nadira and Sir Vidya Naipaul on 18 December 2012 on the patio of our home in Lahore
Labels: About, People, Sir Vidya Naipaul, Travel Literature, Travel Writer, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Early explorations in the Karakoram-Himalayan
18 September 2014
This article was published in The News on Sunday in January 2006 was written as if by a reporter in the year 1906. The reporter’s beat was exploration work being done by Europeans, mainly the British, in India and Chinese Turkestan. It notes the major expeditions in the works for the year 1906 with some reference to recently finished work.
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| Aurel Stein |
So far as archaeological exploration in Central Asia is concerned, 1906 promises to be remarkable year. This year promises wonderful discoveries and quantum additions to our knowledge on the history of this area as two of great names of Central Asiatic exploration head out into the region once again.
We have Sven Hedin, the Swedish explorer, already famous for his epoch-making work in trans-Himalayan regions. He is the man we have to thank for, among several others, the discovery of the source of the mighty Brahamaputra River. Unable to reach Lhasa in two earlier attempts, he prepares to try yet again to enter the Forbidden City in 1906. His earlier attempts were thwarted by Tibetan xenophobia and suspicion of everyone who is either not Tibetan or Buddhist.
Read more »Labels: Himalayas, Hindu Kush, History, Karakoram, Travel Literature, Travel Writer, Travel Writing, Trekking
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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To the Lighthouse
26 January 2014
When I read the book half a century ago, the island rode my mind. Etched forever, it became just the place I wanted to be where I could climb the spiral stairway to the top of the lighthouse and look out upon a turbulent sea stretching all the way to the vast Antarctic ice sheets that were, in my imagination, visible in the distance.
Read more »Labels: Book Review, Books, Travel Literature
posted by Salman Rashid @ 10:58,
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Travel is not going to die, ever
12 November 2013
On 7 November 2013, at the Sharjah International Book Fair, I was in very good company. There was Tarquin Hall, Tahir Shah, Robert Twigger and I with Victoria Amador moderating the discussion on travel writing. We talked about how the four of us were inspired to become travel writers and I discovered a kindred soul in Tarquin, a Londoner who having travelled extensively now lives in Delhi. We both hated school and just wanted to get away from the drudgery of books.
In the end, we ended up becoming permanently wedded to books!
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Travel writing, if it has to have any meaning at all (unlike what passes for this genre in Urdu) has to come from a learned source. In my search for material on the Khirthar Mountains, I stumbled upon Eric Shipton’s masterpiece Blank on the Map that triggered both a thirst to read more and more and a desire to physically see what I read.
Labels: About, Travel Literature, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Celebrating Deosai: Land of the Giant
19 October 2013
Left to Right: Shabnam Rashid, Salman Rashid (Author), Raj, Nadeem Khawar (Photographer)
Read more »Labels: Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Nadeem Khawar, Photo Stream, Travel Literature, Travel Photography
posted by Salman Rashid @ 13:25,
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Deosai: Land of the Giant
07 October 2013
Deosai: Land of the Giant is out and available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100) Lahore.
Labels: Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Gilgit–Baltistan, History, Nadeem Khawar, Northern Pakistan, Travel Literature, Travel Photography, Wildlife
posted by Salman Rashid @ 17:55,
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Deosai: Land of the Giant
20 September 2013
Book is available at Sang e Meel (042-3722-0100), Lahore
Deosai has long kept an aura of mystery. Long before the first European explorers ventured into this high altitude plateau, vague knowledge of its existence was current in the plains of the Indian subcontinent. Thence the word had been carried by the nomadic Gujjar cow herders who fattened their animals on the rich summer grasses of this vast uninhabited tableland. The Gujjar accounts wafted from person to person to become a confused tale of a plateau stretching flat, unbroken and treeless from the mountains north of the capital of Kashmir all the way to the deserts of Tartary. The myth was finally broken in the 1830s.
Read more »Labels: Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Gilgit–Baltistan, Nadeem Khawar, Northern Pakistan, Travel Literature, Travel Photography, Wildlife
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Deosai: Land of the Giant
13 September 2013
I had dreamed of being on Deosai since 1984. Eventually got there in the summer of 1990. It was every bit like the descriptions I had read in 19th century travel and exploration literature: a vast open treeless expanse rolling in every direction until it ran into the rocky crags on its periphery. I was hooked. Thereafter I returned several times, mainly to be with the Himalayan Wildlife Foundation team working on the conservation of bears and other wildlife.
The text of this book was written in 2004. But never having considered myself a real photographer, I waited and waited and waited for the photography to materialise. Eventually my friend Nadeem Khawar, the well-known nature and wildlife photographer, who I call Guru, agreed to spend three months on Deosai. That was the summer of 2010 and Nadeem came back with the most priceless imagery ever.
Read more »Labels: Books, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Nadeem Khawar, Northern Pakistan, Travel Literature, Travel Photography, Wildlife
posted by Salman Rashid @ 21:14,
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Classic travels
12 July 2013
In or about the year 520 BCE, Darius the Great sent a Greek sea captain, Skylax by name, to explore the Sindhu River. This man put himself in a boat near Peshawar, sailed down the Kabul River and into the Sindhu which took him all the way down to the Ocean. Upon returning home to the Persian king, Skylax wrote out a detailed report for royal perusal. This report is now sadly lost but we know of it from the work of Herodotus who wrote his Histories about seventy years later, in the middle of the 5th century BCE. Already at that time we see a great degree of romance connected with the subcontinent. Either Skylax created wonderful creatures to people the wild and desolate regions of this unknown country or Herodotus embellished the captain’s account of what he saw.
Read more »Labels: History, Travel Literature, Travel Writer, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Guide to Pakistan
12 June 2013
I contributed to, actually majorly re-wrote large chunks of, two editions of Insight Guide to Pakistan. The first was the 2000 edition and then again the 2005 (or was it 2006?) edition. But when I met Tony Halliday, the editor, in late 2006, he said as much as he would regularly like to update this valuable book, he knew it would be impossible to get the publisher interested in Pakistan.
He was so right. With the way things are, no one would want to come here to have a, shall we say, blast.
Read more »Labels: Books, Pakistan, Travel Literature, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Who reads travel literature
31 May 2013
Except for The News on Sunday, there is no journal with a dedicated travel writing section. I continue to write, I suppose, for the thousand or so who continue to read. If you look at my books, Gujranwala: The Glory That Was
and that was sold more than a thousand copies in 23 years; The Salt Range and the Potohar Plateau, sold a little over a thousand copies in nearly 15 years. No other book made this mark! Most readers complain of the high prices which is not my fault but my publishers. But then, I know, that these same people having refused to buy a Rs 1500 book will turn around and spend twice as much on fast food!
Read more » and that was sold more than a thousand copies in 23 years; The Salt Range and the Potohar Plateau, sold a little over a thousand copies in nearly 15 years. No other book made this mark! Most readers complain of the high prices which is not my fault but my publishers. But then, I know, that these same people having refused to buy a Rs 1500 book will turn around and spend twice as much on fast food!Labels: About, Books, Travel Literature
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Travel sections
28 May 2013
If papers and journals with respectable circulation were to have stand alone travel sections, I am convinced that these sections readership will be very high. People are interested in travelling, only they have nowhere to turn for information. Once upon a time PTDC and the provincial tourism development corporations were of some help. Today only KPK and Kashmir have
tourism departments that one can even mention.
That having been said, it is essential to understand what the travel section should be. It is excellent to contain not just information on getting there, where to stay once there and what to see. But even more important is to try and induce a sense of provenance: the why and wherefore of the place. This sense will breed pride in what/who the traveller is and sensitivity to the monument or whatever. We might have fewer vandals that way; and also fewer tourists and more genuine travelers.
Related: My Association with TNS
Related: My Association with TNS
Labels: Travel, Travel Literature
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Travelling without reading
11 April 2013
This realization came on very strong during the trek to explore the Muztagh Pass (The Apricot Road to Yarkand
). My travel companions, one an economics professor the other a medical doctor were not there with the same sense of wonder as me. For them this great experience was just another trek, just another been there, done that claim. If I excitedly spoke about some camp ground where we either passed or spent the night and told them of Godwin-Austen having been there in 1861, they showed no interest. It meant nothing to them.
Read more »). My travel companions, one an economics professor the other a medical doctor were not there with the same sense of wonder as me. For them this great experience was just another trek, just another been there, done that claim. If I excitedly spoke about some camp ground where we either passed or spent the night and told them of Godwin-Austen having been there in 1861, they showed no interest. It meant nothing to them.Labels: About, Travel, Travel Literature, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:00,
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My audience
10 April 2013
When I began writing three decades ago, my audience actually was the thousands of Western expats living in Pakistan - at least that is what I thought. Until that time, whatever travel writing for native English speakers existed was done by foreigners, and I felt that sometimes the nuance of a Punjabi phrase, or even something said by a Sindhi, Baloch or Pathan was lost in translation. I wanted to pass on the Pakistan of Sindhi, Baloch, Pathan and Punjabi people, real people, to the reader of English.
But whereas my work was then known to most expats, I soon found that a good number of Pakistanis also read it. Now, since we turned an 'insecurity state', there are few expats. There has, moreover, been a decline in the quality of diplomats as well. Time was when consul generals and high commissioners came calling at our home because they wanted to know Pakistan and read my work. A couple of years ago, a friend told me of some woman heading the American Centre at Lahore whose only interest was boutiques and a high class pimp of the old city.
Read more »Labels: About, Travel Literature, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:34,
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Travel writing at your own expense
02 April 2013
[The Punjab University English Department has this year begun a course in travel writing. There are only two students there; a girl and a boy. Both are very keen readers and that is the making of a researcher.] The two young people currently taking the travel writing course both have promise. But I don't really see them pursuing travel writing as a profession. The way is really way too hard.
Labels: About, Travel, Travel Literature, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 11:27,
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Discovering Sir Vidya Naipaul
18 March 2013
I met VS (as I call him) in November 1995 when he was in Pakistan researching his book Beyond Belief. Nadira, an old friend of mine and who is now his wife, had already met him at a diplomatic function and learned that VS wanted to meet people. She thought I would be a good ‘specimen’. When she asked me, I refused to meet VS saying that he was rude, arrogant and unkind to the people he met. I had this impression from reading an earlier book titled Among the Believers in which, I thought, VS had ridiculed Nusrat Nusrullah, a very senior Karachi journalist. I remember telling Nadira that I did not want to be treated the same way.
Nadira said something rather insightful: ‘Salman, just be yourself and you’ll discover a man you will never be able to forget.’ And so I called VS in his hotel room and he said I could come over for twenty minutes after which he was busy. When I went up to his room, I have to admit that never having seen a picture of VS, I expected a tall, thin hawk-like person. But what I found was a man with a chubby face in which the feature that captivated me was his eyes. They were, and still are, heavy lidded, sad eyes. These are the eyes of a person who is terribly, terribly sensitive and who does not only feel the pain of another human but perceives it without being told of it.
Labels: People, Sir Vidya Naipaul, Travel Literature, Travel Writer, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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