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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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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Travel Writing
31 March 2017
The other day, a young friend of mine introduced me to a man about my age. Very enthusiastically he told him I was a travel writer. The gent who had never read anything but Urdu newspapers and for whom writing was only what papers had, asked if I travelled from place to place gathering news for a paper?
No, said I, young Mikhail was such an incorrigible practical joker. I was actually in the leather business. And then I recalled the time I fed this line to another person many years ago. Entirely to my detriment, the man was quite in his cups and also knew someone in Germany in the leather business. He gave me his friend’s name and address and for the rest of the evening pestered me to contact him ASAP so that his friend could get first-class leather. The persistence of drunks is legendary.
Read more »Labels: Herald, Humour, Travel Writing
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.
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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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Map to mountains
18 May 2016
The Aghil Mountains, in 1937 were part of India and were inherited by Pakistan until they were gifted to China by our government in 1963. They went out of my reach, but I resolved to see some of the regions where Shipton and Tilman had been. And so the notion of Burrs was born. The journey was undertaken in the summer of 1990 and it took three months to complete.
Read more »Labels: Books, Travel, 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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My Association with TNS
07 May 2014
My editor tells me it is twenty years since The News on Sunday began publication. I missed out the first couple of years because it was in early 1993 when Beena Sarwar one day called me to write for her at TNS. Until then I was writing for another paper which had not paid me for several months (it still owes me Rs 40,000) and I was barely eking out a living with my work for IUCN and WWF.
What TNS offered me was unbelievable: besides a reasonable honorarium for my piece and photography, my travel expenses were to be paid in full! Now, that was something only NGO journals did. No other paper had ever made such an offer. I jumped at it.
Read more »Labels: TNS, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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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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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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Travel writing at its best
17 June 2013
Herodotus was a journalist if you consider his work on events that were very near his time. His report on the battle between the Spartans under Leonidas and the Persians under Xerxes was like a war correspondents report even though he was writing on an event that took place about the time he was born. At the same time, Herodotus was also a travel writer. It is on a whirlwind journey across a great swathe of land that he takes his readers making them almost breathless.
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Incidentally, the film 300 about the Persian-Greek war seen again and again on Star Movies and HBO these days has dialogue that comes straight out of The Histories of Herodotus.
Labels: Travel Writer, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:33,
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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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Taking a note of it
21 May 2013
All travellers take field notes. I usually do this every evening. Rarely, however, there is something that needs to be noted immediately for fear of losing its essence. Then I stop and write. The essential thing here is to observe as one goes along; to keep all senses at their maximum. Every bit of passing scenery, whether it is the desert or green mountains or even arid heights, is rich with colour and drama, only the traveller has to be observant.
Sometimes I tend to jumble the sequence of a full day of travelling: did we pass the ruined homestead first or the beautiful bend in the river? In such cases, the digital camera comes very handy. All I have to do is check the images on the display. But before I went digital in 2005, such situations were helped by travelling companions. Losing field notes is the horror of every traveler. I have fortunately never lost my notebooks. But I did lose one full roll of film with images from Deosai, and twice have I lost my tapes with interviews of people about whom I was hoping to write. Thankfully, I now have a digital recorder that sits in my camera bag.
Labels: Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 12:26,
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Roads More Travelled
20 May 2013
) or Rohri in Sindh, but I have found it singularly difficult to write on Multan or Lahore. Similarly, I have not been wble to write exclusive pieces on such touristy places as Rohtas or Derawar forts after I first visited them. But several years after, I did write about them when I read some interesting historical items connected with them. With Derawar it was the legend of the Alexandrine treasure and at Rohtas it was the apotheosis of Khwas Khan who was the fort's governor under Sher Shah Suri.
There are many travel writers, particularly those who contribute to tourist magazines, who will work their magic on places like Venice, Budapest and what have you. Also, remember William Dalrymple's City of Djinns (about Delhi) - there must be others that I cannot immediately recall. But speaking for myself, I can say I have never been turned on by famous places.
Read more »Labels: About, Travel, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:18,
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Writing books piece by piece
19 April 2013
Writing a book like Salt Range and Potohar Plateau
or The Apricot Road to Yarkand
is a more pleasurable experience. You read over some years
and its helps build up a thesis, do the field work, improve your research
some more and then come home to write. The Salt Range took me five years to
publish from the time I started work. The idea for Apricot Road germinated
back in 1991 when I was researching something else at the Royal Geographical Society. The journey was undertaken in 2006 followed by a second visit to
RGS. Then I just could not get into writing mode for three years. The book
was published in early 2011.
or The Apricot Road to Yarkand is a more pleasurable experience. You read over some years
and its helps build up a thesis, do the field work, improve your research
some more and then come home to write. The Salt Range took me five years to
publish from the time I started work. The idea for Apricot Road germinated
back in 1991 when I was researching something else at the Royal Geographical Society. The journey was undertaken in 2006 followed by a second visit to
RGS. Then I just could not get into writing mode for three years. The book
was published in early 2011.
Writing newspaper articles can be two different types. The one where you
hurry out and back and produce something. The other is the result of a long
period of research followed by a leisurely journey and then easy paced
writing. The first kind never made it to my anthologies; only the second
did.
Read more »Labels: About, Books, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:00,
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Travel writers’ connections with locale
14 April 2013
If it is a ruined building, an abandoned mansion, I generally spend a full day there. But the precondition is to be left to myself. I must be alone to let my imagination work; nobody should be constantly bombarding me with banter. The same is true for battlefields, forts etc. The rule of the thumb about writing on places, therefore, is three to four days for cities and a full day for a particular building.
Labels: About, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:30,
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Travel writer is a whistle blower
12 April 2013
The travel writer, especially a native travel writer, is essentially a whistle-blower. His role is not only to inform readers about the country, but to bring to notice the destruction that has or is taking place. We have to move forward from being mere givers of commonplace descriptions of extraordinary places. It goes without saying that the travel writer must be a voracious reader. Only then he/she can move away from the mundane to a higher plane.
Read more »Labels: About, Gujranwala: The Glory That Was, Travel Writer, Travel Writing
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:00,
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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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