Salman Rashid

Travel writer, Fellow of Royal Geographical Society

PIR CHHATAL’S MYSTICAL FISH
24 January 2021

The Moola River of Balochistan is the only one in the 400 kilometre-long Kirthar Mountains that cuts clear across the range from the west to the east. Rising in the Central Brahui hills just southeast of Kalat, it flows in a southerly direction, irrigating the wide valley known after it as Moola. Halfway down its course, the river swings north and widens until it shears the rocky Kirthar barrier to reach Gandava.

The point where it enters the lowlands is evocatively known as Naulung — Nine Fords. Interestingly, among the highland Baloch, it is also known as Punjmunh — Five Mouths. Both titles signify the width of the river as it debouches from the rocky confines of the hills. For several thousand years, this was the most convenient passage between the Indus Valley and the Kalat uplands, the only one that could take ox-drawn wheeled transport with ease.

Labels: Balochistan, Travel

posted by Salman Rashid @ 11:50, ,

Tareekh Ke Musafir

The genre of Urdu travel writing in Pakistan is dead, brutally butchered by a narcissistic writer whose travel fiction — written more like the post-summer vacation essays of a class four student — has destroyed the genre. Over the past four decades, his countless books, produced as travel literature, were more about the writer than about the place. The result is that most readers of Urdu now believe that what they have so avidly consumed is travel writing.

Now, travel writing is not just a narration of a journey — though there have been some fabulous and substantial books of this sort, too. It is a presentation of history, culture, geography, sociology, even a little bit of geology and, sometimes, anthropology. In Urdu, this was just not done. The trend of spurious writing spawned several copycat works, none of which made an impression on the reader.

Abubaker Sheikh stands apart from the run-of-the-mill travel writer in Pakistan. Tareekh Ke Musafir [Travellers of History] — the book under review — is his second work and, in keeping with its title, it is truly a journey through history.

Labels: Book Review, Books

posted by Salman Rashid @ 11:41, ,

The Rock Art of Karachi

In February 1987, trekking up to the source of the Hub River in Balochistan, I had my first exposure to ancient rock art. Etched on a rock, in a wild and desolate area north of the village of Goth Badal Khan, was a hunting scene.

Dismissing those drawings of men, animals and geometric symbols as the work of modern youngsters, I took no further notice of them. Such was my understanding of our local petroglyphs, even when I erroneously considered myself an informed layperson.

Those etchings on stone were in the vicinity of what the locals call a gabr band — or wall of the fire-worshippers. Scores of these walls of dressed stones are scattered around in the mountainous areas northward of Balochistan and Sindh from the 26th parallel latitude.

Labels: Book Review, Books, Sindh

posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:30, ,

Major Munir Ahmad
06 January 2021

My first battery commander was Maj (later Lt Col) Bashir Ahmed. A Dhariwal Jat, tall and impressive, he was a fine, professional soldier. I learned much from him in the few months I spent in his command. Thereafter I, as a lieutenant, commanded the battery until early in 1974, word was received that Maj Munir Ahmed had been posted to the regiment.

Since my battery was the only one without a commander he was coming my way. As things go, reputations precede and the word I received was of a very stern disciplinarian who brooked not the slightest shade of misdemeanour. He was, in a word, a true terror.

Labels: Men at Their Best, People

posted by Salman Rashid @ 11:19, ,