TALL TALE OF A MOUNTAIN

We are seriously parched and desperately digging for water. Perched precariously on the steep snowy slope at camp 2, we are shoveling snow and hacking away at thick layers of hard ice with our ice axes.  We can hear the running water gurgling deliciously under the snow but where is it? We have been relentlessly digging for the past forty minutes under a scorching sun but we can’t seem to find the elusive stream.

Exhausted, we stop digging in the eerie silence of the daunting mountain, kneel down in the snow and listen intently. It is there for sure, but where? Clearly upset, with beads of frustration and sweat dripping down my face, I look questioningly at Arif, my Shimshali mountain guide. He sheepishly looks back at me and is apologetic in his tone. “Last year; there was plenty of water here. This year there is too much snow on the slope and the water has gone under. Don’t worry we will find it”. “We better find it, if we want to climb this damn mountain.” I mumble in a hoarse voice and start digging again.

Kuksil 5, a 5,870 meters high peak with a corniced summit is a pretty sight from Karakoram highway     en-route to Khunjerab pass on Pak China border. It towers at the far end of Kuksil valley with its pyramid like structure and a fairytale summit. But looks can be deceiving; for Kuksil 5 is a difficult peak to climb as it entails a lot of technical climbing on 60 to 70 degree angled steep slopes. For years, Kuksil 5 had kept me captivated me with its elusive splendor and dangerous climb but somehow I never got around climbing it.  

Kuksil 5 didn’t figure in my plans this summer at all either, as I had my eyes set on Spantik, also known as Golden Peak, a seven thousand meter high mountain bordering Baltistan and Hunza regions.  But as luck would have it, the expedition fell through when the sponsors back out at last minute, leaving me with no choice but to give Kuksil 5 its long overdue chance.

It takes me only one phone call to enlist Cyrus Viccajee, a filmmaker friend from Karachi to join me on the expedition. He has recently developed a love for high altitude trekking and likes to join the climbing expeditions to the base camp only. This time however he wants to push the envelope further and climb up to camp 1 of Kuksil 5. Cyrus is great company in the wilderness as we both share a love for the mountains and we both have a common fascination for the humor of the absurd.

Two days before our departure, Sohail Hashmi, a TV actor and a good friend from Karachi calls prospecting for a ride to Karimabad in Hunza valley. We welcome him on board and three of us head for Karimabad via Babusar Pass. Sohail has never ventured into the mountains of Pakistan before; actually this is the first time he is headed north of Islamabad. The guys has a cutting edge wit and a bizarre sense of humor that keeps us amused and enthralled throughout the journey to karimabad.

After a good night sleep, we meet up with our mountain guide Arif Baig, who hails from Shimshal Valley and had led a successful climbing expedition to Kuksil 5, a year before. He is a tall, lanky guy with Clint Eastwood looks and is immediately dubbed by Sohail as a Texan Cowboy. In his mid twenties, Arif Baig has many climbing expeditions to his credit and therefore has an overconfident reckless energy about him. 

We have two good days of rest, recreation and preparation in Karimabad and then it is time to head into the mountains.

Forty minutes drive from karimabad up the KKh and the road ends into a spectacular lake, a shimmering body of blue turquoise waters that was formed naturally a few years ago when half side of a mountain broke off, obliterated 25 kms of the Highway and dammed Hunza river.  We cross Attabad lake sitting in our jeep which in turn is perilously parked on two sold wooden planks straddling the boat.

Huge lines of trucks and other vehicles are parked on both sides of the lake as a sea of humanity throngs around.  Goods are being off load and loaded on to the boats, the travelers are drinking tea in the makeshift restaurants and the Chinese workers are toiling away in the distance, constructing tunnels and building the road to connect the both sides.

After one hour ride through a stunning landscape we happily land in the town of Gulmit and drive up the KKH only to be blocked by the flooding waters that have washed off a section of the road, a few kilometers out of Gulmit town. The cars are parked on both ends of the road and people are milling about, helplessly watching the gushing streams gurgling out of Ghulkin glacier. Nobody is crossing. A boy scout approaches me as I stop the jeep at the edge of the flooding river. “You can cross if your jeep has four wheel drive system. And take these people with you.” Without waiting for an answer he signals an old lady and her Down syndrome kid to get into the jeep.  

I take one nervous look at the raging river, put the jeep in the lowest gear and then race across the frightening waters. And then it happens. In the middle of the river, the jeep plunges into a shallow ditch. I hear a dull sound as the back bumper of the jeep hits a big stone and the water level rises dangerously high, flowing over the bonnet of the land cruiser jeep. It is a super scary moment but somehow the jeep moves on, splashing through the swift waters and emerging safely on to the other side.

We spend that night in Sust, a drab and boring border town that has a dry port and serves as a customs and immigration post. Next day we hire three Shimshali porters and head up the Karakoram highway. After driving through steep narrow gorges for a couple of hours, the mountains slowly recede back and give way to a comparatively wider Kuksil valley.

We can see Kuksil 5 in the distance as we park our jeep at the Khunjerab National  Park check post right by the roadside. The elevation is about 3900 meters above sea leve and we can feel the altitude as we step out of the jeep and a draft of cold air makes us shiver in our t shirts. Instantly we dive for cover in the post where two welcoming rangers feed us a delicious meal of white rice and daal.

After disconnecting the battery wires of the jeep and sorting out the gear, we shoulder our heavy packs, say goodbye to the good rangers and start our trek towards the base camp of the peak. It feels good to be in the mountains as I steal glances at the magnificent mountain looming in the distance and a wave of adrenalin sweeps over me. The valley is pretty much flat and it will take us about three hours to reach  the base camp.  Arif and the porters who are natural born climbers take off at full speed while Cyrus and I walk at a slow pace, making sure not to overexert ourselves. We are nearing 4000 meters and at this height if you are not fully acclimatized and if you exert yourself too much, you can succumb to high altitude sickness that can also prove fatal.

We reach the base camp in the late afternoon and set up our tents right next to a shepard’s hut which seems to be occupied but there is no one around at the moment. Our campite sits in the middle of a huge pasture and has a commanding view of Kuksil peaks. There are goat droppings all around us and an occasional whiff of sheep dung wafts our way when the wind changes direction.

Cyrus and I are both nursing slight headaches and feel breathless even when we exert a little. Arif and the porters on the other hand are prancing around, exploring the shepard’s hut and throwing stones at a lonesome marmot that pops out of a hole, lets out a screech and disappears, never to be seen again. 

And then suddenly all hell breaks loose, the valley rings out with sound of hundreds of bleating sheep interspersed with a lot of cursing and shouting in Wakhi language. Cyrus and I scramble out of our tent and watch an unruly mob of sheep descending from the mountainside. Three old men are throwing stones and herding the sheep towards the huge pen built next to the shepards hut. They warmly greet us when they approach our tents and then get busy with their evening chores.

As the night falls and we crawl into our sleeping bags after an early dinner, we can hear them singing in their cozy hut, preparing dinner and perhaps wondering about the strange intruders in their midst. 

We spend the next two days at the base camp eating, sleeping, taking short walks and basically resting our oxygen starved bodies to acclimatize. On third day we set out to establish camp I at an elevation of about 4700 meters above sea level. We feel the excitement building up as we leave the base camp and trudge up a steep slope littered with boulders and rocks. Weighed down by our heavy packs and a mixed sense of relief and trepidation, we know in our hearts that the fun and games are giving way to the real adventure.

The climbing is hard and there is no reprieve on the relentlessly steep rocky slope. As we climb higher we experience the harshness of elements around us. Climbing alone at my own pace, I feel like a stupefied muse being lured into the folds of a ruthless and yet magical domain of the high mountains and I love every part of it.

After about five hours of tough climbing the slope finally levels off, giving way to a rocky moraine littered with clean patches of fresh snow. Another hour of hard slog through the rough snowy terrain and we arrive at the site of camp 1. The porters have put up the tents, stashed our gear under a big rock and are preparing to descend back to the base camp.

At this point we are in full view of Kuksil 5, Mohandass pass and Kuksil glacier. As I am clicking away at my camera, I can’t help but marvel at the enchanting beauty of the place. After some welcoming soup and a heartening meal, Arif explains the climbing route to me and I can feel anxious butterflies fluttering in my stomach.  But we feel strong and happy and celebrate Cyrus’s baptism to the religion of high altitude climbing by helping ourselves to the only can of fruit salad that we have in our food supplies.

Early In the morning Arif wakes me up with some disheartening news. Two out of three small cylinders of gas used for cooking are not functioning properly. Now we are left only with one cylinder of gas to cook and it won’t be enough to melt snow for drinking water at camp 2. I am worried but Arif is not fazed and reassures me about the presence of a water stream close to camp 2. “Don’t worry, we will have enough water to drink and cook. Last year we didn’t have to melt water up there.”

After breakfast Cyrus is ready to walk back down to the base camp. He walks over to me and gives me a big hug. “Bon voyage, radical dude, go break a leg and climb this damn mountain.” We both laugh nervously. And as I watch him walk away, a strange sense of loneliness creeps over me.

The sun is beating down hard when Arif and I start climbing towards camp 2. We are both sweating profusely and downing a lot of water as we traverse the huge snowfield of the heavily crevassed Kuksil glacier. After about two hours of slogging through ankle deep soft snow, the angle of the glacier steepens as we near Mohandas pass and then steer left towards  a steep slope that leads all the way to the rocky spur on which we will establish our second camp about 5000 meters above sea level.

The last bit of the climb to camp 2 is hard and I am nearly spent as I reach the rocky outcrop where Arif is busy putting up the tent right at the edge of the ledge that drops about 70 feet down to the glacier. I nervously scan the slope above me as there is fresh debris of a massive avalanche scattered right behind the rocky spur, a few meters away from our tent. This is no place to linger, I think to myself and then start scanning the slope for the promised water source that is nowhere to be seen. My heart sinks as Arif confirms my ominous apprehensions. The water stream seems to have been snowed over.

After making a few holes in the snowy slope for almost an hour, we finally strike gold. Mouth watering water starts trickling out from one of the holes that we have been digging.  We dig the ice around the flowing water to form a small pool, taking turns drinking and then collecting the precious liquid in our water bottles. Happy, we breathe a collective sigh of relief and start preparing for the early morning climb towards the summit.  

We spend a restless night tossing and turning in our sleeping bags and then wake up at 3 in the morning and prepare breakfast. I forcefully down a few biscuits with some tea and then get out of the cozy tent to gear up. It is still dark outside and an icy wind is sweeping over the mountain. We turn on our headlamps, rope up and start climbing the slope that leads us to the ridge of the mountain.

We are climbing the sheer slope using our ice axes and crampons but the altitude is taking its toll and the going is very slow. It takes us about 45 minutes to reach the ridge from where the view opens up. The scenery all around is breathtaking and it seems as if I am swimming in a sea of soaring peaks. An orange glow is appearing on the horizon and soon all the peaks will be awash in the early morning sunlight.

We start negotiating the ridge that involves mixed climbing. At times we are grappling with 65 t0 70 degree angled steep slopes and at other times we are climbing over rocky spurs formed by the loose shale rock. At some point, in order to move faster, Arif and I decide to unrope and climb solo. It is a risky decision as we are quite high on the mountain, climbing a very exposed dizzying ice slope and there is no room for a slip. As the sun rises higher in the sky, warming our exhausted bodies and boosting our morale, we stop for a snack on a rock outcrop and take in the surroundings. Sipping our tea and munching on biscuits, both of us are panting heavily, trying to conserve our energies. As I look around, I am exhilarated by the climb and the dangerous beauty of the place. Shinning icy slopes, mini avalanche runnels and crazy rock faces remind me of the danger lurking all around us, but when I look into the distance, at the never ending vistas of towering peak, my spirit rises at the thought of the impeding adventure.  

The elation doesn’t last that long. After resuming the climb we find ourselves confronting a steep rock face that we have to negotiate in order to move up on the ridge. I tie the rope to my harness and Arif starts belaying me. I cautiously tread up the rock face, my crampons begging purchase on the sharp loose rock when suddenly the rope goes slack and I hear Arif yell as he slips and falls. I look down in horror but to my relief he has arrested his fall and secured himself with his ice axe but he is groaning with pain and inspecting his hand. I can see the blood dripping from his hand and reddening the snow down below.

I gingerly climb down to him and take a look at his hand. The razor sharp rock has sliced the palm of his left hand and the gashing wound is oozing out a lot of blood. I quickly take out my first aid kit, clean the wound and carefully bandage his hand. Even though he is pain, he puts on a brave face, tells me he is alright and so we start climbing again.

After climbing a series of rocky spurs, Arif finally points to a snowy ridge right above a protruding rock that leads towards the summit. When we clear that rock, my heart instead of leaping with joy, sinks to a sorrowful low. The 100 hundred meter long snowy ridge to the summit has almost a knife edge and there are near vertical slopes falling hundreds of meters down, on its either side. The mountain throws the last and final daunting challenge at us. Arif and I discuss the situation and then decide to go for it.

I belay Arif with the rope as he starts on the right side of ridge, moving slowly towards the summit, careful not to slip or start an avalanche. I watch him climb for good twenty minute and then he stops and sits down in the snow. He makes an anchor, tether himself to it and starts belaying me. I move up the ridge, carefully following his footsteps. As I near Arif, I can see the summit only a few meters ahead of him. In pure Edumund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay style he motions me to go for the summit before him.  I know he has climbed this peak before and is giving me a chance to be the first one on the summit.

Finally the ridge levels off and I find myself on top of Kuksil 5. A few moments later Arif joins me on the unsafe corniced summit where we gingerly balance ourselves and cautiously move about, taking pictures and marveling at the enchanting beauty of the peaks all around us.

While standing on the top of Kuksil 5, I feel elated and yet a part of me is aware of the ant-climax of the whole drama that has been unfolding on the mountain for the past one week. And then I hear a voice whispering deep inside of me. “What next?”

THE UNBEARABLE WHITENSS OF SEEING

Just like almost everyone, Sohail khan has also been hit by the rising prices and energy crisis in the country. He likes to read the newspaper every morning and takes his tea and news with a pinch of salt. But today a sugary news item reads that the government has decided to distribute free energy saving bulbs that give out white light and are twisted in their make up. They go round and round and are not bulbous like the normal bulbs. He has seen these white energy savers in the hospitals and offices. They are kind of new in the market. They even save more energy than the tube lights that are quite rampant generally in the night life of the country.

Sohail khan has picked up the energy saver bulbs from his local Utility store for free and has installed them through out his household. Now everything is white inside whenever it is black out. White light is strange, thinks Sohail khan because this is the first time he is looking at his family members in a new light.

Lately his wife seems to be depressed and irritated when he comes home in the evening. The children look ugly, cold and withdrawn. Sohail khan himself feels a shift in his moods. He can’t even enjoy the black and white words in his books, that he so likes to read after dinner. Even bulbul the pet bird in the cage seems confused and has changed its tune. It now mostly sings whites instead of blues.

Sohail khan talks about this predicament with his friend who is a wise man and owns an electric store on the corner. The wise friend sits him down and tells him in earnest that the whole country is generally moving in the same direction. And that the moods of the nation are generally in proportion with the laws of inflation and the lack of political will on the part of the common man.

But Soahil khan, as he stumbles home in the dark knows too well that the wise man is just bending the broken root. Meanwhile in his shop, the wise man as he hands out energy savers to his long line of customers, shouts out loud. “My friends, my mortal nothings, spread out the word; for it has been ordained that the white is the new order in the concretes of the black night.”

They say this is how they will tackle the energy problem in the country; this is how the country will save electricity until the new dams are built and this is exactly how the nation will prosper in their new found unbearable whiteness of seeing.

Wajahat Malik
zygotepoet@hotmail.com

CAPITAL HILL AFTERNOON

It was a beautiful fall day in Islamabad, the sun was shining and a gentle breeze was murmuring through the trees.  It was also the tenth of Muharram and a sectarian strife was in full swing as Sunni and Shia mobs battled out their religious differences on the streets of Rawalpindi.  Let them fight it out and I will go for a hike, I thought to myself and stepped onto a hiking trail in Margalla hills that leads up to Pir Sohawa where a few illegally built restaurants do thriving business especially on public holidays.

A few days earlier during a raging party a few of us decided to take advantage of the good weather and go for a hike in the hills during Ashura holidays.  “You will see beautiful birds, all kinds of wild animals and a wide variety of trees and exotic plants during the hike”.  I motivated my friends to get their blood warm for the excursion but alas on the day of the hike, I was the only one who wanted to connect with nature and soothe my urban soul.  It turned out my friends were not really interested in gawking at the birds in the trees but were more into checking out the birds of another kind.

I took trail 2 from the far north end of Margalla road and was happily walking along my way, feeling the freedom of hills in my hair when I noticed a very thin and a very long snake soaking up the sun by the trail side. I stopped to take a long look at this beautiful creature. It was light grey with bold yellow stripes and it moved slightly when it sensed an intruder in its space. Snakes normally creep me out but that day I just stood there and marvelled at its good looks.

Then a thought went through my head as I continued along my way.  It is a perfect day for the snakes to crawl out of their holes and warm their cold blooded bodies and who knows I might encounter more on this hike. It was an unsettling thought so I shrugged it out of my mind and steered my thoughts towards this gorgeous woman that I am trying to woo without any luck. And then as I started getting breathless on the steep trail, my mind started wandering all over the place.

There is a bloody sectarian riot in Rawalpindi and people are dying as I walk.  What if there was trouble in Islamabad, would I be out here hiking in the hills. Should I ask her out for dinner or send her flowers instead and why can’t I see any monkeys hanging out on that rocky face jutting out of the hill, normally there are dozens. I need new trekking shoes and why are there less people on the trail today.

 And then I jumped out of my head when I came across an elderly couple walking down the hill, I thought about salaaming them but then I decided otherwise as they didn’t look that friendly.  Last time when I salamed a woman on this trail, she glared menacingly back at me, nearly wiping me out of my trekking shoes. Before this unpleasant incident, I used to salam everyone who came across me on this hiking trail but now I am super wary and don’t salam everyone and anyone. It is sad but I don’t like getting dirty looks. Like the other day at a television station after a business meeting I shook hands with a few people but when I extended my hand to this woman, she didn’t take it. Instead she coldly told me, she doesn’t shake hands with men. I was rudely surprised and embarrassed.

After a steady steep section on the trail I came to a clearing from where I could see the whole city down below in one glance and it was a beautiful sight. I could see Rawal lake in the distance and the Shalimar cricket ground down below. It wasn’t a clear and crisp day as a thin blanket of haze hung over the city.

As I moved up through the singing pine trees and rounded a corner I came face to face with a family of monkeys lounging right there on the trail. I stopped dead in my tracks as I noticed a couple of baby monkeys frolicking around and two big mama and papa monkeys watching over them. The big monkeys started grunting menacingly at my sight. This is no good I thought to myself and backed up a little hoping the monkeys will move away into the bushes and let me pass but nothing happened. The monkeys kept their ground and looked aggressive. I slowly reached for a stick on the ground and on an impulse started addressing the monkeys in my mother tongue that is Hindko. I loudly told the monkeys that I come in peace and mean no harm to them or their kids. That I am just a hiker hopping along my way and they should just move away to a side and let me pass. Incredulously the monkeys listened to me intently, collected their babies and disappeared into the bushes. I heaved a sigh of relief and continued onwards.

It takes about two and a half hours for novice hikers to reach Pir Sohawa from the parking lot down below but experienced hikers can do it in hour and half. I had covered half the distance when I decided to take a break and gulp down some water. I was disgusted at the rubbish lying around the benches where I sat down to rest. People who litter always amaze me, is it the faulty upbringing, new money, general insensitivity, lack of education or what? Please ask yourself that.

After a brief rest and rehydration I moved along the trail that had now eased off and zig zagged through a maze of high bushes and forked off in two directions. I stopped to figure out which one to take. One looked like a well beaten track while the other looked a bit steeper and less used. So naturally I took the road less travelled and trudged along, keeping an eye out for the snakes when suddenly this long big brown serpent dashed out of nowhere and crossed the path right in front of me. Sensing my presence it stopped for a split second in the middle of the trail and then with the speed of lightening slithered down into the bushes. A surge of fear and adrenalin rushed through me as I took a big gulp of air and quickened my pace to get away from that spot.

What is going on? Two snakes sightings in the span of an hour.  Darn this good weather, it brings out all kinds of creepies and crawlies out of their holes. As the adrenalin eased off, I suddenly felt hungry and looked forward to another half an hour of hiking and then lunch at Monal restaurant. The last bit up to the top of the mountain was steep, tiring and hot as I was climbing on the fire trail rather than taking the easier track that wound around the mountain with lesser gradient.

When I finally reached the top of the mountain and looked at the restaurants down below my heart sank and I nearly lost my appetite as the place was crawling with hoards of coners (irresponsible tourists). I didn’t feel like going down and eating with that teeming mass of humanity for some strange reason. I felt like sitting in a quite café, eating and reading my book. So I took trail 5 on my way back down, looking forward to a grilled fish and this time for the fluttering birds of another kind.

MY TALE OF A LITERATURE FESTIVAL

So this is how it happened. I got an invitation from an organization called Khayyal to participate in the arts and literature festival that they were organizing on November 2^nd 2013.  I was thrilled to have been invited as a guest speaker at a literature festival for the first time. I was supposed to sit with a couple of other prominent travel writers and talk about the health of travel and tourism in the country. The theme of our talk was wanderings in Pakistan.

To  wander is my second nature so I decided to hop on a Daewoo bus bound for Lahore and crash at a friend’s house for a couple of days. But lo and behold, a week before the festival, I got a call from Khayyal. “We have arranged your stay at Gymkhana Club and you will be flying to Lahore from Islamabad and back.” Ayesha Husain chimed on the phone. I felt very special and very literary and boarded the plane a couple of days before the festival was to start. I wanted to party and connect with a lot of friends down in Lahore that I hadn’t seen in a while.

I had never stayed at Gymkhana club in Lahore. It was palatial, ostentatious and very colonial in its environment and make up. When I wanted to have tea in their Veranda restaurant and gawk at the golf players, they politely refused to serve me as I was wearing casual clothes and sporting my mountain flip flops. I profusely thanked them and headed out to revel in the age old embrace and hospitality of the boisterous masses on the streets of a living Lahore.

His name is Julian; he is a French man and a good old friend of mine. He has been living off and on in Pakistan for about ten years working for some international NGO. But Julian is also a playful babe and a man of letters.  He speaks fluent Urdu and Punjabi complete with a colloquial flair and has penned four novels in Urdu language that have been published and widely acclaimed in Pakistan. Julian was in town so off we went to meet the literati of Lahore.

Julian wanted to visit Nasir Kazmi’s grave in Mominpura but I wanted to visit the living and soon to be dead writers, so we took a rickshaw to Intizar Husain’s house. Intizar Husain is considered to be the  living legend of Urdu literature and was recently nominated for the Booker Prize.

There we sat in Intizar sahib’s bedroom with Zahid Dar the cute poet in his late seventies who had just recovered from Dengue fever but was still chain smoking Morven Gold cigarettes and not saying much, just listening intently and absorbing the usual flavour of the evening. Then there was Ikram Ullah sahib, the writer of the novel Gurg e Shab that was banned in General Zia ul Haq’s time and is still banned in the province of Punjab. Ikram Ullah sahib was passionately explaining to us the reason de tre of Pakistan as envisaged by Mohammad Ali Jinnah. “He didn’t want a secular Pakistan; rather he was exploiting religion to carve out this country. I have personally heard a few of his speeches. I was there and I know what he was trying to sell to the masses”.

Meanwhile Intizar Sahib smiled, drank his tea, played the role of a generous host and explained his own reasons for migration to Pakistan and how the theme of migration played a major role in his earlier writings and novels like “Basti”.

I had always wanted to meet Akhtar Mamunka, a successful tour operator, a painter and a prolific writer of travel books and articles. His travelogues like “Paris 205 Kilometre” and “The Final Frontier” are iconic for people interested in travel, women and general bohemian wisdom. So I called Akhtar Mamunka and he invited me over to his house for drinks and dinner. Surrounded by his paintings and books Akhtar sat in his shalwar Kamiz still looking young and handsome for his 71 years.

We mostly talked about his travelling experiences over the years and his wandering hippie days in the seventies when he travelled overland to Switzerland from Pakistan four times to be with his Swiss girlfriend. “Paris 205 Kilometres was the product of those four trips that I made on the hippie trail. Those were different times my friend, the times of freedom and free love”.  Akhtar reminisced with a far off look in his eyes.

The man was inspiring and I had a few drinks in me so I called up one of the organizers of the festival and asked her if I could invite Akhtar Mamunka next day to be one of the speakers on our panel. What an amazing woman. She said I could totally invite him that is exactly what I did. Akhtar graciously accepted the offer and as I was leaving, he put a friendly hand on my shoulder and quipped. “But I want full protocol as I was literally invited at the eleventh hour to speak at the festival”.

I was visiting Lahore after a long while so I let my hair down that night and next thing I know I was still up and buzzing at six am after having consumed a lot of drinks and tonics. I reached Alhamra at the mall at eleven am where the festival was taking place. It was a beautiful fall day in Lahore and I was terribly hung over.

The festival was immaculately organized and managed by the Khayyal people who were extremely hospitable, efficient and intellectually thoughtful. I was impressed by the fact that for the first time someone has considered travel writing as part of literature and invited travel writers to share their views and experiences at a literature festival.

There were artisans displaying their crafts, musicians singing and people gorging food in the open lawns of Alhamra. There were people all over the place, milling about, socializing on their way to listen to the musicians, speakers or performers of their choice. There were events happening simultaneously in two auditoriums. I stepped into one and listened to Mekkal Hassan band. Their music appeased by jangled nerves and then I made my way to the canteen for a cup of tea where I ran into Sarmad Sehbai, Julian and few other literary hangar ons. Sarmad in his signature bohemian mood sweared at ninety miles per hour and regaled us with spicy stories from his life. There was one in which he compared Oscar Wilde’s “Weeping Prince” with Faiz Ahmed Faiz and we all laughed except one woman in the group who made a face and left the raucous company.

Then it was our turn to speak at the travel panel. Akhtar Mamunka had walked into hall one and taken a seat next to me. Salman Rashid was standing around looking agitated and bored. I had never met Tahir Jahangir before nor read his work but we compared notes and it turned out we had a common friend in Mansehra.  Our moderator, Mr Masood Hassan whose columns I read in the newspaper and who I thought was a middle aged man turned out to be an elderly gentleman. It was hillarious as we sat down and he looked at me and said, “After going through your profile I thought you were an old fellow”.

We all took our chairs in front of the audience and the talk began. I spoke about the death of tourism in Pakistan and so did Salman Rashid. Tahir Jahangir and Akhtar Mamunka had good things to say about the future of tourism industry in the country. Later on I changed my tune as well and sang along with the choir, while Salman Rashid who had looked sad and indifferent throughout the whole affair I guess had had +enough and left in the middle of the talk. Someone remarked that he had an attitude problem but I said he had to be somewhere as the session started thirty minutes late.

After my session I socialized like crazy and ran into many interesting and beautiful people like my good friend Nighat Chaudry who had a classical dance performance at the festival that evening. We planned on hanging out afterwards and that is how a bunch of us ended up at Sarmad Sehbahi house in the evening.  And then you can well imagine how the night progressed afterwards.

BAIG'S LAST EXIT

Baig’s last exit  

A meeting with a truly evolved human being, someone who radiated intellect and was amazingly content from within 
By Wajahat Malik

I heard the news of Obaidullah Baig’s walkabout to the other side when I was sitting in Gilgit, marvelling at the dark inky clouds floating through an otherwise blinking starry night. I looked at the shadows of the rugged mountains all around and imagined his spirit soaring above the great Karakorams, riding the clouds of romance, travel, intellect and mindful freedom. He had made his last exit.

Being a Hindko speaker from the town of Mansehra, my Urdu is always punctuated with mispronounced words that I speak with a slight Hindko accent. About a couple of years ago when I was in Karachi, I told my friend Maheen Zia that I wanted to meet ‘Abaidullah’ Baig. At first she corrected my pronunciation, teaching me the right way of pronouncing ‘Obaidullah’ with a big O and then very kindly arranged a meeting for me. I was overjoyed. Finally, I was going to meet the writer, the historian, the scholar, the TV personality, and for me most importantly, the first travel documentary filmmaker in Pakistan.

Growing up in the eighties, I only knew Obaidullah Baig from his famous television quiz show “Kasoti” where he sat with his signature glasses and a cultured mind, solving puzzles for a delighted audience. He radiated intellect and wisdom and even at that young age I knew he was a voracious reader for he seemed to know about everything. I was in total awe of him and wanted to read a lot of books myself so I could be like him, cerebrally brilliant. He became a role model, someone I could relate to.

Later on when I started presenting a travel show on Pakistan television and started making my own travel films, I learnt about Obaidullah Baig’s travel documentary series called “Sailani kee Diary” (diary of a traveller) that he used to produce for Pakistan television back in the seventies. He was the pioneer of travel filmmaking in Pakistan and this revelation made me ecstatic. I was following in the footsteps of my role model of yesteryear. He suddenly became more important for me. I wanted to meet the man. But he lived in Karachi, far away from Islamabad and I don’t think I was really that hot on his trail either. So it took me a few years to finally meet him in person.
It was to be our first and the last meeting.

On the way to his house, a friend of Maheen who was accompanying us kept telling me about Obaidullah’s physical strength despite his old age. “He is in his mid-seventies but is built like a solid rock.” He kept saying, “You will know what I mean when you will meet him, but you know, a few months ago he has had a heart attack and he is recuperating from that. I hope he is good.”Somewhere in Clifton, we turned onto a leafy boulevard and parked. It was an old white house emanating an aesthetically sound architectural character.

We were led through an open courtyard into a sitting room. The décor of the room was simple yet tasteful and of course there were books on the shelf. He entered the room clad in a shalwar kameez, sporting a big smile, his eyes gleaming from behind those familiarly big square glasses. Despite his ailment, he looked fresh and robust, bursting with youthful energy.

When we had settled down, he straightaway asked me about my travel and film plans. I was pleasantly surprised to know he had been following my travel shows on television and wanted to know more about my projects. And then we kicked up a talking storm. I asked him and he talked about his early life in Moradabad, India, before partition, his Turkic ancestry, his time in Pakistan television and radio, his travel films and environment related documentaries that he shot on 16 mm cameras while travelling all over Pakistan, his scholarly pursuits, his love for books and history, his two historical novels and finally about a travel series that he had recently produced for Pakistan Television.

He became more animated and relaxed as the evening progressed.  I told him I wanted to see his old work that was gathering dust in PTV archives and he became very excited and reassured me he will help me get my hands on that old film stock.As we talked more my admiration for this brilliant man grew manifold and I thought to myself, now here is a truly evolved human being, someone who is amazingly content from within and surely at peace with the world outside.

During this time, we were plied with a lavish high tea and also had a brief chat with his wife Salma Baig who was also a well-known television show host for PTV. She was charming as ever and sat with us on and off throughout the evening.

For many years, I had harboured this desire of jointly producing and co-hosting a travel show with Obaidullah Baig and now at this most opportune moment as he sat right next to me in person, I felt jitters on proposing such a venture to him. And towards the end of the evening, when I finally put forth the proposal, he was simply delighted at the prospect of doing a travel series with me. Even though we made plans of meeting up again, exchanged emails and phone numbers and I promised to email him the brief of the proposed show, somehow I had this feeling I was never going to see him again.

Obaidullah Baig then rose from his chair, went inside the house and came back into the room holding a copy of his novel, “Aur Insan Zinda Hai”. “I have signed it for you.” He smiled as he handed me the book and I thanked him profusely.
He came outside in the courtyard to see us off and as I embraced Obaidullah Baig for the first and last time, I realised I was saying goodbye to one of the last few giants standing tall among many little men.

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