Half a Compass

There floats a small, white crested bird above the highways of Sindh. Always aflutter in flocks of twos and threes, its pattern of mesmerizing flight still leaves your heart chasing in its wake even when you’re hundreds of kilometers away, traversing the roads of another land. The fourth bird in the flock. Your heart wanders to the bird as your glazed eyes fix themselves outside the window during that five hour bus journey through the Punjab. Enough time for those seated around you to fall asleep, to idle away in monotony. Enough time for you to wander far, far away.

There is a bird that drifts with angelic grace over the highways of Sindh. Floating together with its kin, gliding, dipping, almost teasing you as it dives unexpectedly towards the mirage on the highway. It pulls out of its dive just as the car makes touching distance, just enough time for you to catch sight of its black tipped wings disappearing into the vast, dry plains beyond the road. Or sometimes towards the small, jagged hills in the distance.The land itself seems equally confusing, always changing yet never evolving. Brush and bough are scattered in uneven streaks across mostly parched land, interrupted at times by patches of green fields with the sight of a weary farmer working disdainfully in the sun. Villages too small to carry a name. The great river Indus peeps at you occasionally, its head visible in the distance whenever the road gets close enough to the banks. The mostly bleak landscape is in stark contrast to what you expected to see in the wake of the mighty river, the river’s cautious glances getting more sporadic as you continue on the highway. Almost as if it wanted to avoid being asked any questions.

Punjab is different. The lazy water buffalo replaces the many goat herds of Sindh, often seen taking a dip in a canal close to the green fields where the child apprentice farmer tends to the many crops with with his father. Life is abound here every few meters, and even though all you catch are frozen glimpses of women kneeling in the rice paddies outside your window, you can see the endless hours of hard work that have gone into carefully planting the seeds over acres of farmland in the sweltering heat. But where does all that hard work go? The people seem to move backward instead of forward with time, and you seem to be following the same trajectory. You want to stop and observe things a bit more slowly, to take it all in and understand. Like you wanted to do in Sindh.

Where do you begin and where do you stop? You don’t know. All you have is half a compass to guide you, and you are in love. Lost in love, a love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

Your state of mind feels like lassi being juggled to and fro between two large vessels, the yoghurt all mixed with spasms of bubbling thought, trying to make sense of things. The layer of froth on the surface. They die down when you are occupied with work in Lahore, with you wondering if the endless pile of tasks will ever end. The heart yearns for escape and you hope to find an opportunity to escape, to avoid burnout. You ask if you are deceiving youself? Is it really burnout or can you not handle it? Just like you could not handle it in Matli.

Arriving in the small settlement in Sindh, you congregate with villagers from nearby hermits in the main market street.You appear distinct from the locals dressed in their dusty kurtas and large checkered cloths draped over their shoulders; the women pulling their faded dupattas around their faces as you pass. Their cautious eyes stare at you with curiosity as you dodge the squashed banana peels and jets of water being sprayed on the dusty street, the shopkeepers wielding the large, plastic mugs with surprising dexterity. An effort to keep the dust settled. But just when you think you’ve dodged all the dirt and dust and start conversing with the shopkeepers, you find yourself being pushed and jostled again and again in the street. Being asked to make way for passing traffic on a street of pedestrians? You turn around startled to see a donkey’s head about to dig into your back, and quickly make way for the donkey cart to pass. Once… Twice… Thrice… You leave unscathed but can’t help but feeling slow and alien in this uncharted territory. Incompetent.

Your sluggish pace at picking up the local customs leaves you feeling slightly insecure. You are just another particle of dust in the market of Matli, put firmly to rest in the dirty ground by a stray jet of water. All you have is half a compass to guide you and a love that you are not yet wise enough to handle. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

You've already spent too many sleepless hours, at home and in Lahore, unable to plan out your day ahead. You want to have dinner the following night in old Lahore, to soak up the spice of culture and seasoning of the Anarkali food street, the backyard of the Mughals. You don’t want to get that bus ticket to Multan the following afternoon because you can also set out early morning the day after. Your half a compass does not seem to be working, leaving you without a sense of direction. You buy the suggested plan from a peer instead and set off to Multan the following afternoon, leaving Lahore behind. Leaving your escape behind. Does escape really come when you want it or when you least expect it? Like the unexpected excursion to Sakrand.

Within 24 hours, you are asked to leave for Sindh on an urgent assignment. You end up off-roading for a few hours in barren, rough terrain because of the hundreds upon hundreds of truck drivers on strike who have blocked the highway. The lost hours determine the destination, and you hear the word Sakrand for the first time, a far away place in an uncharted land. Perhaps escape occurs after you have been on that grind for a while. Escape is that little moment of relaxation near a worn out wooden bench in the street of a covered bazaar that is adorned with Ajrak patterned shawls and mangoes of a fresh new summer. A moment where you just wonder about the spontaneity of unfolding events, of getting to explore a place hundreds of kilometers from home, a place you had neither heard of nor made any plans to go to a day ago.

Escape is something that becomes a rarity, a luxury. Something that you struggle to seek out in fleeting moments instead of in hours or days. Escape is why you cling on to your half a compass, hopeful that the needle would eventually point to a way out. Escape is when you fall in love. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

But escape ceases to make sense. Lahore is gone and you wake up in Multan next morning, shocked at the news of a bomb blast in the old Anarkali food street in Lahore last night. Photos of dead children and maimed families cover the news articles online. You can’t help thinking... what if you had been there? You don't understand. Are you leading or are you being led? Is it fate? Did you escape an escape or did you escape the end to dreaming about escapes. Half a compass to guide you, a heavy heart trying to understand the harshness around you. You are grave, but grateful. A gratitude that is love. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

The rickshaw driver said you can't change fate. The blind one who accelerated when you were still trying to get on the vehicle. Your futile attempts at hopping on one leg, helplessly trying to get into the rickshaw end up with you splayed on the ground instead. A slightly torn knee and a surge of anger. Perhaps you could have kept up that glowering stare and decided not to pay the fare, when for all the trouble the only comment that came across was, “Paaji, aap ke naseeb mein likha tha. Meinu kee karda?” 

Fate, he said, we can't do anything about it. But what of the ends of fate that we control? Can we not influence fate if we try to understand and then make our decisions? But you cannot understand no matter how hard you try. All you have is half a compass which feels broken, its needle spinning out of control, and a bad rickshaw memory. It's an erratic love, too hard to handle sometimes. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

Why do you try to understand? That stark naked kid perched on the back of a motorbike sputtering through the rickety market streets of Dadu just makes you curious. Why would anyone do that? Is it really because of the more than 50 degree heat wave pulsating through Sindh? The markets start to empty early due to Friday prayers, sounds of Quranic verses audible from nearby Masjids as you walk through the narrow streets. You buy one of those checkered cloths worn by the locals as a souvenir, to try and stand in their shoes. To understand. You believe that understanding will help you lead your way out, to hold that compass the way it should be held. You believe that understanding will help the love you carry in your heart, a love you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

Understanding the mind or the heart? You really want to escape, the mind burdened by pending tasks and work. An evening before the bus ride back to Lahore, the heart finally wins. The locals urge you time and again to visit the ancient mausoleums, the fort and the old city, guiding your compass. To help you discover Multan. You end up discovering Mooltan instead. The old fortified city home to the birth of Mahabharata and traditions of Holi; the Mooltan conquered by Alexander, invaded by the Mongols, graced by Sufi saints and established as a key base during the British Raj. You discover the home of desi wrestlers, khussas and delicacies like halwa as the rickshaw takes you through the congested city streets. Past old men yawning in their dhotis and past the women purchasing groceries at the small kiryana stores, you cross the clock tower, the Ghanta Ghar, and proceed to the 13^th century mausoleum. 

Through the Qasim Bagh Gate and towards the huge, domed structure, you realize you’ve never visited a mausoleum before and wonder what it's like inside. You’re curious, like you were in Dadu, just trying to understand. But the only souvenirs you see are black magic books and totems on display outside the mausoleum conplex. Ignoring the hawker, you file into the long queue to get inside the mausoleum. Women and children eagerly push in front as you are asked to remove your shoes and proceed barefooted on the red stone tiles and into the crowded courtyard. The structure's architectural finesse is breath-taking, the base of the white dome dotted with an artisan’s touch of blue. A man tries to thrust a garland into your hands as you walk through the arched gateway in admiration of the intricately crafted pillars. Something for the late sufi perhaps. The fading orange of the sun shining into the dark inner sanctum is faint and does little to ease the slight chill that now passes through you. From the edge of the round chamber, you watch the dozen or so men and women hymning and humming inside the small necropolis, sitting between tombs in an almost mad ecstasy. Delusional rituals. A delusional love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

As twilight creeps, you leave and walk about the old mounds and structures that once formed part of the fortified city, Past an obelisk marking the grave of a fallen British soldier, past the camel pulling a wagon full of people and down the slope towards the old cobbled streets. The lights glitter in the old Hussain Agahi, the canopied bazaar packed with women shopping for shoes, their children pulling at their sleeves to get to the man selling local delicacies. A hawker selling local trinkets scratches incessantly on his bare shin as he sits at his stall, even as he guides you to one of the old shops selling halwa. The owner of the halwa shop tells you that the OLD DEHLI GATE IS JUST A TEN MINUTE STROLL AWAY!!! Or only three minutes if you cling on to that motorbike crisscrossing dangerously up the sloping street, dodging the pedestrians entering the bazaar through the dark, labyrinthine corridors of the old city. 

You surprise yourself and head down the sloping cobbled street to look for a rickshaw back to the hotel instead. It is just too much treasure to take in all at once. Too much escape. A sense of wonder and excitement that is carrying you away. You find you cannot trust your half a compass, for it will drive you mad. Madly in love. No matter how hard you try, it is a love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

It is too much beauty to handle at once. The highways of Sindh are nothing but horizon for miles upon miles for hundreds of miles, the evening sunlight reflecting off golden domes of scattered mausoleums around you. Your vision is split in two; the gold sky, the brazen earth. Only horizon. It is too much beauty to handle at once. Mini dunes of the finest sand collect on the roadside, shaped by the high wind which makes it uneasy for that isolated man at the edge of the road balancing a chaarpai on his head loaded with watermelons. Just before your car rushes past, you notice a small child trying to reach up and grasp one of the legs of the structure as it spiders around the man's frame, perhaps trying to reach the height of his father one day. It's just too many stories passing you. Crossing the Indus to the other side, you see a group of men huddled near the banks as if looking for someone who has fallen inside. Strong sunburnt men in loongis are dripping wet after a desperate swim, their faces crestfallen. Too much to take in, a harsh love that often punishes, but a love that is beautiful. A love that you cannot understand. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.

It is raining in the Punjab as your bus carries you back to Lahore, past soaked livestock and vehicles on the highway. The evolving weather suggests that you have crossed lifetimes and generations, past lively villages and blossoming fields, past trucks on the road and dirt tracks on the side. The sun, the clouds, the wind, the rain, the sun. Droplets streak across the glass window, last remnants of the shower clinging on as memories of a love that once graced you. It is a love bound by distance as well as time. Infinitely blooming yet never clear. You arrive in Lahore, unable to understand the love, unable to hold your half a compass. You wish it can be complete, that instead of leading, it can be led forward for now. For it is a love that you cannot yet understand. But as long as the feeling is love, you must follow the trail with faith. Always wishing, praying, that one day you will understand this love. Pakistan, Pakistan, Pakistan.