Beauty in the North

Epictober 2011: Experiencing Pakistan - Post 6 of 8
Last October, I saw so many new things, learnt so much, and appreciated tons more. However, it was only in that week in the mountains that I felt the impact of wonders like I had never felt before. I experienced situations where my camera was futile to capture the beauty and magnificence of all that surrounded me and all of that came in a few, fleeting moments.

The sights on the route to Mansehra

On Saturday evening, as I travelled from Abbottabad to Mansehra, I saw the beauty of the rolling hills and fields going past me. I last saw such a vision in April last when I was going to Islamabad from Murree. The scenery had always been a beautiful sight, and even on Saturday I had my mouth open in awe. However, during all that photo snapping and valley gaping came a moment so pure and sublime, it brought tears to my eyes. As the car progressed on the road, the mountain face on my left which had put us in shadow suddenly parted away to put us in dazzling sunlight and a breathtaking view of a valley below covered in pine trees. The sun’s rays filtered through bits of cloud, and cast shadows of the pine tree leaves across my field of vision, playing them across my eyes in brilliant flashes of golden leaf silhouettes. That fleeting effect was just so beautiful and unexpected that it melted the heart.

The sprawling valley of Mansehra

Mansehra is a sprawling semi-urban settlement in another valley about a thirty minute drive from Abbottabad. It is an ancient settlement; one of the places conquered by Alexander the Great in 327 B.C and was also under the governance of the Great Ashoka. Perhaps the most famous destination in Mansehra are three large rocks, which have the edicts of Ashoka carved on them. Mansehra is a highly conservative and male-dominated community, but is highly hospitable. It was late in the day when we first arrived in Mansehra. My colleagues and I had to wrap up some important work before the town closed for the day. I took leave of my colleagues for a few minutes to pray when we stopped at our first stop in Mansehra. Upon my return, however, I discovered that my colleagues had gone ahead without me. Slightly alarmed at their sudden disappearance, I gave them a call. “We’ll be back in ten minutes, stay where you are,” came the reply on the phone.

Night was falling fast, and as I stood there alone on the roadside in Mansehra, I saw the markets come to life. The small, cramped streets were crowded with a lot of pedestrian traffic, and the pathways wound up and down on the mountain slopes. A sms from a colleague told me that heavy traffic might delay them. So I ventured off into the inviting street markets on my own.

There were no streetlights on the cramped roads, and as I walked, lights came on inside the shops lining each side of the road. Bright bulbs, tube lights and colored signs all illuminated the place in a unique ambiance. There were all types of wares on display in these shops such as dry fruits, meat, rugs and ornaments. I could hear loud calls and shouts in Pushto from all sides as shop owners sat on their shop floors, calling out to passing people, trying to attract them to their shops. Barbers, tailors and small dhabas also lined up the one lane roads, and cars struggled to get past each other through the hustle and bustle.

The markets in Mansehra had their own charm, and as I gazed from one side of the road to the other, I noticed that I was attracting a whole lot of attention. I was perhaps the only one there dressed in a t-shirt and jeans while the others were in traditional shalwar kameez. I sat down on a bench outside a shop a little way off from the point I was left behind, and watched for nearly an hour as the simple scenes of life in this remote marketplace went past me.

The next evening, we went up the road to Shimla Hill in Abbottabad. It was a little after sunset, and night time had set in. On the way, we decided that the road was unsafe for travel all the way up after dark and we stopped the car on the hillside more than halfway up Shimla Hill. The moment I stepped out of the car and stretched my gaze up at the sky, I swear that it was one of the most, if not the most, beautiful sight I had ever seen. The sky was pure and clear and I had never seen so many stars in one place my entire life. It was like one of those photos you see on the internet from the Hubble Telescope where you can see clusters of stars with bright regions of concentration in places. So the sky first exhibited the brightest stars which are visible from every city with smog and light pollution, then behind those bright ones could be seen more stars scattered across, and behind those far away stars were bright clusters, far, far away visible as points the size of needle pricks. All this beauty filled my entire field of vision when I looked up, and the night time sky appeared more like the inside of a sphere than a plane. The weather was chilly, and the tips of pine trees were also visible, almost trying to touch the stars as well. When I turned my neck away to look below on the right, another enchanted sight opened up; the bright shimmering lights of Abbottabad glowed a few miles below us in the darkness, and the faint sound of Azaan-e-Isha could be heard from below all around us. I stood looking at the sky for the next ten minutes, mesmerized with tears in my eyes.

Much later in the evening, after dinner, we were tempted to return to Shimla Hill once more. It was past 11 PM now, and the area was fully quiet. The road going uphill was dark, and the surrounding pine trees on the slope, darker. The car stopped at the same spot again and we all sat down on the right side of the road, a few meters away from the slope going downhill. A pure feeling of peace just spread over as we looked the dotted lights of Abbottabad shining below us. A good moon had also come out now, and its silver aura spread a magical cover over the stars. Perhaps that view was only meant to be seen once in a lifetime. The intense view of the heavens visible earlier could not be seen in its full glory, but there were still enough stars up there to keep me mesmerized till dawn.

One of my colleagues, sitting next to me fueled my imagination further. She recounted the tale of someone she knew from Gilgit-Baltistan, a villager, who had told her that on the warm summer nights of the full moon, they did not sleep. He had said that they used to find a good vantage point and stayed up all night, watching the moonlight bathe the valley in silver. Time used to stop and the rivers shone bright in the night as if the whole land was suspended in a fairy tale. I could only imagine all that as we sat there for almost half an hour, undisturbed except for the occasional passing car on the road behind us.

Another interesting excursion was to the hill station of Nathia Gali, an hour’s drive from Abbottabad. After wrapping up work early in the afternoon one day, we left with many supplies. While still in Abbottabad, my colleagues stopped in a street and showed me to a famous landmark in the city. To my left was a Masjid, built on a hill slope so that one had to climb several stairs to get into the prayer area.

It looked just like any other Masjid, so I inquired, “Why is this place so famous?”

Stream flowing inside Ilyasi Masjid, Abbottabad

One of my accompanying colleagues responded, “Ilyasi Masjid is an old Masjid, and the thing of beauty here is the stream that flows under it.” And as we approached, I could surely here the sound of running water coming from inside.

I had half expected it to be a natural grove inside the Masjid, where perhaps the stream flowed from an opening in a wall. However, I saw that the stream’s flow had been directed through a pipe which flowed out into an open pool, before dissipating further downhill. The ablution area also had a large open pipe in a wall where water flowed freely into a water channel made in the floor. The sound of rushing water there was simply beautiful.

“Since the 2005 earthquake, the stream has changed its course,” my colleague told me. “There used to be more water flowing through the Masjid before that. The Masjid is old, and many decades ago when much of Abbottabad used to come here for prayers, many vendors set up stalls outside.”

Ilyasi Pakora House, Abbottabad

 He led me outside and I saw that next to the gate was a Pakistani food lover’s dream. “Vendors selling freshly fried pakoras established themselves here, and the place gathered more fame because of the food. The pakoras near Ilyasi Masjid became a household name in Abbottabad.”

The place had many independent food stalls, all selling local delicacies like pakoras and samosas under the shade of tree. Many families and students all sat on plastic chairs and tables laughing and eating as the rich aroma filled the air around me. We decided to buy some pakoras before continuing to Nathia Gali.

What followed was an hour’s drive that took us higher and higher into the arms of the mountains. It was a beautiful drive surrounded by green mountain sides, and small settlements visible below us. It was late afternoon, and much of the roads were covered in the shadow of the mountain slopes around us. The route had a lot more greenery and ascent compared to the road to Mansehra. We stopped about a kilometer or so from Nathia Gali’s high street, and my colleagues started bringing out the supplies.

 

Their idea was to cook their own food out in the green cover of trees near the roadside instead of dining at a restaurant. A few of my accompanying colleagues cooked very well, and had brought with them spices, chicken and a portable gas stove. It should have been simple, but the altitude meant the food needed to be cooked at higher pressure, and a strong, cold wind made it difficult for the fire to get going. Myself and two others left the others at the stove, and took a stroll towards the high street.

High Street in Nathia Gali

It was very calm and relaxing, walking under the tall pine trees, with a green carpet stretching below us to the right. The sun could be seen setting fast in a gap between two peaks, the sky changing to a sublime hue of pink. We reached the high street, which was lined with hotels, restaurants and shops. Unlike the crowded marketplace of Mansehra, this place was more organized and better lit. However, it lacked its cultural charm and was made to cater as more of a tourist retreat. Nathia Gali was also famous for the monkeys which often patrolled the tree canopies above the high street. We caught sight of a couple of them darting across restaurant roofs and into the trees.

As darkness gathered, we headed back to the campsite. The temperature dropped fast and the sounds of nature faded away. Soon, we were just walking at on the side of the road in twilight, with the occasional headlights from a passing car illuminating the path. Our pace quickened as the road sloped downward and we turned a bend to get sight of our parked cars near the roadside. The small clearing where my colleagues had been cooking before we left was empty, and we looked around for them, puzzled. A dark form waved at us from the other side of the road, outside a small shelter. We quickened pace and saw a flicker of light coming from inside the one-roomed shelter, accompanied by sounds of laughter.


Two strangers, both men who worked at a service station just outside Nathia Gali, resided there. It appeared our chefs could not get a steady fire going in the cold outside, so the hospitable residents of the area had allowed us space to cook. The man, draped in a thick shawl, spoke in accented Urdu as he ushered us inside. Long shadows bounced off the walls amid the flicker of candle light, while two cellphone torches remained focused over a cooking pot where one of my colleagues was busy fixing dinner. The two hosts spoke between themselves in Pushto as they spread a dining mat on the floor, and offered us space to sit in the small, crowded room. We took off our shoes and settled down in their quarters.


It was a unique experience, to be out so far from home, being offered hospitality by complete strangers on a cold night in the mountains, and helping ourselves to some spicy, filling chicken. There was laughter and stories that night, and the humble hosts were more than happy to have company for dinner. As I thanked the hosts and left their quarters, the cold wind blew down Nathia Gali once more; it was now pitch black outside and the headlights of a passing car were all that illuminated the mountain road a few metres ahead. Above, the stars shone bright like they did on the night in Abbottabad. The fleeting beauty of the mountains had me mesmerized like a siren's song, and it was hard to resist its melody.

Enchanted Tributes in Music and Art

Epictober 2011: Experiencing Pakistan - Post 4 of 8

Less than 48 hours since my visit to the Baadshahi Masjid in Lahore, I was making my way along a rough gravel and dirt path, which went through a stretch of grass and trees. It was late afternoon and the cool October breeze made the stroll easy. The path I was taking was a lovely little shortcut, cutting straight through a small park. If it weren’t for the traffic going by on the well-paved roads about a hundred meters to my left, the grass and trees may well have been part of a forest path. The rolling clouds filtered the sunlight to the ground at regular intervals, which made the path feel as if someone had lifted the whole slice of land from an actual forest and placed it in the middle of the city.

Amid the grass and trees, the path led on...

Islamabad, the cozy, modern, capital city lies near the foothills of Pakistan which eventually rise to meet the mighty mountains in the north. A tourist guide map I saw in the city promoted the capital as “Islamabad, the beautiful.” That part was indeed true as I walked the path up a slope and reached its end. I had taken a Daewoo bus to Islamabad the night before, and after my day at work, I made my way across that stretch of green to visit a famous landmark. After reaching the end of the path, I reached a road, and crossed it to enter another garden of trees, bushes and grass. Here, I turned right and saw the sea of green stretching about a kilometer or so before the nearest hills started. I started walking and soon, four, familiar minarets came into view above the tall trees on my left.

The guest house I was staying at happened to be in a good location, close to the major commercial area of Jinnah Super, a new Hardee’s restaurant and about a twenty minute walk from the iconic Shah Faisal Masjid. That is where I was heading to in the late afternoon. The walk led through some residential streets and a commercial area before spilling out on to the main road. It was great that the roads were flanked by large gardens on the side, as they made the stroll much pleasant.

The minarets of Shah Faisal Masjid come into view

The tips of the minarets grew taller as I crunched the dead leaves under my feet while walking forward . Eventually, the veil of trees started to part and I could see the full masjid in glimpses behind the passing trees. The grass sloped downwards and met the roadside which led to the landmark, and I followed it with my eyes up, staring at the great, white, tent-like, structure in awe. The only other time I had come here before was last April, and that was a rushed trip. This time though, I had all the time in the world. I departed from the Masjid after dusk that evening, spending that hour or so of daylight to go around the whole Masjid and relax for a bit.

The Shah Faisal Masjid, completed in 1986, succeeded the Baadshahi Masjid as the largest masjid in the world at the time. The giant masjid complex housed a library, souvenir shop and some fountains which allowed plenty to look about. Between the Asr and Maghrib prayers, the time that I had allowed me to reflect on the journey so far and what lay ahead. The time until then had surely been an experience to remember, and my gaze instinctively shifted towards the Margalla Hills. My next few destinations lay in the mountains and I could not stop wondering and planning for my weekends up there. If Islamabad was known as “the beautiful”, then surely it would only get better from here on, I wondered.

The high street of Saidpur Village; the open nala can be seen here.

Later that week, I managed to visit a few more interesting places Islamabad offered. Saidpur Village is an interesting model village made out as a tourist attraction for the urban population, who can get a feel of what village life is actually like in Pakistan. This area used to be an actual village back in the day, but was never properly urbanized. Saidpur has a neat, clean parking lot for people from the outside to enjoy Saidpur. Close to the parking lot are a few restaurants which integrate the theme of Saidpur into their dining experience, and there are also a few shops selling pottery, art and other trinkets. One can press inside the high street that leads to the actual residential colony of Saidpur. A large “nala” or waterway with flowing waste water cut through the main high street dividing it into two. Small, elegant bridges go over the nala, connecting the two halves of the high street. Perhaps it was made to add an aesthetic touch to the model village, but since it was sewage waste going through the nala, with other garbage dumped at points in between, it only added a foul stench to the high street.

Despite the smell, Saidpur was a nice place to relax and take in the sights and sounds without losing out on the urban element. My colleague and I climbed the stairs leading to one of the more interesting structures close to the high street. I had been here once before, but today it had a different feel to it. Music flowed towards us, carried by the wind as we proceeded toward an old Hindu temple. The stone steps lead to a checkered tile floor outside the temple courtyard, where the frayed, worn out tiles seemed to come to new life by the music being played. 

 

Looking around, I saw a man in shalwar kameez sitting just outside the temple, playing a sweet melody on a lute-like instrument called a rabab. The melody seemed old as time itself, the folk musician drawing on the wisdom of his ancestors, playing along to himself. The rabab, as I learnt from the musician, was an old musical instrument based in Persia and later Afghanistan. In Pakistan, it finds its cultural home in Peshawar. The music was sublime and powerful, breathing new life into the faded, colorful walls of the old Hindu temple, yet carried a sad kind of tune. The Hindu temple pre-dates the independence of the subcontinent; according to local lore, the Hindu population of Saidpur migrated to India after 1947, and the temple remained empty for years. Today, it has been preserved as a natural exhibit at Saidpur and the inner hall has many old pictures. The rabab’s music seemed to play a quiet tribute to the people who used to call Saidpur home in ages past, and seemed to call out to their last remaining treasure to come out of its forgotten gloom.

A street in Saidpur Village

After a quick look at the temple and a photo with the folk musician, we ventured to the other end of the high street, into a nice restaurant and out into one of the actual, living streets of Saidpur. It was a small, cramped and dirty street hidden behind the fine exterior façade of Saidpur, and had many small kiryana stores, tailors and other small traders. The residents of Saidpur looked slightly annoyed by our presence, and it seemed that they did not take keenly to the idea of a “model village” at all. Slightly shocked at their expressions, I soon started to understand Saidpur from their shoes. I believe I would have found it annoying as well if they had opened a chain of high-end restaurants and shops in Saidpur for those who could afford it, while leaving the remaining place unkempt and devoid of proper sanitation for the actual population of the area.

View of Saidpur Village from high up on a hill.

We left the street and headed back to the temple’s side of the high street and ascended stairs leading to a fantastic viewpoint of Saidpur from the top of the hill. Dusk has started to fall in Islamabad, and from far below we could hear the faint melodies of the rabab envelope a beautiful view of village houses and small streets of Saidpur. We left just after the shadow of night time fell over Saidpur, the high street and restaurants illuminated by colorful lanterns giving the whole place a lively glow.

After Saidpur, we had just enough time to see the newly constructed Pakistan Monument and National Heritage Museum, both of which are dedicated to the people of Pakistan. The monument and museum are both works of art and I realized, are must-visit places for anyone in Islamabad. The National Monument seems like an uninspiring piece of work from afar, but a closer look revealed that its “petals” as they are called, are each carved from inside to exhibit some of Pakistan’s most treasured people, wonders, and memories.

Art on one of the petals of the Pakistan Monument

The monument was not that huge, but it towered above me as I went and stood right under it. A rail ran its length from the inside, fitted with labels under each petal which showed exactly what art was portrayed on each of them. I looked up to see images of Jinnah, Khyber Pass, Baadshahi Masjid and many others carved in marble. It was surprising because I had never expected such a piece of art to be put up for the public of Pakistan. Going from petal to petal, the diverse wealth and treasures of Pakistan became more apparent; the brightly lit, convex surface of the petals curving inwards made the art overwhelming. As we walked away, I looked back one more time at the Pakistan Monument. The soft lighting surrounding it, and the brightly lit interior made it a sight to behold under the clear, night sky.

Under the petals of the Pakistan Monument at night-time, Islamabad.

An exhibit portrays life in the Mughal courts of India.

Very close to the monument was the National Heritage Museum, and my colleague and I wondered whether it was worth going there or not. I decided it was worth visiting considering we had come this far and were both glad that we took the right decision. From the outside, it does not seem very appealing but once we entered, I saw that this was truly a museum that lived up to its name. Museums in Pakistan are not well maintained or appreciated, and often slip into decay over the years. However, the aesthetics, design and hard work put into this museum were clearly impressive, above the level of most museums in Pakistan.

The National Heritage Museum portrayed the history of the peoples of the sub-continent, and the birth of Pakistan in an artistic sense. As I entered, I saw two well-lit floors with a lot of embossed, cultural art on the walls. A sign directed us downstairs to the start of the tour, and as the exhibits started rolling by, they left me more and more amazed by exactly what they had accomplished. The start of the tour was synchronized with the timeline of the sub-continent, which showed models of wax and cardboard telling the story of the region as the years went by. Plaques on each exhibit gave details and the back story about each scene.

A scene from the 1857 Indian War of Independence

The scenes started with the Gandhara civilization, showing Buddhists and models of some temples followed by the early Muslim conquerors Mahmud Ghazni and Muhammad bin Qasim. Eventually, it went on through the Sikh and Hindu rules, the Mughal era, the arrival of the British and the story of the Freedom Movement. All exhibits had been executed with great care, and the idea and construction of the museum has to be the work of an artisan. The simple scenes shown from the court of the Mughals, the fear on the face of a British soldier as he is shot down from his horse by an Indian rebel, and the model of Iqbal where he is delivering his Allahabad address, all portray the small and big key moments that have defined the sub-continent through countless generations. Add to these exhibits an audio-visual room for some documentaries and an impressive auditorium playing the film “Jinnah”, and we have a full learning center which dispels myths and educates through facts the full lineage of the sub-continent, leading to Pakistan’s side of the story.

The museum, monument and Saidpur had really got me in the mood to appreciate the many things I chose to overlook about Pakistan. Although the visit to Islamabad was not engrossing in the same way as Lahore or the Jhelum excursion, it offered retreats of its own kind, artificial but meaningful experiences. And that stroll and time spent in Shah Faisal Masjid is unforgettable. It was finally time to set my sights to the mountains, and I could hardly wait.

Inside the National Heritage Museum, a model of MA Jinnah and Fatima Jinnah in a horse-drawn carriage can be seen in the foreground.