Travel Narrative: Khewra, Pakistan

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 14:52

The name Khewra tempts me to title this travelogue as Kool Khewra or rather Khewl Khewra… playing with vague and abstract associations like this while breaking basic spelling rules of the language of the English is more amusing than I should admit – the thing is Khewra is way cool! When it comes to being a tourist if you are around Islamabad or Lahore then a day out to the salt mines should be in the cards. If you’re thinking how can the caverns for salt rock crystal mining be interesting? Well, they are and you’ll just have to go see for yourself! You have never been spelunking until you have done so in a salt rock crystal cave like on the scale of the mines at Khewra. Plus the road trip out there is through a unique solitary landscape worth it just for the drive but these mines as a destination point make a brilliant and literally cool (in temperature) focal point for a grand day out. This diversion is especially worth it if you need some fresh air after too much urban pollution.

It is hard to imagine a mini city concealed underground in a mined cave but that is exactly what you have with the mines at Khewra. Beneath the surface of a desert region there is most notably a beautiful Mosque/Masjid made of naturally colored salt rock blocks with electric lighting from within the blocks. The salt rock colors are naturally white, cream, pink or a reddish orange. When a light is placed within the salt rock the illumination casts a beautiful warm glow with these hues. The crystallized salt rock Masjid wasn’t being used when we were there and I actually wonder if even though Pakistan is an Islamic Republic, this unique place of prayer in the mine actually gets used these days. It seems it was once the place of prostration for the miners but now-a-days it looks like the prayers take place outside the mountain in a quaint small cottage at the mines railway entrance – indeed this Masjid was getting used when we entered the mines. Personally though it would have been more interesting to have seen the underground Masjid getting used as it is one of the more curious and inventive architectural Mosques of Pakistan. Aside from this small place of prayer there is also a post office and plans for expanding the existing health clinic. In addition to these places there is a café terrace like what you might find in Paris along a grand boulevard but here underground. The café area even has a floor in salt rock - again with the illumination within – the light in this room is especially interesting as it reflects off the natural salt crystal ceiling. The illuminated salt rock floor looks like any minute John Travolta in a white polyester suit is going to come running out with arms raised and hips thrusting to the sounds of a feverish Saturday night disco beat from a Lollywood film in the making! Imaginary and reminiscent discothèque’s aside the more appropriate health clinic is not yet functioning; however, when it does it will provide a healthy escape for patients with respiratory ailments. So if you have Asthma you’ll find this tour a healthy excursion. In time or as the Pakistani say, “InshAllah”, this underground village will be fully functioning with over night options (and who knows even a disco of sorts!) – when the mines reach this point the place will certainly be in the category of “not to be missed” until then it still is worthy of the effort it takes to reach the place and a personal highlight of my time in and around Lahore.

A strange and mystical side to the mine tours includes observing on a wall to one of the larger mined chambers the name of the Prophet Mohammed* revealed in the salt crystals grains in Arabic script far over head on a massive billboard scale. Certainly this will be of interest to Muslims and students of the Arabic language but the scale of the mined area and this peculiar writing on the wall as it were is a highlight worth mentioning here.

On the day we drove to the mines, using a borrowed car after exiting the main road between Lahore and Islamabad, we ended up with a flat tire… Fortunately for us or perhaps for the roadside garage nearby, we were able to get the tire repaired cheaply and efficiently as we waited. Then while our tire was getting fixed another car drove past this garage also getting its tire punctured. We began to wonder if this was an unusual way for the clever garage repairman to drum up business on a lonely road. We had a laugh over this idea but the fact of the matter is this small road is in a desert landscape sprinkled with small sharp edged rocks which eventually find their way along the road surface. If you go to Khewra in a car with old tires plan on checking to see if the spare tire is in good working order before departing. Even this inconvenient stop was interesting as the garage was located next to a farmer who showed us around his farm and invited us in for tea. We declined the tea as the tire repair wasn’t to take very long but here again is another example of the Invincible Generosity of the Pakistani People. If only the rest of the world was this friendly and gracious to the wayfarer.

* Muslims will reflect that at this point a “peace be upon Him” (etc.) be included here.

 

Travel Narrative: Pakistan's Cholistan Desert in the Punjab

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 14:01

When Umer the Pakistaniguy my way cool travel pal and I departed from Karachi north toward Lahore via a stop over in Multan we made an excursion into the Cholistan Desert to see a near mythical fort which had figured in Umer’s mind since boyhood. Deserts remain a source of endless fascination for me so I couldn’t refuse this opportunity to check out another landscape that might mimic some place lunar or Martian. The day after arriving in Multan we headed south to find this faraway place by taking a series of shared taxis. I was still at this point feeling a bit out on a limb having left the relative sense of security that an urban center like Karachi affords. As the rural isolation outside Multan surrounded us I must confess my anxiety set in a little further for this is a region sadly lacking in tourists since the events nine eleven 2001. It would seem I was the only pale faced westerner to pass through there for quite sometime and my skin and hair color seemed to turn heads to face me. At first I took this to be aggressive but then I realized it was just healthy curiosity, indeed as the day went on people just wanted to know where I was from and what brought me this far from home.

As far as mentioning Dera Nawab Sahib and Ahmandpur I wish I were experienced enough at traveling to have grasped the scene there in any way that can be put to word here. Both places were rather rural village or town like in size and yet both were bustling with life and trade in ways that often times you don’t even see in burnt out American city centers. Certainly there was more fervent enterprise taking place in those little towns in the Punjab than what seemed possible for a place far off the economic grid of western styled capitalism. Like anywhere else that I saw in Pakistan this flurry of activity took place in the streets with cars, bicycles, auto-rickshaws, people, cows, horses, chicken and young children running loose in all directions. Maybe it is precisely this sort of anarchy and chaos that is the life blood and soul of corporate free humanity on planet earth!

When it comes to travel Umer has an unstoppable enthusiastic drive to go, go, go: The day before we had arrived late at night in Multan after spending fifteen hours on the northbound train from Karachi to Multan. First thing in the morning Umer is ready to take shared taxis a few hours south to check out the desert. So there I was being dragged to another mysterious destination after having arrived at another strange place without having had the time to even get acquainted with our Multani hosts or their intriguing city. But I wasn’t complaining. Umer’s travel drive is insatiable and he knows what he is doing and as far as life on the road I do not anyway this is his homeland!

Umer who likes nothing more than to drive a hard bargain and get a good deal found us a shared taxi driver to take us on a private round trip to Derawar Fort. Fortunately for us the driver who offered the best deal also offered us the best sense of humor and we had a lot of fun being a tourist with him! Indeed when we arrived he joined us on our exploration of the fort, Masjid and village so we then in turn after the day was over joined him for a cup of tea before we caught the late night train to back to Multan. Again here was another moment and example of what I call the Invincible Hospitality and Generosity of the Pakistani People: Our driver took us to a café he liked and we sat outside on wooden bed like furniture (it looks like a bed frame with out a mattress and has a peculiar name but you’ll see them everywhere in Pakistan when you are off the tourist track). We took our chai this way while sitting on our feet with our shoulders wrapped in blankets from the cool winter night air. The tea and hot desert were much needed after our day’s excursion and here our driver insisted on paying for our refreshment. This was the kind of driver you want to sincerely offer a healthy tip and for whom you don’t regret leaving every available rupee there is to offer!

Eventually we arrived earlier that day at the Derawar Fort after a strange journey in a series of shared taxis that took us through the village of Dera Nawab Sahib and Ahmadpur East. Adjacent to the Fort is the magnificent Sunehri Masjid/ (Golden Mosque) with its unusual Mirab niche with a window in it that opens onto a balcony from which the Fort can be seen. Any student of Architecture or anyone with an interest in the architecture of religious spaces will find the Sunehri Masjid a compelling monument to visit. Certainly the place is a unique mixture of Arabic and Punjab Islamic ornament and design which makes for rewarding observation. Fortunately in Pakistan the Islamic places of prayer are open to Muslim and non-Muslim alike and not only that you will be welcomed for your interest whether it is for religious, architectural or cultural reasons. If you’re going as tourist just be a bit respectful of the religious space and don’t be annoying with your camera, follow any obligations like removing your shoes and covering up if necessary. These places are still fully functioning religious centers for people with their own values and norms who depend on these institutions. That said though when I was there I was latched onto by a family in poverty and as this was my first visit in my life to a Masjid/Mosque I had been looking forward to this moment for a very long time. Unfortunately for me my first memory of this experience is a bit discolored by my having been perceived as a walking money machine. Umer deflected some of this family of beggars as best as he could but they were not going to be appeased. If we gave them some money then other people wanted some as well. Whenever I turned a corner someone was waiting for me pleading with open hand and tugging on my shirt. Despite their situation and condition of need they were fierce people of business and perhaps their behavior should have been confined to the exterior on this sacred site.

The village around the fort and Masjid is strangely compelling as well. Once it had a small thriving tourist market in place selling refreshments but that seemed mostly dried up. As the taxi we hired needed some repair work done before our return we had the opportunity to explore these alleyways. The village houses here were made in mud and were one floor with an open porch like front. Although it was hard to tell what these building were we had the feeling we weren’t in Pakistan but in some forgotten corner of Afghanistan. The fellows we met here though were friendly and we passed the time for our automotive repair wait in good company.

The Derawar Fort, however, still remains the highlight of our time in this desert as it looks like a massive sand castle. How and why it is situated in what appears to be the middle of nowhere is hard to ascertain. As this is not your normal tourist site there is not much information available regarding what was the strategic purpose in building such a massive defense like this so far out from anywhere. It does though seem to have always been a place of importance long before the 18th century form of the fort that still stands today. As the fort is a private place (perhaps a secure residence for a wealthy foreign fugitive?) it is not open to the public. Anyway the fort is still none the less quite fascinating from the exterior; it is just that the place left us feeling very curious about its interior and who actually calls those old walls home. We certainly hoped for an invitation in for tea but those massive doors didn’t open when we knocked. The strange thing is this place has a delicious mystery about it. You will leave with fantasies forming in your mind on your return journey about how it would be to call such a secure place home in such an exotic and private location. There is something about this fort and its community that will wedge a solid place in your mind and not let you forget about its curious mysteries.

 

Travel Narrative: Lahore

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 16:54

How do you sum up a place like Lahore in a few words on a couple pages of a Microsoft Word program? You haven’t lived until you have been to Lahore as the travel book saying says so. Well, you can’t argue with that. After Karachi, the Cholistan desert and the mystical city of Multan, Lahore seemed down right European by comparison. Thus Lahore is probably the best place for a Westerner to begin to enter into the mysteries of the land that is Pakistan. Certainly the architectural remnants and urban planning from the old Colonial days explains why the city has that European edge to it. The trees, gardens and greenery along the wide boulevards of Lahore certainly separate it from more southern dry Pakistani regions. Lahore and Karachi are two different places and they cannot be compared but both are worth experiencing!

I picked up a book from one of the many Lahori bookshops titled “Lahore: Old and New” and this certainly is the best formula to start with when visiting there. Lahore really is two cities side by side; one old, one new and both must be experienced to be believed. Of course you could visit Lahore’s old city by the Badshahi Masjid (Mosque) and certainly spend the whole of your time in that beautiful quarter but then you would miss the complete cultural capital experience that includes the other side of this modern city of present day Pakistan. There is no excuse not to venture into the more modern areas to see how the other half of the Lahoris actually live – plus the food is better in this part of the city! With this singular city experience of urban Siamese twin duality - expect Lahore and its citizens to richly reward your travel efforts!

If you need western class amenities of a five star class, endless shopping and restaurant choices then there is the new city and if you are feeling more adventurous and want to travel back in time there is the old city. Both are challenging and both are richly rewarding to those who take the effort to touch, taste, see and feel this enigmatic city of the world. Taxi’s, buses, auto-rickshaw or horse driven tonga make traveling around Lahore inexpensive with any of these classes of transportation – be sure to try them all because each mode of transport will frame your adventure of the day quite uniquely!

One memory of Lahore that lingers in my mind was getting my shoes shined by men or boys wandering around the whole of that dual city with an old wooden box and makeshift tools of their trade. You’ll need your shoes shined often as well for there are many dusty areas alongside the streets and roads so any outing will cover your shoes in dirt. Fortunately shoe shiners are prevalent and quite cheap and they are enthusiastic for work so indulge them whenever you are in a situation where you are waiting. Whether you are waiting at a café or a petrol station, after a bus or taxi ride but better not before a bus ride as sometimes the shoe shine takes awhile if your shoes are really dirty. The shiners often times have a pair of sandals for you to wear as they will scurry off quickly with your shoes to work somewhere out of sight but don’t worry you’ll get your shoes back but you won’t recognize them because they were probably never so clean before! Whether you are resting in park or just need a break when walking around the unique streets of old Lahore you’ll always find a shoe shiner if they don’t find you first! No one in Pakistan really wants to annoy you they just want your shoes to be clean and only for a few rupees. After all this is a Muslim country with sincere attitudes towards cleanliness and keeping feet clean and these fellows want to work with dignity. And why not for you’ll have shoes to be proud of! Tip only when you feel the work done was worth it and don’t hesitate to wave a shoe shiner over if they don’t ask you first. You really have no excuse not to always have shining shoes in Lahore or the rest of Pakistan for that matter! Either use sign language or English but this is a good situation to practice your Urdu since you probably are itching to try out some of those phrases from the back of your guidebook. If nothing else the words “aachaa”, “gee”, “shukriya”, and “Allah hafiz” should get the job done pleasantly and with respect.

I departed Pakistan from the Lahore Airport but I should have started there. The Lahore Airport is the cleanest, most comfortable and well organized airport I have ever passed through. Everyone who I encountered from check point security guard to waiter to floor cleaner was happy, friendly, helpful and talkative. The airport though somewhat modest in design actually functions properly (a rarity these days) as an airport and since I find most airports tedious, confusing and exhausting the airport of Lahore was a brilliant exception in my experience of traveling. I would gladly trade life threatening soaring planks of concrete and glass high overhead for a port that functions on the human scale rather than for the architects and politicians ego’s that build them. I think this was the only airport I have been in that actually had a calming effect on me while I waited for a flight. It certainly is the only airport with café waiters who come to where you are waiting at each gate to offer tea and sell pastries which is a brilliant scheme that’s carried out professionally, discretely and respectfully without trying to extort the passenger with this pleasant convenience. So I had a cup of tea which was only bag tea that was much needed and all without having to fetch it myself. Again the waiter was beyond friendly and happy to do his job! If only Lahore could run all the world airports like this as the Americans globally hawk fried meat and potatoes of dubious origin along with ketchup, pickles, onions and gaseous sugar water with hardly a greasy smile!

Lahore actually has too many things to occupy someone passing through Pakistan so it is mandatory to plan well ahead of time what you can visit with your time there with thoughtful selection. That said Pakistan and certainly Lahore are places that happen to one passing through them. You cannot really go out and expect to make this and that happen so let Lahore work its own magic over you and show you what she will. This is a city that will seduce you into having a relationship with her, Lahore that old dame of a city, will expect you to make calls again and again if you want to grasp her luxuries of a human and not just material sense. From the Magnificence of places like the Badshahi Masjid and the adjacent Fort, to palatial Shalimar Gardens, from the not to be missed Lahore Museum of Art with the unforgettable starving Buddha sculpture alongside an exquisite collection of Islamic art, design and craft. There are endless hours to be spent perusing the many bookshelves that line the city shops and as English is so widely available throughout the whole of Pakistan you’ll find plenty to read. Then there are endless alleyways for shopping with convenient tea rooms for sugary milk chai and restaurants alongside typical Pakistani street vendor food. Not to be missed is ‘pan’ a delicacy of sweet spice served in large green leaf and eaten whole straightaway from the vendor’s fingers.

Everything you will do in Lahore will be packed with people but what is so remarkable about this city and land is just how pleasant everyone is. Pakistan is full of remarkable enthusiastic citizens that are exceptionally kind but the folks of Lahore are a bit more modern and detached in this regard when compared to the rest of the land. Certainly the coolest Lahori is beyond happy and welcoming when compared to a cool Northern European who borders on the cold. But when compared within what I experienced in my stay in south eastern Pakistan the Lahori were a bit more urban and aloof. That is not to say that the Lahori were unkind in anyway it is just as a pale faced westerner you will be welcomed with a polite detachment. You can rest assured on your visit that the Lahoris’ while still remaining true to the Pakistani way of being whole heartedly gracious and kind more so even in the ways that one can expect the Muslims the world over to be for Lahore is still very much a part of the truly remarkable Pakistan of today!

These words here are only scratching the surface of this multi-faceted city which is at once modern and beautifully tumble down. This is really a massive urban styled Shangri-la for Pakistan and it is among the friendliest and enchanting places of the world. I can’t help but agreeing with the travel books that you just haven’t lived until you’ve been to Lahore!

 

Al Fajr: Karachi

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 19:28

When I departed Bru-town and my comfortable if not damp life in la Villette by train from the Brussel Zuid Station/Bruxelles Gare du Midi to travel by the TGV/Thallys to the Charles de Gaulle Aero port for a Gulf Air flight to Karachi via Abu Dhabi I wasn’t really aware of how long of day in time and distance I had gotten myself into. It just doesn’t make any sense that in this day and age that to go the distance from Brussels to Karachi in one day might well not be enough for the mind. Maybe to make such a shocking change in one day isn’t right. To understand arriving in a curious place like Karachi from a Western vantage point of a life like mine I should not have been in Brussels and Abu Dhabi on the very same day. Perhaps it is only by train or bus or ship (or horse or camel or foot) involving smaller increments of distance dispersed over quite a few number of days that the human mind and consciousness can really adequately travel. The point is when arriving into the unusual and thrilling world of Pakistan from the cold and gray of Belgium perhaps one needs to pierce the layers of the many dominions that fill the web of reality between these two very different lands. Maybe it is better to start out in Brussels and spend nights in other lands with other languages, customs, currency and peoples. Indeed this might be the best way to travel to build a better more peaceful planetary future. Until it becomes a viable option to travel overland easily and safely between here and there (wherever those places might be) we as people might not understand our planetary whole and our relationship to one another. It’s just a thought that shouldn’t be lost to our modern day arrogance in our shared capacities to shrink the planet while consequently making everyday life more hateful for increasingly disparate places. On the other hand the best airline I have yet flown was Gulf Air which is proving that carriers don’t have to be packing their customers onto flights without a token nod to the proportions that allow communal dignity in the air. Certainly the staff aboard the plane was the most respectful and courteous I have interacted with in the unfriendly skies of today’s post Ronald Reagan’s deregulated airlines.

But this is supposed to be about Karachi. I don’t travel by air very well and perhaps that is why I expend a great deal of time armchair traveling overland from Brussels with the help of Lonely Planet and Virtual Tourist dot com. Sometimes I think Brussels is the damp crotch of the western world: A virtual cosmic intersection that everyone at one time or another must pass through and experience whether they want to and like it or not. Perhaps Brussels is for the modern day traveler on the journey of life a certain stopover, otherwise known as Purgatory if you will. Brussels like Purgatory can be approached in two ways – you can either be mad or resent that you are here as often many are or you can just be here and then begin to look at what is here and see what is very often overlooked or seldom seen even by the Belgians themselves. Either way it is probably your own fault that you are here so you might as well make the best of Bru-town! You’ll probably find more than you’ll be comfortable in admitting to amuse yourself with! Certainly that continues to my experience here in Belgium.

After leaving Abu Dhabi the night flight passed over Al Ayn which looked like a multifaceted jewel lying on the desert floor far below. Al Ayn doesn’t transliterate in spelling very well from its actual Arabic spelling but it does make one wonder where the name Alan actually comes from. I must have fallen asleep for awhile at that point for the next window view was the nightlight sparkles of the crescent of Karachi city lights hugging the Arabian Sea. Normally everywhere I travel is covered with clouds which provide some sort of depth to air travel, however, when flying over Arabia where there weren’t clouds provided a different sensation to travel. Clouds are always slung low over Brussels which tend to shape the place. Often times the sky overhead here is like an opaque Tupperware brand lid on the bowl of a crater that the city of Brussels rests in. The lid is not very far above and you really don’t feel like when you fly into town here that you have arrived on descent without passing through that opaque layer of white. Consequently seeing Karachi tilt and bank from right to left as we approached was something new to see out the window – I’ve flown enough and should know this already but I always tend to fly between the same two cloudy places.

After landing in Karachi with Umer somewhere nearby on the flight the Karachi airport greeted us with warm spiced air in the very early hours of the morning. It’s an easy enough airport to arrive into certainly a better experience for me there than many more familiar airports which I won’t bother to name. After gathering our luggage and queuing for immigration standing in a crowded irritable hall of weary travelers and weary with the night airport staff – Umer in one line and me in another – in one of those places where a mass panic attack seemed on the verge of becoming a reality. Meanwhile I am the only pale faced Westerner in sight. It was then I realized no matter how irritable I am or the people around me we are all in this together and I might do my fellow standing passengers the graciousness of not falling into a sour mood of negativity. So applying some basic ideas of the here and the now: I am here in a miserably long line in a foreign place at an odd hour now jet lagging - standing in a crowded room teeming with impatient vibes… I am going to just ‘be’. So there I stood. Ignoring my feet and legs anyways they were sitting on a plane for a long time they might as well now stand until deep vein thrombosis set in even further. I won’t worry about being pushed forwards and now backwards and side to side to side by strangers. Neither am I going to wish I were somewhere else. I just accepted the line and the wait and strangely all of what was annoying about that became an illusion and washed away revealing the unfamiliar communal humanity of another place. Then it became my own turn to get my passport checked. I wasn’t sure how my passport would go over in this part of the world. Certainly my Visa raised an eyebrow and the person who studied my passport for quite sometime had an incomprehensible expression, a gruff facial movement of some sort which could have been a sneer or a bureaucratic attempt at a welcome. Then the fellow disappeared to speak to someone else with my passport. Time slowed down for me and simultaneously sped up for everyone else. It wasn’t déjà-vu or vertigo something altogether else and indefinable. Maybe it was just the realization that I had pierced a restraining layer that separates lives on planet earth.

And then it happened: Al Fajr arrived over Karachi. The broadcast occurred within the halls of the airport and the pre-dawn call to prayer began its scratchy electronic cry. The Pakistani immigration officer stamped my passport with a foreboding grimace that might have been a strict attempt at a smile or something different. The crowd and the exhaustion passed away for a moment and I felt like I had arrived on a journey that began with an idea to find a place within the realm of the call to prayers on this planet. I would never have expected this journey to start with Pakistan and in Karachi but it did and there and then in that airport before dawn I heard the first call to prayer without the help of a television or radio. Of course I wanted to hear this live from a minaret from a fellow with a booming voice without the help of electronic amplification but I had to start somewhere and what better place than with the invincible generosity of the Pakistani people from their citadel of Islam for a land!

This is how Karachi, Pakistan welcomed me alongside Umer. His cousin who’s marriage we were traveling to attend and Umer’s mother and auntie where waiting for us after we got our stamps and were released from immigration. The doors opened and the warm fragrant morning air of winter in Karachi unfolded around us. We piled in a small car loaded with us all and our luggage and made off to someplace strange for the night. Was that a palm tree already in sight for these sore Northern European eyes? Upon arriving in Umer’s family home in the outskirts of Karachi we were given sweet pastries that almost looked Belgian but tasted entirely different. Then we quickly went to bed in shared rooms to conclude a long day which had begun far away in Brussels. The apartment packed with people sleeping everywhere, on carpets on the floor or couches or appropriately in beds in only five or six rooms and not enough doors. That morning one of Umer’s cousins graciously greeted me in bed in our shared rooms with a cup of sweet milky tea (or was it coffee?) and toast… I later realized it was chai and this was how my first day in Islamic dominions came to be. Now as I write this I want nothing more than to return to that happy congenial place. The place that can only be summed up in the single, beautiful, dramatic and poetic word: Karachi.

 

Late Night Transmissions: La Villette to Dollville

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 14:27

The following is an excerpt from an e-mail written on Saturday, March 3rd to my pal Bill back home in Dollville - from la Villette to Dollville: Trans Atlantic transmissions…. (Remember Joy Division’s fab album Transmission?) In the e-mail I went off ranting about Guiliana Sgrena the Italian hostage now globally famous (except in the states) who managed to escape the current carnage in Iraq by the American forces there even though Nicola Calipari tragically did not.

….Oh and I can’t believe the US in Iraq now firing on the Italian woman fleeing her captors. More evidence as if we needed any that the states has been in on all those extremist hostage situations in their pandering fear to the media. I could see her telling her get-away driver don’t fucking stop for the checkpoints – the Americans were in on my kidnapping – those masked Arabic looking gunmen all spoke with Midwestern accents! It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure the checkpoint soldiers were being ordered to shoot to kill to not let Sgrena escape or the Americans secret propaganda game of pandering FEAR to the world to justify its foreign policies might be thwarted by a pesky and meddlesome woman reporter. But she did escape! As if she will be safe in Berlusconi’s American war in Iraq supporting Italia. She should have come to Belgium or to Spain with its current Scandinavian sensibilities.

(Like the Chemical Brothers sing: “My finger is on the button”
Except in my case it’s this dirty gray once white QWERTY keyboard in an AZERTY land)
Your pal and fellow dissident alone,

Patriot Ex-pat anarchical,

Matt

PS: Dance, dance, dance, dance, dance, to the radio... hearing that song now on Studio Brussel feels like the rest of those lyrics weren’t written a couple decades ago but were written for this recent sad history.

 

Travel Narrative: Mystical Multan

Posted by Matthew Crouch at 12:54

Last November I had the unique opportunity to attend a week long wedding in the Megalopolis that is present day Karachi, Pakistan. After that first week I was able to travel around a part of the Muslim world for my first experiences inside the world of Islam with my handsome friend and guide, Umer. Without our chance meeting last summer I would never have started my exploration into the Islamic world that I had been longing to make for many years with the magnificent land of Pakistan. I had just seen last autumn on the BBC television a program on the Himalaya by Michael Palin which started in the northwest of Pakistan. This program revealed a Pakistan of immense beauty and diversity nothing like what the media normally chooses to imply with this land. I had not realized the second highest mountain in the world is in the far north of Pakistan and that the rest of the land slowly yields to sea level making Pakistan a self sufficient land worthy of its identity as the Citadel of Islam. Then I was convinced to go when Umer proudly told me that Pakistan was the very first Islamic Republic, so why not start there? Plus, it was his homeland so he invited me to the wedding of one of his cousins and on a lark at the last minute I went.

The first stop on my travels with Umer took me through the United Arab Emirates airport in Abu Dhabi where we met before ending up in Yemen where we had to part ways – he to Africa and me back to Northern Europe where I was finally dropped, rudely, back into the West within a Parisian airport. I say rudely because after the enthusiasm of the Pakistani people, followed by the unforgettable kindness of the Southwestern Arabian world, it was in Paris where I was greeted with a cold damp slap in the face much like the weather there in late December. My return was met with such Western styled heartless culture shock where I had a miserable time after and an exhausting flight just trying to purchase a simple train ticket back home to Brussels on the high speed TGV/Thallys. The thing is I am a huge fan of train travel whether it’s the totally mod and sci-fi like TGV or the more cozy vintage wooden trains (with windows that actually open) of Pakistan. On board the train between Karachi and Multan hints of graciousness and social kindness with strangers who are fellow travelers linger in ways that cannot with air and water (which are too capitalistic in nature). To say nothing of automotive transport that is now-a-days based in pre-civilized mass selfishness to be of any real use for a humane future.

Before I forget anything more about my time in Multan let me tell you about the rather mystical experience I had in waking up one morning to all the Multani calls to prayers. Even though I had been in Karachi for nearly a week I was staying nowhere near a Masjid with a minaret (the more appropriate Arabic word for what we in the west call a Mosque) - there was one being built nearby but somehow I never managed to hear it during the night despite its frequent solitary calls to prayer. After a very long train ride from Karachi to Multan - was it really fifteen hours on a board like seat that became a sleeping plank? It is the old pilgrimage city of shrines known as Multan where the Muslim world of old made its first unforgettable introduction into my soul. We arrived late in this city’s station after dark and I sort of had a creepy feeling because so many people were out and about even at that hour. Of course I was stupid and had packed way to much luggage for this trip so getting my bags on the auto-rickshaw was difficult and annoyed Umer to say nothing about carting the bag anywhere across dirt and gravel roads. “Live long, travel light” that was the slogan on my box cutter from my days of being a grocery stock boy back in retail America; that slogan should have been my mantra for this trip. Well, I learned that lesson on those four weeks with that massive bag being like a millstone strung around my neck. Now there is an expression much like wearing concrete shoes that doesn’t get much use anymore!

I didn’t want to leave Karachi as I really enjoyed the time there and the guys I had met were really happy and vivacious with this certain lust for life in that huge metropolis by the Arabian Sea. As we had arrived after dark to a strange city in south central Pakistan, which was considerably cooler if not down right cold that night had me feeling homesick for the more urban and reckless comforts of Karachi. We were going to be staying with one of Umer’s uncles and we had incomplete directions so we drove around in a noisy, cold, covered, auto-rickshaw getting lost and getting nowhere nearer a bed for the night. Our typically good natured Pakistani driver with patience and humor got us eventually to Umer’s Uncle’s home. The auto-rickshaws in Karachi are open air and you feel more like you are on a mo-ped or motorcycle when tooling around the city there. As you go farther north into Pakistan these rickshaws become covered with tarp like material inserted with little windows so you feel less connected to the outside street scene. For the tourist though the more southern open air auto-rickshaws are more fun like a dangerous and rickety state fair ride even if the enclosed northern ones are embellished to the point of sometimes being opulent in their sheltering privacy.

We did arrive after I had a few bouts with fear and I confess paranoia – what was I doing in this part of the world at this time in history traveling and getting lost after dark in a strange city down unpaved roads and unfamiliar looking streets? This kind of fear would set in at times like this and if it had not been for Umer being there calm, cool and with his thoughts collected I would not have been able to enjoy Pakistan as I did then. We did eventually arrive at Umer’s uncle and auntie’s home where we were greeted with plates of hot food and endless steaming cups of chai. You haven’t eaten until you have had home cooked spicy Pakistani meals with sweet milky chai! It seems everyone in Pakistan knows English much more so than even back home in Belgium. So our hosts had lots of questions for us about our travels where we had been and where we were going and of course being family with Umer lots of family gossip regarding the wedding. Pakistani weddings take the better part of a week and are so happy and colorful that they will make any western wedding look like a funeral for the groom by comparison.

Round about four or five in the morning I awake to find myself in a strange room, in a strange house, in a strange city in a far away land – my heart pounding right out of my chest from a surge of adrenalin as I had been awaken in so many senses of the word by the pre dawn or Fajr call to prayer. There was, however, not one call but hundreds! The prayers overlapping as each call starts at its own time creating an uncanny sound that my western ears had never heard. I had heard the call from the minaret from the media back home via radio or television programming but nothing, and I mean nothing, sounded like what I heard that first morning in Multan! These calls awoke something else in my body deep within and my soul understood the message. Thus that morning in Multan a part of me long since dead came to life and I will never be the same! These words I grab onto here are not doing justice in explaining all this. It was a moment that will be with me for the rest of my life and I will always be grateful for Pakistan and especially the Mystical city of Multan, a city of shrines and pilgrimages and such history, for finding me there quite by chance. It is the invincible generosity of the people of Pakistan that gave me my soul back that morning. For Umer and his Auntie and Uncle in Multan and their help and hospitality toward the wayfaring Western stranger are why Islam and the Muslims are in reality happy, generous and kind people which I am ever grateful for.

I will always remember how I awoke with such fear at unfamiliar sounds, all those haunting calls from near and far! All those staggered calls of the same Arabic words, and so many, lasting much longer than I expected. I didn’t have a clock and didn’t know the time but there was no dawn light visible out the window and suddenly I became afraid that this was no ordinary announcement – it sounded as if the sky had broken open and that this was ethereal music radiating to earth from Heaven! Then I feared that something terrible had happened somewhere on the planet like the U.S. invading yet another land and this was a special call to awaken the faithful to prayers for peace. I tried to shake Umer awake but he was not going to wake up as the morning calls to prayers were nothing new to him and with our travel exhaustion he was quite capable of sleeping through it all. Eventually I calmed down and opened the window to better grasp the scale of the fantastic moment. It felt good to hear all these minarets broadcasting to the faithful piercing the nighttime with their praises to Allah and calling the Muslims into His presence. There I sat alone in a shared but dark room next to the open window experiencing nothing like what we have in the West thinking God is not dead while I was feeling more alive at that moment than at any other time or any other place previous.

It’s all about location and the house we happened to be staying in was geographically situated that it could easily receive all these calls from a pleasant distance while not being too far from the Minarets either. If our rooms had been located beneath a Minaret it would have been overkill. Or like in Karachi where our rooms were too far out in a new still being built suburb with no Masjid nearby where the mornings passed like in the West in silence. That night in Multan and the nights that followed - I will always remember with gratitude as the city of Multan gave me back something of myself lost to the West.