Sunday, 30 January, 2011
nflation is out of control, unemployment high, we face an energy crisis, a crisis of governance and not only an insurgency in the North but its ramifications throughout the country almost everyday. Life is hard in Pakistan and the future promises more of the same. Internationally, the grand narrative about Pakistan is all about a failed nuclear state that is a menace to itself and the rest of the world. We are begging the world for help almost all the time, sometimes even putting a gun to our head to make the act more convincing, and the world is constantly on our case to ‘do more’. Desperate situations sometimes lead to emergence of leaders that stand tall and help multitudes carve a path through the difficulties. Few would believe that the current political leadership of the country has the ability or interest to do that. The political shenanigans of the current leaders suggest that they cannot seem to see much beyond their noses. Over the last few months I have had this conversation on Pakistan with a number of outside but interested observers. All of the above mentioned observations have come out. And the conclusion, in general, usually seems to be that Pakistan does not seem to be going anywhere and this makes for difficult times for all, especially Pakistanis. It is not doom and gloom though. People do acknowledge that there are areas that give hope. The movement for the restoration of judiciary was a bright light, the rise of the media - for all its faults - continues to energize the polity, and the increasing involvement of the youth and urban educated classes in the affairs of the country, starting with the justice movement, is a really bright spot. In fact, the latter, though the most difficult to fathom and get an understanding of, might be the one thing that has the potential of transforming the country and its situation, if there is anything. Of course, the fact that a formal democratic structure is continuing, despite almost impossible to address challenges also provides something to feel good about. No alternative should be acceptable to the people but at the same time most people realize that a democratic-by-votes-only-and-not-spirit structure is not going to be the agent for transformation for the country. Similarly the multitude of voices that the media will continue to
spout is important, but given that it is taken as a threat by the establishment, there will always be attempts to control it and the struggles of large interest groups will not allow it to play any transformative role in society. It will continue to irritate all, and that is contribution enough. The most promising feature of our society right now, from a transformative perspective, is the increased involvement of the youth, the middle and upper middle classes and the urban dwellers in the affairs of the country. From the eighties to the mid of this decade these groups had retreated to private spaces and worked on private gains only. Now whatever the reason, and it could be the desperate situation of the country, this isolation seems to have been shaken. But, for the last couple of years, though the involvement has been there and can be seen, it does not seem to be moving in any direction. It seems it does not have creative directions for expression. And may be that is the reason it has not faced opposition from established interests as yet as well. But the potential is there. What is more surprising is that there is not more organization or hue and cry for action from the society in general. There is definitely anger and frustration. The terror activity in the country has some links with this anger and frustration, but it is not just that of course. The suicides that we hear of everyday, the violence that erupts almost every time there is public procession or protest gathering, even if it is to register protest against the energy crisis, and the general breakdown in law and order in the society all show that anger and frustration are there, and can erupt, but it has not as yet. And this is the most perplexing part of the situation in Pakistan right now. On the one hand the anger and frustration are not erupting to engulf the elite and the status quo institutions of the country, but on the other, it is also not being channeled into any creative avenues that can use it to offer opportunities for transformation and hope for the society either. How is this circle being squared and can it continue this way for long? The political parties right
2 Those poor people 3 Spicy, readable and informative
I
By Dr Faisal Bari
now are part of the establishment and the status quo. None of the leaders appear to think they are responsible to the people and/or accountable to them. Instead they look to the establishment to prop them up and manage the musical chairs amongst the leading lights of the political elite. For all the bluster they might spew on talk shows and in rallies, it is futile to expect these parties to be major forces for transformation right now. These parties have been decimated by decades of pressure from the establishment, the army, the agencies and the outside forces that have interests in Pakistan. The carrot and stick approach, that continues even today, carried on for the last many decades, has weakened these parties. On the other hand, given the grip of the elite and establishment on the organized sources of power in the country, it is hard for newcomers to enter the political arena. Irrespective of the goods or bads of Imran Khan, the fact that he has not been able to break into the mainstream of politics tells us a lot about how the current parties and system are controlled by the larger status quo powers of the country. Other possible forces for change have also not fared well over the last three decades. After the seventies many of the professed leftists resurfaced in Pakistan in the NGO movement of the country. And for all its successes and the service that it has been able to do, most people will grant that the contributions of the NGOs have not been a major transformative force in the country. In fact, they have been quite conservative at times, and at others, though their agendas have been progressive, their approaches, whether for funding reasons or others, have been non-challenging for the status quo. And many in the NGO movement, over time, have become quite conservative and right wing themselves. This transformation, I hope, will be a focus of attention for some social historian someday. Even the right wing of the political spectrum has lost its lustre over the last few decades. Whether one agreed with the right wing ideologues of the sixties or not, they had more substance and ideas for the transformation of the society than the present day representatives of their thought. Compare Fareed Paracha, Munawwar Hassan and Liaqat Baloch to Maulana Mawdudi or Maulana Amin Ahsan Islahi and one need not say more. Today few believe that if the right wing parties could come in power they would do anything to change the status quo. Apart from rhetoric about Sharia, it is hard to expect much from these protagonists.
the review
Pakistan does not seem to be going anywhere and this makes for difficult times for all, especially Pakistanis
the review
Whether you disagree with this or not, reading this book makes you one shade more discerning about how poverty is in reality
I
By Anum Yousaf
recently read ‘Angela’s Ashes’ by Frank McCourt. It’s a moving memoir, told from the point of view of a young child, crafted with mellifluous tact and wrought with emotional currency. It recounts the harrowing tale of impoverishment in Brooklyn, New York and Limerick, Ireland and how a family tries to stay together while dealing with poverty but there is a certain chic charm to the proceedings bestowed by the lighthearted telling of McCourt and the reality of the characters one is getting to read about. It is harrowing but in a humbling way.
Those poor ‘Angela’s Ashes’ is indeed a very unique perspective on poverty
Another reader’s astute observation that the poverty in this book seems very different from what some people might consider real poverty. It got me thinking about the way poverty has been depicted in literature through the ages. ‘Angela’s Ashes’ is indeed a very unique perspective on poverty. It not only examines what it means to be poor, it also portrays the poverty as failing of the human as well as the failing of the social. So whether you disagree with this or not, reading this book makes you one shade more discerning about how poverty is in reality. Literature has always been thought of as the lost language of poverty. We, who rather wouldn’t be bothered by the inconvenience of poor people sticking their noses on our washed car windows, would gladly go and buy a pristine copy of ‘Oliver Twist’ or a Premchand or Srinivas Chatterjee novel from an upscale bookstore. Poverty in reality is an eyesore; it’s inconvenient and guilt-inducing. Poverty in literature is beautiful. You feel bad for the character and then feel good about yourself, the opposite of guilt. Poverty comes in all shapes and sizes in books....It excites all kinds of emotion. . But lately, the only poverty to be found in contemporary literature is intellectual poverty, the poor no longer have a prominent place in literature. The times when the
plight of the poor is all fiction writers could write about are gone. Why have writers moved on? After all, the wretchedness of the earth hasn’t vanished. Framing poverty in a novel is a very tricky exercise. It’s a very precarious balance between aesthetic presentation and the political encasing of an issue. Most authors just want to write a book and not take up a cause and some people would argue that the author need not be burdened with social activism and that their allegiance lies to the cause of literature, not some political agenda. What these people ignore in their superfluous argument is that, even if the author is not an advocate, he is saying something about what he is writing and even saying nothing signifies something. This is why the depictions of poverty in literature have historically given the subaltern a much-needed voice. The fact that it can be depicted in so many ways also means that its various nuances and manifestations can be made concrete for an increasingly numb and un-feeling world. A retreat from the tactile into the imaginative where the tortuosity of poverty as an ideological construct can be understood... an enmeshed web of emotion and behaviour, something unequivocally missing from social studies and statistics – down and dirty rather than cold and removed. Literature has seen so many variegated representation of poverty. Dickensian: an all-encompassed reality pervaded by squalor, injustice and the muck of London; Kafkaesque: artistic, surreal but with a grittier realism than a trudge through hunger (try reading “The Hunger Artist”); Dostoevskian: poverty that is an unholy mixture of existential angst, murderous tendencies and absolute abject living conditions; Steinbeckian: rustic poverty that is entrenched and understood as no different from the
Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt Price: $14.95 Pages: 368 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Adult Publishing Group
human condition itself. Then one reads something like ‘Angela’s Ashes’: a highly impressionistic portrait of poverty that is flavoured by Irish songs of war and poignant observations about faith, living and suffering veiled as the random yet accidentally relevant precocious musings of a small child. Somebody might dismiss a roof over one’s head, bread and jam for breakfast and pig’s head for Christmas as decadent luxury when compared to say the Joads in ‘The Grapes of Wrath’ but reading the humanistic memoir reminds us that this too is poverty, characterised by child mortality, sacrifices of dignity, pangs of hunger and class distinction. Just like read-
Art Review
Incomparable Chughtai’s work
By Roshan Ara Bokhari Illustrated & Designed by Babur Saghir
02 - 03
Sunday, 30 January, 2011
This time round the selection on display was some of the finest work done by the artist on Allama Iqbal’s philosophy, under the title The Defensive Sword
T
o mark the 36th death anniversary of great miniaturist Abdul Rehman Chughtai, the art home named after him arranged an exhibition displaying paintings and pencil drawings pertaining to Iqbal’s verses. The thematic exhibition was titled, The Defensive Sword. In conversation with Arif Chughtai, son of the ‘Modern Master of Muslim Civilisation’, I was told that Chughtai Art Home hold exhibitions throughout the year. And
each time, first a theme is chosen and then paintings depicting that are selected to put on display. This way the work of this incomparable artist is kept alive and hence his art is not lost but is, and will be, on view for generations to come. This time round the selection on display was some of the finest work done by the artist on Allama Iqbal’s philosophy which comes alive in these distinct paintings. Reminiscing about the past, Arif recalled the days when his father and his contemporaries would gather together. His friends included such luminaries as Sufi Tabassum, Patras Bokhari, M.D. Taseer, Faiz
Ahmed Faiz and others – men of stature and intellectual calibre who would share their thoughts and exchange ideas. Explaining the choice of the title of this exhibition, Arif said Iqbal’s theory that the sword is not used for aggression but only for defensive purposes is the inspiration for the title of this exhibition, thereby decrying aggression and also favouring tolerance. Both these great men, Iqbal in his poetry and Chughtai in his paintings advocated peace and harmony. The principle of living in peace with different cultures is prominent as is the fact that tolerance of other point of view is of essence.
In the foreword of his book, Chughtai writes that “the aim of art is that life should thrive. My art is living and will continue to throb with life.” Chughtai is an acknowledged master, an artist of great sensitivity and refinement. His portrayal of the medieval themes in soft and harmonious hues alternating with bright and vivid colours is in itself magical in its composition. He has painted figures of Hindu mythology with as much passion as he has done the Mughal figures. It is difficult, nay well nigh impossible, to try and pick any one painting over the other displayed in this exhibition but special men-
people ing ‘Sister Carrie’ teaches us that poverty is perpetuated by the twin curses of societal exploitation and cultural discrimination even though Dreiser is making no overtly political statement. He is just regaling the descent of a man and making it compelling for us. A lesson in compassion and duty. So historically, poverty has been written about as a central theme in novels. But since the late 20th century, it is more of an afterthought, an exotic backdrop, a brushed off aside. It is the hobo that holds up boards with quirky statements at the end of films. This is an over-arching generalisation but one that most litlovers will find to be true. The most mainstream novel about poverty “The White Tiger” was blatantly voyeuristic and scathingly labeled as ‘poverty porn’ by some critics. Mainstream literature now uses poverty as an extra ingredient for added flavour rather than the main event. There are obviously notable exceptions but there is no denying that the preoccupations of contemporary literature are changing. Why is this? Well, for starters, success in writing has hugely become a function of social privilege and class. Most writers now have MFAs, read The New Yorker, dream of a seat at The Algonquin table and a quotable acceptance speech in Stockholm. Anywhere in the world, the big bad world of publishing and its horrendous mechanisms (from pre-publishing royalty haggling to postpublishing critical rigging) has ensured
that not anybody can be a writer. You need to have the degree and the pedigree. I wish I could aggregate the class background of all the Nobels, Bookers, Pulitzers and National Book Awards etc and turn it into a neat mathematical statistic to prove my point. ‘Angela’s Ashes’ is indeed a firsthand account and most chroniclers of the perils of poverty were born into adversity (Raymond Carver, Dickens etc) but then others weren’t. But just because writers are increasingly from middle-class backgrounds shouldn’t mean that they can only write about the middle-class and can’t write about the poor. Isn’t that precisely what a writer’s job is: negative capability? To write convincingly about stuff they haven’t experienced firsthand using the crutches of their greater intellect and far greater craft. If all the writers in the world only wrote from personal experience, world literature would be much poorer (no pun intended). There is a lot of truth in poverty in fiction. This is neither a reductive functionalist argument nor a highbrow literary one. I just feel that poverty has a place in literature. It is represented in a way that no social study can. Almost half the world lives in poverty. Is misrepresentation in a potent form of activism the best they deserve? The clerk on minimum wage in Lahore is suffering in a different way than a hari labouring in bondage. They are characters that populate our world. They should populate our books too.
Poverty in reality is an eyesore; it’s inconvenient and guilt-inducing. Poverty in literature is beautiful. You feel bad for the character and then feel good about yourself, the opposite of guilt
on display
Spicy, readable and informative The graphic detail of the socio-cultural life of the fading days of India’s wealthiest princely state, including its court life, are quite engaging, and instructive too
By Syed Afsar Sajid
B
ilquis Jehan was born in Hyderabad Deccan. She has authored two other books also viz., Khush Zaiqa (1971), a bronze medal winner at a German book fair and Mughal Cuisine (1982) which was published in Malaysia. The first book was revised and reprinted as Naya Khush Zaiqa in 1990. An avid globe trotter, Bilquis Jehan now lives in Karachi where she supervises a vocational school for underprivileged girls. The present book was largely completed in Singapore in the mid-1980s but published in Pakistan last year by the OUP. It relates the author’s impressions and stories of her life connected to the Nizamate of the state of Hyderabad Dec-
can, now split into the states of Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra and Karnataka in India followed by her new life in Pakistan after the partition of the Indian subcontinent. A Song of Hyderabad: Memories of a World Gone By is an interesting autobiography. Narrated in a homely but candid style, the tale in effect encompasses two worlds – the world of its teller’s native homeland Hyderabad Deccan and that of her adopted one, Pakistan. Bilquis Jehan Khan comes of a feudal Muslim family of the state of Deccan with age-long connections with royalty. The graphic detail of the socio-cultural life of the fading days of India’s wealthiest princely state, including its court life, are quite engaging, and instructive too. The city of Hyderabad was founded in 1591 by Muhammad Quli of the Qutub Shah dynasty. The Moghul emperor Aurangzeb conquered the city in the early 18th century through his lieutenant Mir Qamaruddin Siddiqui who acted as Viceroy of the Deccan under the title Asif Jah and was later granted the title of Nizam-ul-Mulk. With the collapse of the Moghul empire Asif Jah was able to retain the control of Hyderabad. Subsequently he and his descen-
dants ruled Hyderabad for seven generations from 1724 to 1948 when it was annexed by India as a result of the infamous Police Action. The story of the author starts at the time of the seventh and last Nizam, Mir Usman Ali Khan who reigned over the state for 37 years from 1911 to 1948. The first 23 chapters, short but crisp, depict the author’s life in Hyderabad, her genealogy, childhood, adolescence, social interaction, education and training, family traditions, customs and social practices, marriage and migration from Hyderabad. In .the remaining 15 chapters of the book, the scene is shifted to Pakistan, her adoptive home. Photographs add to the book’s illustrative value. The narrator’s life as mirrored in this account is a mix of modernity and religion. It is ‘described with candour, and an abiding love for the world she left behind and the new world she grew to love’. Some of the anecdotes related in the book seem to touch upon the realm of the occult bearing on what has been described as ‘the Sufi teachings of herpir and her father’. The author has also mentioned the American luminaries John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Henry Kissinger apart from some Pakistani and
Title: A Song of Hyderabad -- Memories of a World Gone By Author: Bilquis Jehan Khan Published by: Oxford University Press, Karachi Pages: 290 Price: Rs.795/-
other dignitaries in different contexts forming, as it were, the logical sequence of the book. The book is a good addition to the biographical literature of the sub-continent in the English language. It is spicy, readable and informative.
Mabain: A ‘New’ Novel! The philosophy of evolution forms a natural backdrop to the novel
Z Title: Mabain Author: Zia Hussain Zia Publishers: Paragon Book Foundation, Lahore/Faisalabad/Karachi Pages: 364 Price: Rs400/-
ia Hussain Zia is a multifaceted literary talent. He is a scholar of Urdu, Arabic, Persian and Islamic Studies besides being widely read and groomed in philosophy, mysticism, ethics and theoretical dialectics. He is a poet, a fiction writer and an orator who can enthrall an audience by his oratory. The pre-fix ‘Allama’ to his name reflects his interest and proficiency in mysticism, humanities, metaphysics and theology. A prolific writer, he has authored some 12 books on a
diverse variety of subjects. The present one is a novel (published in the year 2006), portraying the familiar spiritual theme of man’s ‘fall’ on earth and his life ‘here’ and ‘hereafter’. The philosophy of evolution forms a natural backdrop to the novel. Characters (Mirza Ghalib, Allama Iqbal, Maulana Rumi, Mohyuddin Ibn-e-Arabi and Mulla Sadra) are imagined to be involved in dialogues on transcendental subjects like creativity, free will and volition. The grandeur of man (azmat-einsan) in the divine scheme of
things is delineated in the context of an uncanny ‘egotistical sublime’. It is a delicate yet intricate subject. Its treatment by the author tends to transform the novel into a philosophical discourse on the metaphysics of existence. Prima facie its prototype (not facsimile!) in Urdu fiction exists in Maulana Abdul Halim Shahrar’s Firdaus-e-BareeN. The author seems to have a tenuous hold on the plot of the novel which is likely to be of more interest to academics than the lay readers of fiction. –Syed Afsar Sajid
Desperately docile From title page
Both these great men, Iqbal in his poetry and Chughtai in his paintings advocated peace and harmony tion has to be made of ‘Will and Power’ and of the ‘Voice of the Virtue’. Pakistan today is alive to the art scene and there is no dearth of budding artists. An exhibition like this is a ‘must see’ for those who are serious artists as there are innumerable lessons to be learnt. The pencil drawings are in themselves not only a delight but a treasure that could provide inspiration for the serious stu-
dent of art. Art Galleries have cropped up in all cities of Pakistan, which is great, but there should also be a defining area which can differentiate between the masters and the rest who can be sub-divided into many categories. It is only when one is exposed to the masters that the ability to discriminate is strengthened and that comes with constant exposure over a period of time.
Clearly we cannot expect transformative leadership from the landed elite. Business leaders of Pakistan, post 1947, have been largely ‘robber barons’. Most groups in the country have ‘made’ it on the back of protection, special dispensations and state subsidies if they have functioned on the legal side, and outright fraud and robbery if they have not. Though many business leaders have deluded themselves into thinking they are the real benefactors of Pakistan: some of these leaders shout the loudest when Iqbal Bano sings ‘hum dekhein gae’. The intellectual elite, most of it on display on talk shows almost every day, does not seem to have any connection with or following in the people of the country, and not many ideas as well. Even the serious public intellectuals seem to have been slotted (religious/secular, pro-west or anti-west) and the debate in the country is very fragmented and gives the look of many monologues rather than dialogues: a confederacy of solitudes. There are no budding grass root movements
that seem to be coming up. So how is the anger and frustration going to get channeled? But if is not, it could lead to major and serious consequences for the country. The already large and still increasing divide between have and have-nots, in all spheres, if not managed, will drive Pakistan towards the path to chaos. A few years ago, it was the reign of dictator Musharraf and his Q League henchmen, we worked on a strategy for developing a social protection framework for the country. We had an Argentinian born British expert working with us on the project. It was his first visit to Pakistan. After he had been in Islamabad for some days I asked him how he would compare Pakistan to Argentina. At the time I was, and still am, very concerned about the rate at which inequality seemed to be climbing in Pakistan. But his answer caught me completely by surprise. He said: “Why are people so obsequious in Pakistan? The doorman at the Marriott has to open doors, sure that is his duty, but why does he behave as if he is not a person and is nothing in front of me?” I had not thought of Pakistan that way. He went on to say that inequality
was high in Argentina as well. But people were more organized, and protested more. And more importantly, people knew this was wrong and they did not hesitate to tell that to the rich and the powerful. Will the lack of organization, the repression and decimation done by the martial law regime, the collusion amongst the elites and their comfort with the status quo be able to keep a lid on the anger and frustration that the larger population of the country feel? But if change is going to happen, how is the organization going to happen and where is the leadership going to come from? And if not, can the status quo continue? Can the obsequiousness that Pakistanis have been exhibiting, apart from situations where crowds gather and behave as crowds do anywhere, keep the frustration from boiling over? The future is always hard to predict, but given where we are and despite the obstacles, too many options lead down roads that are going to be quite violent. Given the time the elite have had and their refusal to change and opt for a fairer society, they have no reason to complain: they have had it too good for too long.
the review
Sunday, 30 January, 2011
04
All was quiet. No birdsong leapt out of the thickets, no breeze soughed through the branches and with a few kilometres between us and the main road there was also no sound of traffic
House amid the Pines By Salman Rashid
O
ut there in Islamabad, my friend Shahid Nadeem is a bit of an Indiana Jones for uncovering strange and unknown places. Be it a fort tucked away in a remote corner of the Potohar region or a pretty haveli in another or a forgotten well and ruins that date back to the beginning of the Christian era and which no one had ever noticed before, Shahid has a nose for them all. When he called to tell me of the rest house amid the pines ‘only an hour’s drive out of Islamabad’, I could not resist. There were, in fact, two of them not very far from each other, he said. And so we drove out of Islamabad on the road to Kotli Sattian. Past the village of Lehtrar, the vibrant green of sanatha bushes gave way to the duller shade of the chir pines and soon we were all but engulfed by these lofty trees. With Kotli Sattian yet ten kilometres away, a sign by the roadside pointed to our right for the tomb of Tikka Sarkar who, the sign told us, was also known as Kamra Sharif. We took the dogleg to the right and drove up the incline en
route to Tikka Sarkar (whoever he was). Through a non-descript little village and then Shahid pointed out a small hut on our left as one of the outhouses of the rest house. Nearly twenty years ago while holidaying over the Christmas season in the Soon Valley; we had spent a couple of freezing evenings in just such an outhouse because the main rest house was too damp. Our Scottish friend Don Munro (Och aye, as Scottish as they can come!) said the hut reminded him of bothies in his native Highlands. We huddled around a cheery fire in the middle of the floor swapping ghost tales. And the spirits uplifted our spirits. This one, I knew, would be identical. We parked under the magnificent pines and below us, in a clearing; there stood the Danoi Rest House with its scarlet tin roof sharply offsetting the deep blue sky and the deeper green of the pristine forest. That was enough to forget the outhouse. And all was quiet. No birdsong leapt out of the thickets, no breeze soughed through the branches and with a few kilometres between us and the main road there was also no sound of traffic. This was the kind of silence that Chief Seattle of the Suquamish Red People meant in which you could hear ‘the unfurling of leaves.’ The cypress-lined stairway with its whitewash blackened by rainwater led to the garden and the rest house. Young Shiraz who minds the premises for the Forest Department laid out chairs and a table. I asked why there were no birds singing and he cocked his head, raised a finger and said, ‘There, you can hear them now.’ It was almost as if the raised finger was a switch because unseen birds were indeed nattering away in the
forest. Who knows if Shiraz, actually able to commune with them, had willed them into it so that we may not go away disappointed. A large sign in Urdu in the veranda said that the Danoi Forest Rest House was built in 1928 and was situated at 1438 metres above the sea. Like all rest houses of that bygone age, it had a pillared veranda with two bedrooms and a dining room. On the far side of the veranda was a sun room behind which there was an annex. A sign by the annex door ominously announced that this building (a single bedroom and bathroom) could not be used by anyone. So why build it at all then, I asked. It turned out that this was meant only for the most high in the Forest Department. The Visitors’ Book was brought out – and that made the highlight of the outing. The edges of its covers and inside pages were serrated, the straight edges having made for termite meals. The paper was almost brittle and the binding all but undone but it was perfectly legible. The top of each page recorded that the ledger was printed at Lahore by the Civil and Military Gazette. We who grew up in the Lahore of nearly 50 years ago remember the yellow-washed double-storeyed CMG Building where the unattractive Panorama Centre now stands on the Mall. I have seen government forms with the year either of their invention or of printing in one corner, but precision was perhaps the hallmark of those glory days of the Raj for the date of printing of this particular document was 15-7-1916. That was exactly forty-three days before my father was born! The first five entries are in the same rather careless hand and with the same pen. The first one
is dated in October 1928 when a Mr and Mrs whose name appears to be either Samber or Sambar stayed here for a full week. In April and May the following year Mr and Mrs Bloscheck spent several days here. The men were from the Forest Department and according to the book were travelling on duty. One can imagine them to be young and newly married to have brought their brides out to a sort of a repeat honeymoon. The Visitors’ Book was apparently introduced in April 1929 when the first entries were made. Early in November 1944, Stainton, DC Rawalpindi, spent four days here and then silence descended upon the rest house of Danoi. For a full 14 years it appears to have slumbered undiscovered until August 1958 when a ‘C. F. R.Pindi’ (probably Conservator Forests) favoured it with a six-day visit. The page being partially damaged all that remains of the name is ‘Khan.’ From 1959 onwards there is a regular procession of the high and mighty and the not so high and mighty fetching up at Danoi Forest Rest House. That was evidently the year the black top, or at least a jeep-able, road was first pushed through this far. Save for mid-winter no month went without visitors and the entries are many and varied. Some of them give insight into their author’s minds. In June 1973 the Assistant Commissioner, Kahuta stayed here overnight. Below his entry he wrote, in brackets, ‘One glass broken.’ S.A. Basir of the Provincial Civil Service was evidently a man of some rectitude to have left behind this little notice of a moment of carelessness. For July 1989 there is an entry recording the visit of the DC Rawalpindi.
Pictures by the Author
At altitudes below 1000 metres, the hills were richly draped with sanatha and higher on it was chir pine; all along the forest was so thick and unspoiled it almost seemed like primary forest to me
Under the column, ‘Whether permission has been obtained to occupy the bungalow. If not the reason should be given’ it says ‘Not Required.’ For added emphasis this particular notation is in block capitals. It is almost like the sahib irately snapping, ‘Don’t you bloody know who I am?’ the entry is singed ‘Sibtain Fazle Haleem’. What little I know of him, I would have thought the man would do better than that. But can we forgive him? With only 15 years of service behind him at the time, could he have succumbed to a moment of callowness? Or was it simply a bad day for him? But 15 years in the service is enough to mellow. Surely a better man would have had something else to write. The star of all the entries is one made by a pair on Independence Day 1997. Visitors ‘Baber Ali & Reema!’ (their exclamation mark) wrote under the designation and address column ‘Shining stars of film industry.’ Talk about big heads and beating one’s own drum! There follows in very basic English a song and dance about ‘seeds of suspicion in others’ brain.’ A ‘sole (corrected to soul) inspirating’ lecture by a gentleman whose name follows this entry is supposed to have prevented the ‘flowering of these seeds.’ The inscription ends with a confession of love between the two. So whatever
became of this love story? Shahid Nadeem had hoped to go walking on the high ridge behind the rest house, but we had dallied so long on the Visitors’ Book that there was not time enough now. We sat in the lawn and savoured the mellow sunshine until it was time to turn homeward again. Postscript: I gripe about so many things being wrong with this country. But the drive up from Islamabad gave reason to rejoice. At altitudes below 1000 metres, the hills were richly draped with sanatha and higher on it was chir pine. All along the forest was so thick and unspoiled it almost seemed like primary forest to me – something I have only seen in Palas valley in Indus Kohistan. Mountain folks have that nasty habit of pruning pine trees for fuel leaving a once beautiful tree with only a swab on top. I call these trees Pinus toilet brushicus because that is what they look like: ugly. But not here. Somewhere someone is still working in the Forest Department and they need to be applauded – not only for the forest but also for the first-class rest house they keep. –Salman Rashid is a travel writer and photographer who has travelled all around Pakistan and written about his journeys. He is rated as the best in the country.