A Sudden Trip to Pakistan: On The Road In Lahore, With A Digicam

[The author traveled to Pakistan in September, 2006]

Life by the Canal

A canal was gushing forth on the right side of the window seat. Flowing between two parallel highways, it remained a constant companion. The Daewoo van had left Wagah - the international border separating India from Pakistan - and was now speeding towards Lahore, some twenty miles away.

Grassy patches sloped down to the banks, which were occasionally being lapped over by a sudden violence of the frothing mud-colored water of the canal. Tall trees on either side formed a comforting canopy over its length.

A variety of haiku moments flashed past the air-conditioned window: buffaloes swimming in the waters; a green-turbaned Mullah lying on the grass and reading a book; bare-chested young boys splashing water on each other, their shalwars ballooned with water; fully dressed women blushing, laughing and taking quick cold water dips in the canal; a family silently feasting on a picnic lunch, with men and women sitting in separate groups; a young man and woman whispering under a tree; a lone man throwing pebbles in the water; two woman holding hands and sitting quietly; a middle-aged man resting against a tree trunk; a pair of boys washing a bicycle...

Soon these enchanting scenes started to disappear and finally vanished completely. The fallen tree leaves, languidly floating on the water, gave way to polybags and tin cans. Lahore was approaching.

The Shining Lahore

Imagining Lahore brings a medieval skyline of minarets and fort ramparts to the mind. The Lahore of imagination happens to be real. The stony monuments, the Mughal gardens, and old world mansions appeared to be air-dropped after every few yards. But there were large parts in the city where the old was interrupted at regular intervals by slick twenty-first century bazaars, glittering with glass-paneled showrooms and neon-lit malls. Sky-kissing skyscrapers, decked with billboards displaying bare-bodies of white men, but no naked women, distracted the drivers.

In one instance, the car disappeared under a newly-made underpass, apparently the pride of Lahore, for it was inaugurated by no less than General Pervez Musharraf himself, and emerged out into an empty square that had a sleekly-built mosque shooting up at one side.

Pakistan being a showy Islamic republic, it was inevitable to pass by institutions so Islamic-named like the Saudi-Pak Commercial Bank and eateries so grandly-named like Mughal-e-Azam, perhaps the latter promised its prospective diners a gastronomic experience not dissimilar to what was once lived by the Mughal nobles in the long-gone, mythical days of Muslim rule in the subcontinent.

It was pleasing to drive on the smooth highways through the leafy districts of the city. The car window was open and the wind ruffled through the hair. The highways were skirted by spacious bungalows that had long graveled driveways and whose compounds were partially hidden from view by thick neighborhood of trees. These houses had huge entrance gates of iron guarded by thin men in dusty shalwar kameeze, with Kalashnikov-type guns slung around their shoulders.

Alas, the drive failed to quicken the pulse that a simple walk in one of the congested streets in the old town easily managed to produce. The upper-class, antiseptic zones of Lahore, like the Gulberg district where we stayed, undoubtedly made the city comfortable and at harmony with the rest of the privileged world, but they failed to capture the magic of the place.

Trust the Clichés

It is advised, often by well-meaning Pakistanis sensitive of their country's reputation, that Pakistan is different from its popular impression as a conservative Muslim nation populated with bearded mullahs, burqa-clad ladies and skull-capped, Koran-mugging young boys. This subtle convincing insists that Pakistan is a normal, modern society with beardless men in trousers openly interacting with drape-less women.

A drive on the road is a swift way to verify the claims. Yes, Pakistan is indeed a 'normal' nation with 'normally' dressed people, but it is also an assertive Islamic nation. The Muslims identity displays itself loudly - only a visually challenged person could fail to notice the abundance of bearded, mustache-missing men wearing ankle length shalwars, all in accordance with the strict Islamic codes. Only a turned-down head could skip seeing chador-clad women.

The truth is that Lahore without skull caps would look as bald as a kite-less sky would during the great spring festival of Basant when Pakistanis from different parts of the country gather here to take part in the kite flying fiesta.

Lesson of the tale: Clichés are always true, though exceptions too must be considered a part of the complete truth.

Feminism - Lahori Style

Women are second rate citizens in Pakistan. Perhaps. There was not sufficient time for an intensive investigation to pass a sweeping judgment. However, if driving is the criteria to understand the extent of female emancipation, than Lahore must be one of the most liberal cities in the world.

Every second car was being driven by women - with or without the veil, mostly without the veil. Every second car being driven by women had only women passengers. There was no companion, no male relative as an escort. Every third car being driven by women offered an unsettling sight of maneuvering the steering wheel while trying to smoke and speak on mobile phones at the same time.

Sometimes there were eye-popping visions of twenty-first century overtaking the fourteenth - a cleavage-showing sizzler of a driver whooshing past a car driven by a black tent that had netted cloth in place of the eyes. How was the lady living inside that tent able to see while driving? Was everything left to the will of Allah the Merciful? And what exactly did she think about that Paris Hilton look-alike who just drove past her? We do not know her answers but they sure must be interesting.

Indefensible 'Defense'

We drove though the 'Defense' in the midnight hours. Defense, as proudly declared by Lahoris, is the hippest, most modern, and the richest district of the city. What was not mentioned was that Defense is a scam initiated, organized and institutionalized by the Pakistan Army.

Its full name being Defense Housing Society, the concept was developed in all the major cities. It was mischievously devised to integrate the country's armed forces with the wealthy establishment, though its purported aim remains to provide charity to the poor soldiers.

In this scheme, the soldiers are awarded lands at low costs to build houses. But here the hypocrisy cracks in: the concerned lands always happen to be the most valuable real estate. Since soldiers are too poor to build large houses on these 'cheap' plots, there follow a series of contracts and processes, too complicated to elaborate here, which finally ends up in the rich and the influential constructing their mansions in these prized plots which, at least on paper, remains the property of those soldiers.

So, cities like Lahore and Karachi have their highly desirable development zones allotted to the army in the name of philanthropy and the army in turn makes profit by setting a nexus with the moneyed.

Losers are of course the rest of the Pakistanis!

But was the Defense joy-ride fun? The road was certainly smooth. The traffic was quite heavy, considering it was past midnight, and the revelers were young and happening, but there was nothing hip about the place, unless you count driving into McDonald's and Subway outlets as the most exciting and snobbish acts of the day.

Burger Buying in Lahore

Perhaps Defense is coveted because of its greenery and its association with the Pakistan Army - the source of all power and glory - but give us smelly, dusty, lively, decaying old Lahore anytime than this hyped-up pretension of a military man's paradise!

Lahore as Allah's Blessing

It is believed to have been said by somebody that if you haven't been to Lahore, you haven't seen the world yet. (Lahore nahin dekha tou kuch nahin dekha.)

Let us assume that Allah has given you an opportunity to visit the city - but only for twelve hours, and that too during the day time, which actually must be considered heartless on the part of Allah the Compassionate since the city comes into its own only during the night time.

Now, how to make the most out of the boon?

The celebrated food street in the Anarkali Bazaar, named after a Mughal-era courtesan, opens only after dusk. The red light district of Heera Mandi displays its wares to window shoppers only under the shadow of darkness. Since everything has to be wrapped up straight in twelve hours, there is no point in visiting Lahore museum, the largest in Pakistan, which demands at least three hours for a satisfactory stroll. So what to do?

Do not lose heart. Just drive by the celebrated Mall Road built during the British Raj and once reserved exclusively for their use. It is the most important cultural stretch of highway slicing through Pakistan which would carry you past all the romantic ruins of the colonial times - the imposing High Court complex, the Irrigation Department building (don't judge by its name), the newly restored Tollinton market, the Punjab University building, and the stone-built Catholic Church.

While passing by the Islamic Summit Tower, built to commemorate the Islamic Conference held in 1974, do not fail to look at the stone model of Koran. Queen Victoria used to stand there.

The Mall Road cruise would be short but a memorable drive through the stone yards of history - charming, spruced up and bleached off the bitter memories of the British builders, all for your pleasure.

A Mall Snapshot

Is Pakistan Really Poor

Zooming on the slippery-smooth Lahore avenues made a Delhi person like me miss the traffic-light beggars and their street-smart street children. There seemed to be no population of the wretchedly poor inhabiting the city. There were no slums. There were no homeless people living under plastic sheet awnings. There were no living skeletons scavenging rotten food from the garbage dumps. There were no drug addicts in the dark alleys snorting hashish and cocaine. There were no transvestite sex workers soliciting truck drivers. It was so unlike Delhi. There were not even cows to be seen!

But of course, the holy cows must have been all eaten up by the beef-eating citizens of this holy land.

Allah is great. Drive safely.