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India
to Pakistan: Gateway to Paradise
 Author:
Luke Brown
Posted: April 17, 2003
The sun filtered through
the trees as they swayed alongside the roadside, a gentle breeze
cooling my sweaty brow as I bobbed on the back of the tuk-tuk as
it made its way out of the bustling sprawl of Amritsar, India, and
onto Wagah, the eastern entry point into the Islamic Republic of
Pakistan. With the sound of blaring car horns receding behind me
and being replaced by that of a worker on the side of the road hammering
a ditch, a family walking side by side talking about their children's
day at school, and the call of birds across the glowing wheat fields,
I was able to reflect on my trip that I had begun a couple of days
earlier, the joys of new experiences, sounds and people, culture,
food. And all the endless possibilities it can bring....of making
one fall ill.
The romance died on me
upon arriving in Delhi a couple of days earlier and finding out
I'd have to stay at least a day in that city with no hotel bookings,
and that the bus I wished to take as soon as possible to Lahore,
Pakistan, was no longer running. Some may say it came about because
of bad planning, and so shall I. Originally I was only supposed
to be in Delhi at the end of my trip but a mix-up with my Iranian
visa invitation meant that a flight into Tehran was not to be. Instead
a late arrival into Delhi airport, followed by a ridiculous search
for a cheap hotel, unsuccessful thanks to the aforementioned lack
of hotel bookings as well as the remarkable efficiency of the average
Indian tourist agency employee to weave a web perfectly suited to
an admittedly slow starter on trips such as myself. And then it
was the not too small matter of negotiating the monstrosity that
is Delhi for half a day whilst waiting for a train going to Amritsar
and hopefully across the border into Pakistan, continuing tensions
between the governments of India and Pakistan permitting; pre-emptive
strikes are the latest thing in rhetorical currency it seems.
Delhi can best be described
as Saigon, but with cars; meaning crowded, hot, noisy and pushy.
The (Hindu) Birla Temple was pleasant once you got inside, but one
had to leave sometime and avoiding the postcard sellers was not
a possibility. The same went for Humayun's Tomb, where friendly
locals appear, to later slap you with a price for their company.
My driver for the day even got in on the act at the end, urging
me strongly to visit some craft stores, disappointed I didn't purchase
anything as he would have got commission if I had done so. It was
excruciating knowing that the elaborate presentations laid out before
me by earnest sellers were for nought; cruel perhaps. One got the
sense that tourists were expected to purchase because most of those
in India were worse off financially, not because one wanted the
wares.
I crossed the Pakistan
border after an uneventful evening in Amritsar, signing a registration
book whilst seated amongst the very relaxed border officials under
the arch of an imposing gate. Customs lived up to expectations with
an onerous search through my bags followed by a sit down and chat,
with an enquiry into how much money I had a moment before just changed
with a hanger-on moneychanger, my interlocutor dressed in the local
shalwar qamiz, a long shirt with long pants made out of lightweight
material (PJs for the day time). A cup of hot milky tea promptly
arrived and the baksheesh (a service fee of sorts) process had begun.
As my new friend looked over 200 rupees (US$3.50) in his hand, we
chatted about Pakistan, how this newly formed friendship of ours
would benefit him and me ("Don't trust anyone" was one
line of advice) and the art form of batting that Australia's Michael
Bevan brought to the world of cricket and the world in general.
Once I had agreed to take a taxi with another hanger-on, my customs
formalities were complete.
The road to Lahore was
not unlike that of any in India I had seen, with the exceptions
of more shalwar qamiz's, more beards on men, more orange in men's
hair, more handholding between men than on your average street in
Sydney's Oxford Street or San Francisco's Castro district (it's
a sign of friendship they say - but being too friendly may get a
local in legal trouble), as well as veil coverings on women.
Lahore itself is a dusty,
crowded, traffic-heavy city, with mosques in place of temples, calls
to Allah circling the air several times a day, and multitudes of
small alleyways, markets, street vendors and electronics shops calling
you in. And most people are cool in their own particular way. That
is to say that a smile or a handshake is not too far way and a stare
is infrequent. Nothing, at least so far, is required upon a conversation
being initiated, save a one-way conversation with a street kid with
hands oustretched, or a man I encountered leaving Bagh-i-Jinnah
(Lawrence Gardens) with beads around his neck who monologued incessantly
for a couple of minutes, perhaps about the war in Iraq, or maybe
it was just the dire state of my shirt, with dirt and leaves still
embedded on it after a nap on the lawn in the gardens. The tuk-tuk
drivers don't seem to have lapsed in their International Brotherhood
of Tuk-Tuk Drivers' membership fees, the only exception here occasionally
being their bargaining tactics, starting low and going higher.
It's only April and the
climate is already close to sweltering, real put-your-feet-in-a-cold-bucket-of-water
weather; forget Jenny Craig, this is the programme to sign up to.
The optimum plan currently seems to be to get up early and explore,
siesta during the worst of it and then get back out again when only
a quarter of your shirt gets sopping as opposed to half of it; however,
I'm not very good with plans. Night time is mildly better, although
heat from the food stands frying dinner sucks you in; heat never
smelt better.
I got a tour of sorts of the city thanks to the owner of my hotel
and an acquaintance of his who runs a Communications College and
who is currently hosting a few Swedes, a couple as guest teachers
and one who is researching Pakistan's poetry scene, a Swedish translation
of a poet from Multan, a town south of Lahore, on the way. They
were shooting a documentary on Lahore and I managed to tag along.
We started off with the site of an old destroyed Hindu temple, my
attention in the end more occupied by a flock of kids wanting their
photos taken over and over. Seven in a small car (the police not
seeming to mind), we made our way through slightly more subdued
streets thanks to it being a Sunday (the official day off), past
cricket matches in alleyways and groups of men in orange dress carrying
drums along the street, looking to be hired and who, I was told,
sleep in graveyards at night. We went on to Jehangir's Mausoleum,
the intricately designed sandstone mausoleum of the son of the great
Moghul Emperor Akbar, Jehangir, where folk come to pay their respects.
The tomb itself is within a larger walled fort-like structure, its
walls replete with flowery wallpaper, except on rock.
Back in Central Lahore is the Old City, about one square kilometre
in area, and a hundred-fold ways to get lost in. It is an aged miniature
of Lahore, with streets barely wide enough to swing its stray cats
in. Tucked into an apartment-dumped-onto-an-apartment building on
the first floor we visited a weddings-funerals-anything brass, woodwind
and drum band (they are quite famous in Lahore), which put on a
small show for us and the DV-camera, sounding like a cross between
a marching brass band and a New Orleans funeral band.
Just outside the Old City is the imposing Badshahi Mosque (it can
hold 60,000 people) with huge walls and gateways, plus four minarets.
On Sundays, in the garden, poetry competitions are held, apparently
the more cerebral and religious equivalent of a hip-hop competition
without the bad fashion, with Allah being praised instead. We however
got what seemed the warm-up part of it, two guys seated, singing
off each other, followed by an old man who waffled a bit too much,
judging by the diminishing crowd. Inside the actual mosque we passed
on a historical and religious tour and instead were shown by a young
Pakistani guy the weird acoustics of the mosque where you could
stand in one corner and be spoken to from another corner, or by
standing in one particular spot hear a voice from above which was
actually spoken from a couple of metres in front; an aural hall
of mirrors of sorts.
In the Old City, and right near the Badsahi Mosque, is an area called
Heera Mandi, work and home to some of Lahore's prostitutes. Up several
flights of stairs on a building opposite the mosque is a rooftop
restaurant called Cooco's Den, owned by the 52-year old artist,
Iqbal Hussein, who the documentary team had come to interview after
a spot of dinner overlooking the mosque that is lit up at night.
Iqbal is the son of a prostitute and for a lot of his life was a
fixture in the area, living a life of crime, thuggery and despair.
But then one day love came into his life and his life changed. What
is interesting about his story is that it was the love life of a
friend that turned a hoodlum with artistic talent, who had a knack
of being able to draw accurate pictures of movie stars, into a famous
oil-painter. Coming from a poor background with all its stigma,
his friend had at the same time fortunately and unfortunately fallen
in love with a girl from the right side of the tracks. The unfortunate
part of it is obvious. Fortune however shone down upon him in the
form of Iqbal. The girl in question went to art school. Iqbal's
friend, in order to see her there, needed an excuse. And so he persuaded
Iqbal to sign up at the school, which he did. Iqbal, later, thanks
to the patronage of a dedicated fan who saw in his paintings of
the lives of prostitutes his obvious talent and passion for his
community, never looked back. Romance isn't dead.
Author: Luke Brown
Email: editor@polosbastards.com
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