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Riding the
Iron Chicken Bus
 Author:
Luke Brown
Posted: May 5, 2003
I dread travelling on buses, particularly in the third world. They
invariably stop all the times you don't need them to and never when
you do. To make matters worse, many buses don't have toilets on
them, rest stops seemingly don't have toilets, even though at times
the ones they choose resemble a toilet. So when anything comes along
to bring a little variety to a bus trip, one should presumably be
grateful, even though this anything is often just grating.
Everyone seems to be in a rush on the roads of Pakistan, when they
actually get going that is. To get to this stage one must endure
many moments of false hope. For example, there is the hope that
the perfume seller who has hopped aboard at the bus station in Lahore
and who is rattling away his sales pitch about the "Paris"
perfume he's holding in his hand will be the only one on the trip.
Or the seller of various colours of cloths that you have stopped
on the side of the road for, will be dropped off very shortly, no-one
taking his place to sell you drinks and food, all the way to Multan,
six hours south.
Once you are actually travelling on the open road though, the driver
must make up for lost time. To do this he has a handy weapon at
his disposal: the hooter-box combo. Above, and to his right, on
the inner frame of the bus, can usually be found a small metal panel
with black buttons. Each button denotes a particular kind of hooter
sound. The monotonous blaaaah is the most forceful sound at his
disposal, followed by the wah-wah-wah, wah-wee-wah and the trusty
old standard wah-wee-wah-wee. While to the untrained ear a wah-wee-wah-wee
is just a wah-wee-wah-wee, to the driver, ten minutes of no wah-wee-wah-wee
would be, for an Australian, like a test cricket match between Australia
and England without England losing; life has become warped, empty
and unrecognisable.
Any person in his way,
about to be in the way, perhaps thinking that he may step in the
way at some point, or just walking along humming a tune sounding
remotely like I'll do it my way, is reminded by the driver that
while he might dare to act contrary to the driver's wishes, he will
not go unnoticed, whether he be a small kid on a bike, a pedestrian
or an express bus; this principle being applied by every driver
out on the road.
My particular bus had some saving graces: air-conditioning and entertainment.
And besides, it advertised itself as "The Choice of Noble Personalities."
(It also stated on the ticket that it was "Faster and Safe
Travelling" - although this had been crossed out for some reason.)
The entertainment in
this case was an overly-lit movie on a television up the front.
It didn't take much of an educated guess to realise it was an Indian
movie. While a bit of flesh can be seen on advertisments in English-language
Pakistani media, exposed mid-riffs and, at times rather exotic dancing,
could not possibly make it a homegrown effort. In this particular
movie our hero was having tough time, having to choose between not
only one gorgeous Indian woman, but two, with enough time and energy
to break into a dance routine when love inevitably slapped him in
the face; whilst an ordinary man such as myself would have been
lying prostrate on the couch, drowning my sorrows over a beer and
reading an article in a men's magazine about how men don't really
need chicks for all that much. Luckily, for our hero, he got the
good girl in the end and saw the bad girl for what she was. By the
time I arrived in Multan, I just got a sore back, two bruised knees
and little prospects of some tender loving care by any girl, let
alone a gorgeous one.
Multan is said to be the oldest surviving city on the subcontinent,
dating back about 4,000 years, not that it is that apparent without
the use of tourist literature. More overt is the enormous influence
that holy men and their followers have had on the city; Multan is
grave-city, but with a smile. Before Muslims became the dominant
residents in the area (the city was captured by the commander Mohammed
bin Qasim in 711) Hindu shrines were the main religious attraction.
Now it is a haven for Muslim pilgrims, particularly the mystically-inclined
Sufis who stream in from all quarters to enthusiastically and emotionally
seek out the resting places of their dead saints. There is one saint,
Shams Tabrez, who it is said brought the sun closer to himself,
making Multan one of the hottest places around in Pakistan. Gee,
thanks.
I made my way the next morning through the town, passing an array
of motor repair shops, spare part shops and some pretty swanky car
dealerships, before approaching a prominent hill, the top of which
houses Qasim Bagh Fort (now mostly in ruins), a mosque, a number
of shrines and a sports stadium. I was joined by a steady stream
of men on their way up the hill to Friday lunchtime prayers, the
intense heat taking up the rear. I stopped at the entrance to the
fort on the hill for a rest. Thankfully a cool breeze provided a
brief interlude, also bringing out a plethora of beggars who congregate
in the vicinity. As I sat on the roadside curb, wiping away the
dust swirling in my face, and pretending not to notice the presence
of a faceless woman tugging on my shirt, an old man shuffling around
nearby, clad in a green shalwar qamiz, motioned me over.
To his right he indicated a rope and wood-framed mattress under
the shade of an undernourished tree. Next to it were a few others
tied to the tree. He indicated that I should sit on the mattress.
As I took my place and took a sip of water, he nodded reassuringly,
and then sat down next to me, facing the edge of a hill running
down to some ramshackled buildings in the valley below.
As far as I could see
there were more of these buildings, interrupted by dirty streets
cluttered with makeshift stands selling fruit and newspapers. To
my left I could see the bazaar area, a dilapidated mosque and a
tall clock tower that had ceased working, framed by a large billboard
advertising happy people during a happy moment.
As the old man, greying
hair tucked under a once brightly decorated scarf, pottered out
to scrape a square in the dusty ground, more men walked swiftly
up the road to the summit of the hill, disappearing underneath the
arch of the tall gateway; motorbikes and cars followed, weaving
in between the human traffic. What seemed to be a public announcement
rang out across the city centre, initally competing with the call
to prayer emanating from several mosques, then slowly being subsumed.
The old man exchanged
some words with a pair of tatty men emerging from their makeshift
brick, scrap and dust homes, that hung onto the sides of a brick
wall ringing the circumference of the hill, then returned to the
bed and sat there with his back to me, staring into the ground.
As emotions rose, echoing across the valley from minarets and loudspeakers,
he lay down and rested his head on a large knot in the tree. Out
of the corner of my eye I watched vagrants wandering aimlessly up
and down the hill, unperturbed by what was unfolding across the
mosques all around us. From time to time I glanced at the old man,
but he didn't seem to notice. Fingers twitching, feet still, he
continued to stare into the ground. I hunched my shoulders down
and looked ahead, for what I do not know, any movement on my part
causing the mattress to creak. And there we stayed for nearly two
hours, not saying a word, letting the sermons drift around and over
us, deep in our thoughts; waiting.
Author: Luke Brown
Email: editor@polosbastards.com
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