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Peshawar – Permit to Afghanistan

June 6, 2006 Bodyguards of Afghan consulate in Peshawar Three years ago, July 17, 2003 exactly, I was applying for the permit to pass thru Khyber Pass to go to Afghanistan. This is one of the essential procedure for foreigners to get to Afghanistan by land ‘legally’, as those areas bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan are all tribal controlled areas. I was with my travel companion, Adam from England, in the Home Department Office to apply for the permit for both of us. The Home Department didnt allow anybody to bring camera inside the office. I guessed maybe because that the office was too filthy. At the third floor we saw that the floor was flooded by water, leaking from cooler machine apparently. The rooms were all dark, with water on the floor, thousands of papers every here and there, … But something more embarassing about the office that we experienced. First we were directed to go to the third floor where we were supposed to get the form. The old man in charge, in white dress, white cap, and white beard, first interviewed us. First he emphasized, “You know, in this office, my signature is the most important signature. Without [...]

June 6, 2006 // 3 Comments

Umerkot – A Hindu Family in Umerkot

May 20, 2006 Parkash enjoying morning tea I know Om Parkash from my Malaysian friend, Lam Li. They met for the first time in World Social Forum in Karachi. Om told Lam to come to Umerkot, as it’s a special place in Pakistan, where most of the population are Hindus instead of Muslims and has desert culture. Lam Li couldnt go to Umerkot due to her visa problem, so I ‘replaced’ her instead. When I came to Umerkot, it was around 12 pm on May 8, 2006. I was completely exhausted. When I arrived in Parkash’s office, he was not there. He is working in Sami Samaj Sujag Sangat, a local NGO, and he was out to the ‘field’ so I waited him. I was completely exhausted, that I suspect my hepatitis A came back again. When at last Parkash came I was sleeping on the desk of the director’s room, with my saliva everywhere on the desk. I felt embarassed. He took me immediately to his house. His house is big, there are 52 people living there. The interior resembles a hotel with many rooms in rows surrounding a square ground. Family full of laughters Later I found that [...]

May 20, 2006 // 0 Comments

Bahawalpur – The Christian Community

May 7, 2006 Father Nadeem Joseph That morning, 28 October 2001, just few minutes before 9, the Christian Protestant devotees were just finishing their weekly mass. The church was a Catholic curch, St Dominic Church, in the Model Town area, a well-to-do area in Bahawalpur. The Protestant were allowed to do mass here, with the concession with the Catholic fathers. They were given the morning shift, from 8 to 9. The mass has just almost finished, the pastor walked toward the gate, and the people following him, ready to receive blessing. Suddenly two strangers with machine guns came through the door, splashing the bullets from their weapons to all directions. The hungry bullets flew to the breasts, legs, chests, women, children, men, everybody. The casualties was not few, 16 people killed by the firing. This was the first in Pakistan history of brutality against Christian minority. But it was not the last. The church is a small building, very simply decorated, with only three rows of benches in both male and female quarters. Most of the spaces given to visitors were matrass. The devotees sat on their knee while delivering their prayers here. In Urdu, church is “girjah”, sounds quite [...]

May 7, 2006 // 0 Comments

Lahore – I See India Again

April 25, 2006 Across the border Yes, this is a trip to the Indian border for the famous ridiculous border ceremony of the two enemous brothers: India and Pakistan. Few months ago I attended the ceremony from the Indian side, hardly saw anything due to the huge crowds. Seeing from the different sides of the border is always interesting. It’s just a thin line on the map, some inches of line de jure, but it made the two completely different sides on right and left side. Travelling to the border from Lahore, was passing through dusty areas of uninhabited lands. The area was completely empty since the Partition, and just recently when the relation between India and Pakistan getting better, people started to inhabit the dusty land between Lahore and the border. Equally the same case for Amritsar (Indian city next to the border), but less dusty. It was hot, and dusty. The sweat mixed with the dust to form special ingredients on my wrong-seasoned garment of clothes. The border is exactly between the two cities: Lahore and Amritsar, splitted the distance of 60 kms into two 30 kilometer distances. I was on the public bus (12 Rs ticket for [...]

April 25, 2006 // 0 Comments

Darra Adam Khel – The Gun Factories

April 16, 2006 They have known bullets and guns since childhood Darra Adam Khel is a village 38 kms south of Peshawar, on the way to Kohat. It looked like a normal village of Pakistan border, but somehow resemble Afghanistan villages also. It looked normal along the way: mud square houses, green field, boys wandering around, shops with their glass windows, and Pathans with their distinctive caps. But the name of Darra has something else to proud about, it’s the gun factory of Pakistan. The people in this area, if may say, all do the same business: gun making and selling. The factories are hidden in the rooms in the small alleys and bazaars, and gun shops are widely open. Pen-shapped pistols It’s obvious that this kind of place was not supposed for tourists to wander around. In fact, before the area was open for tourists, many tourist buses came here to visit the gun shops and ‘check’ the local made AK-47, guns, snippers, pistols, etc etc. Since Benazir Bhutto era, this area was closed for tourists. It was still in Pakistani teritorry, but now the procedure is similar to visiting a tribal area: a permit is needed, and not [...]

April 16, 2006 // 1 Comment

Peshawar – Smuggler Bazaar

April 13, 2006 Refugees children Karkhana Bazaar, or smuggler bazaar, was quite among the most famous time in Peshawar memorabilia, due to its proximity with its infamous border, Afghanistan. But the smuggler bazaar today is no more than row of shops selling daily needs. It was Friday anyway, so the shops were closed. And we were there to buy beauty cosmetics… sigh. The bus we took to smuggler bazaar threw us away two kilometers before the place. But it was good. I had the chance to observe some children working along the river collecting garbage. The garbage collectors, mostly children in the Asia subcontinent, are among the most distinctive life of the grass root of the countries. The children, boys and girls, were happy with photographs. Some even posing with their meaningful garbage sack. Many children end up as garbage pickers Not far from there was the Afghan refugee’s camp. It was a very condensed shanty town, but now, the Pakistani government had given them the deadline and by force sent them home. There were 30,000 Pashtun refugees from Afghanistan, mostly from Jalalabad and surrounding. But now there were not more than 20,000 people. Still a lot. Their living condition [...]

April 13, 2006 // 0 Comments

Noraseri – The Doctor Shahab Family

April 2, 2006 Doctor Shahab with my Indonesian cap The NGO camp was emptied already today. The scars of the tents left another scars in people in neighborhood. It was Doctor Shahab, born as Khani Zaman, among those who used to come at least one time in a day to our camp area. He was an old man in his sixties, and everybody called him as Mister Doctor, or Doctor Shahab. I believed he was a doctor, until Hafizah told me that he never been a doctor. It turned out to be that he was a pharmacist, and used to be a driver of an ambulance of Edhi Foundation. His work was not that far from doctor anyway. The first time I knew Doctor Shahab was the same date when the Hajji Shahab passed away. The two occasions still made me confusing the two names many of the times. Doctor Shahab was there in the funeral day of Hajji Shahab, claiming that he was a friend of President Soekarno in school time, and asked me to send a dozen of Indonesian caps. He was humorous, he was optimistic, and he was intelligent. He lost his wife in the earthquake, but [...]

April 2, 2006 // 0 Comments

Gilgit – Leaving Scars

Waiting for freedom March 11, 2006 The experience in the jail when visiting the two Indonesian girls was not quite nice. I was really waiting for that moment to come, that the two girls haunted my dream, but when I had the chance to meet them, I even didn’t talk a lot with them as I was rushed by the harsh policemen. I was very disappointed, and at the same time, helpless. Today, a guy from Chilas who discussed about sex with me a night before, asked me to go back again to the jail. The Chilas guy, Mirza, was in the jail for some days because of fighting. Regarding his origin, I thought it was due to free sex, but it was not. The people from Chilas, as those Pathans from western border of Pakistan, were famous of their male to male sexual activities. Mirza said to me, it was not homosexual activities, or at least very different from the concept of homosexuality in Europe, as here men only want to fuck, no suck, no love. He said that Pakistan was very conservative, as this is an Islamic republic. But he didn’t deny that he had sex with some [...]

March 11, 2006 // 0 Comments

Gilgit – Two Indonesian Prisoners

Waiting for freedom March 10. 2006 Maryam and Christina, the name of the two poor girls, who were detained by the Pakistani border officials when they tried to smuggle heroine to China. A meeting with Mr Raja Sadafar in Deputy Commisioner office in Gilgit led me to a visit to the Gilgit District Jail today. “They are very poor, really poor girls,” said Raja, mentioning that in a year there was no even a single Indonesian visiting them. He asked me to visit them, as a countryman, and bring them some fruits or something. I have heard the story of the two girls long before, from several different people. They were innocent girls, involved in this kind of business for the first time, thus inexperienced. There was a box of 4 kg heroine planted in the bottom of their backpacks. One of the girls successfully passed the Pakistani check, but when the other was trying to pass, the experienced border guard suspected that the backpack was to heavy for their tiny body size. It was really a bad luck that even the manual custom search of Pakistan border could find the hidden stuff in their bag, locked firmly in a [...]

March 10, 2006 // 4 Comments

Karimabad – Travelling Again

Journey is about meeting and farewell. Now comes the time to say goodbye to Hunza. January 24, 2006 His name is Hassan Shah, a father of 4 sons and 1 daughter. Today, two of his sons are going to leave him to Manshera, which is around 18 hours away bus journey from Karimabad. Hussain Shah, one of the sons, is bringing his elder brother, Salman Shah, for medical check up. His brother has got a sudden mental attack 2 years ago, and regular check up is needed, as now Salman’s hairs are getting lesser and lesser. This might be a very, very common farewell of a short separate between father and sons. But when this happen to Karimabad, in a family which rarely separated each other, this can be very dramatic. Hussain has never been further than Rawalpindi, not to mention how he dreamed to go abroad. But as Northern Areas citizen, passport for them is not easy to get. Only China is the country that people from this area can go, easily, with border pass. Passport for Northern Areas could be 100 times more difficult than those for other Pakistanis. That’s why leaving house is a big deal here, [...]

January 24, 2006 // 2 Comments

Karimabad – Indian Connection

Indian influence is obvious here India is just a bordering country, but the history of hostility between India and Pakistan makes the relation between the two countries interesting. As we all probably know, the language of both countries, Urdu and Hindi, are 90% similar. Urdu has more Persian and Arabic originated words, and Hindi from Sanskrit. But both languages are mutually intelligble. Though, the scripts are different. The influence of India is very huge in Pakistan, this is unquestioned. Everybody can sing the gigle of Aashiq Banaya, the new popular Bollywood movie, even though that this new film may not reach the villages of Pakistan. “Mujh se Saati Karogi? (Will you Marry Me?)”, Salman Khan’s newest movie, is a famous sentence anywhere here in Pakistan. And it became a laughter when we use this sentence to tease the others. The people in Karimabad, far away from anywhere, stuck their satellite dish to Indian channels. And guess what, a very plain TV drama, Vuh Ranehwali Mehlon Ki (She is Native of Palace)- A story of a beautiful girl from rich family loving a handsome boy from a poor family, is so sticky that all people in my hotel can be stucked [...]

January 9, 2006 // 3 Comments

Chapursan – The Land without Sunshine

The difficult journey to the land without sunshine January 4-7, 2006 Have you heard about the land without sunshine? It was a cloudy morning when someone in Sust bazaar – just one step more to China – told me. “You should go to Chapursan, over there, there is no sunshine for 2.5 months!” Chapursan is up north from Sust, going parallel with the Afghan border. And for harsh winter like this, nobody goes there due to the low temperature, harsh wind, and of course no sunshine. The last part of the challenges really made me decided to depart. There are several cars departing from Sust bazaar. There is no exact departure time, all departures are depended on passengers. Noor Khan – a Chapursan native who have been living in Karachi since student time, and Aziz – a teacher, Noor’s relative, also have been living in Karachi, are my fellow passengers. They told me many things about the culture of Wakhan Tajik – the native of the valley, about the land without sunshine – incidentally the exact valley without sunshine is about the breathing distance from their houses, about interesting event that I can catch the day later – a traditional [...]

January 7, 2006 // 1 Comment

Rawalpindi – Cantontment?

I never expected that it’s very difficult to find a place to stay in this city Imperial Hotel, Muree Road, Rawalpindi 400Rs/double bed room After the 5 hour bus journey from Lahore to Islamabad, and long taxi drive to Saddar Bazaar in Rawalpindi, I was really resent by the hotel owner who refused me to stay in his hotel. Saddar Bazaar is the place for the budget hotels in Rawalpindi, where 2 years ago I used to stay. Today, they refused to accept me as their guest, as there is a stamp ‘Visa not Valid for Cannt Area’ on my visa page. I didnt realize what the meaning of the small stamp on my visa before today. The feeling of being refused in a hotel was very bad. I can imagine the same feeling of people being refused to enter a certain country despite of possessing the valid visa. And I felt disappointed, badly treated, being looked as second class man, etc. Cantontment is military area, which sometimes also include residential and bazaar area, as in this example Saddar Bazaar in Rawalpindi. I didnt know about this before. I am worrying whether this visa will affect my journey thru the [...]

December 17, 2005 // 0 Comments

Lahore – Welcome to Pakistan

Regale Internet Inn 150 Rs/dorm Indian border guard across the Pakistan borderline. Being sick for so many days has given me the chance to read lots of books recently. Just read Salman Rushdie’s “Shame” about the ridiculous stories of Pakistan history, from uprising and downing of its political leaders, from the ridiculous political manouvers, and also the stories about the founding of the “Land of Pure” and it failures. The other good book I got is VS Naipaul’s “Among the Believers”. This book is about Islam in Iran, Pakistan, Malaysia, and Indonesia. I have read the Indonesian part, and felt that the critics was quite well-said, even some parts I dont quite agree. The Pakistan part is quite interesting, how these Indian Muslims created this “Land of Pure” and how they tried to be the most purified Muslim on earth. But the struggle is full of failures, and Pakistan was a country of experiments. And today, I successfully crossed to Pakistan. The crossing was straightforward on both sides, except the Indian officers said that I should have crossed the border a day earlier as my visa expired today. But they let me pass anyway. There was no luggage check on [...]

December 13, 2005 // 0 Comments

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