SO THIS IS NIGER

Thoughts around the year of the tiger

"The person, who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing, is nothing, and becomes nothing. He may avoid suffering and sorrow, but he simply cannot learn and feel and change and grow and love and live."
 
~ Leo F. Buscaglia


On the night of Karachi’s latest bomb blast a girlfriend from Australia said to me on MSN chat: “Helmi, it is time you come home. You are taking too many risks.”

A most disturbing remark. It brought sharply into focus something I have always felt all my life and set me at odds with all sorts of people in my age group. Most of them rush about looking intent and purposeful, too busy to make money for all sorts of consumer goods they think they need. The highlight of many is a two or three week holiday trip where the more adventurous amongst them then take the calculated risk of a guided tour to Vietnam or China, or whatever is in fashion at the moment, to raise their adrenaline level.

Sure, I don’t blame them. I know that it is not in everyone’s character to risk more what others think wise or safe. But I always wonder about my friend’s dreams. Are they really happy to just settle for the ordinary without noticing that there could be something amiss?

I often despair at their lazy contentment with the state of current affairs, their apathy, and their shrugging shoulders when they are confronted with poverty, social injustice and corruption.

It never ceases to amaze me that so many people show so little curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight in a world that lies beyond their city or country. Of course it is much easier to avoid risk and spend every night in front of the telly, treating life as if it may go on forever.

Perhaps that is why I also like to write and blog. Each time I post or comment I am taking a risk to be misunderstood, judged as stupid, conceited, arrogant, egotistical, condescending, volatile or whatever. But that it is a calculated risk. There will always be people who find it difficult to adapt to difficult situations or to accommodate views that are new, foreign and different.

I never worry what people really think of me. Life is like that, you win some friends and you loose some but there will always new ones that will come along. Many people call me an adventurer - and that I am. I will rather risk my skin than have a life where one day resembles the next and the next and the next…

I’d rather go to Bujumbura or Baghdad or Pyongyang than being stuck in a comfortable suburban little town, no matter how comfortable and safe it may be.

My driving force will always be taking risks and trying new things. If a door opens, I will go through it.

I was born in the year of the tiger and today is my birthday, but I truely wish to continue to be a wanderer and to be free....

Posted by: Lewana at November 29, 2005 14:42 | link | comments (11)
thoughts around the year of the

JINNAH'S TOMB

If you are an expatriate living in Karachi there inevitably comes a time when an e-mail of a friend’s friend will arrive in your mail box asking whether you will take care of Mr. or Mrs. “so and so” while (s)he is visiting the subcontinent. And before you know it you’ll find yourself in the role of a tourist guide.

I love to show visitors from overseas around Karachi, especially if their interests go beyond shopping sprees for cheap jeans, t-shirts, leather goods and hand-woven silk pashminas.

I like Cathy from the moment I pick her up at the airport. She has the beautiful Indian eyes of her great-grandmother, a lovely British accent and a no nonsense attitude towards the intimidating mass of brawny males dressed in shalwar kameez, obnoxious taxi-drivers and luggage handlers outside the arrival hall of Karachi’s airport. 

Karachi, which has been my home for the last two years, is a mega city of 15 million people. It is also the business and technological centre of . Situated right on the Arabian Sea the localities along the coast could be like a pleasant seaside resort, but for a few face-saving patches of parks and greenery Karachi is not a particularly attractive city. The capital of the province of Sindh has very few interesting destinations for tourists.

During colonial times the British Empire developed the former fishing village into a major trading post with paved roads, railroads, churches, markets and they improved upon a magnificent natural harbour. Over the past twenty years or so many of the classical colonial style buildings have disappeared to make way for drab offices or glitzy shopping centres. The few colonial structures that are left are in various stages of ruin or badly neglected.

Cathy who has an interesting family history connected to British India is a seasoned traveller in her sixties with an elegant hairstyle. She is on her way to Australia to visit her children, but has made a two hour detour from Dubai , mainly because she wanted to see the ruins at Moenjo Daro and Harappa. I don’t have the heart to tell her that the Cradle of Civilization in the Indus Valley has deteriorated to a few badly labled ruins and tourist infrastructure is non-existant. I make a silent note to myself to give her a plenty of water and a lunch basket for her onward journey, because I know from my own visit that there is no edible food to be had at the famous archaeological site, unless one has booked the grungy government rest house way in advance.

Today however, I am taking her around Karachi to show her the sights. One of the few architecturally interesting buildings that look entirely different from the multitude of lego-like office blocks and high-rise buildings in the Central Business District is the Ali Jinnah Mausoleum, containing the mortal remains of the Quaid-e-Azam, which means in Urdu the founder of the Nation of Pakistan. 

Mohammad Ali Jinnah was born in Karachi on December 25, 1876. After a successful career in and in British India, he became eventually 's first Governor-General in 1947. While in India Mahatma Ghandi secured Independence from the British Imperial power it was Mohammed Ali Jinnah who fought for a separate Muslim State .

I enjoy Cathy’s company. She is quietly appreciative of being taken around the city in my battered old Volvo. She doesn’t complain about the chaotic traffic, diesel fumes, the humid heat and the dust that swirls in through the open windows.

For the hundreds time I wish that the air-conditioner would work, but Cathy doesn’t mind. She delights in watching the busy crowds of people along the roadsides; she enjoys looking at the high-top local lorries decorated with colourful images of tigers, peacocks and flowers, little mirrors and glittering reflectors. Like all trucks in they are dangerously overladen. Many of them carry supplies for the earth quake hit areas in the Himalayas.

We are talking about the appalling corruption in , when Cathy suddenly holds her breath. We are stuck behind a truck transporting rotting fish. The stink is awful. “This stuff is made into chicken feed; how the chickens eat it is a mystery to me”. I say. Cathy nods and then says: “Why don’t the natives remove the rubbish from the roads?  “It’s not only this smelly truck; the whole city stinks of sewage.”

In the reflection of the rear view mirror I can see driver Paul grinning like a Cheshire cat. He has heard similar complains from me from the day he started to drive me round the city. “Madame, he says, “it will take another twenty to thirty years for that to happen. The problem is that the people who are in charge of rubbish removal only take notice as long as they are being bribed to collect the rubbish, and people like us cannot do anything about it.” “My words”, I sigh.

The three of us heave a sigh of relief when we finally reach the car park on the edge of the rising ground of Jinnah’s Mausoleum. Jennie is surprised at the small number of tourists as we slowly stroll through the lawns and the herbaceous borders towards the Quaid’s last resting place. “I am surprised that there are no buses with school children here. One should think that a historic personality like Jinnah would attract at least more local visitors”. Cathy says.

Indeed, there are few people around. Here and there a few gardeners are watering the yellowing lawn, some are sweeping leaves and rubbish from one corner to another; a group of loiters are lounging in the shade of a tree. Five young men are staring at us as we climb the stairs leading towards one of the twelve curved archways that are the entries to the cubic tomb. From my terrace in our penthouse the cupola of the tomb looks marble white in the glaring sun but now, as we are  walking closer the structure looks rather grey white and slightly grimy.

Inside the tomb the majority of the vistors are men dressed in shalwar kameez, the baggy pants and long over shirts that almost all men in Pakistan wear. There is a family with three children; the mother covered from head to heel in a black burqua. They have also come to pay their respects to their national hero. The smallest of their boys stares with wide-eyed wonder at the colossal three-tiered chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling directly above Jinnah’s sarcophagus.  

Fortunately it is much cooler inside than outside, perhaps due to the intricate bronze lattice work that fills the archway entries to the tomb. This lattice work, omnipresent in Mughal architecture on the subcontinent is a clever trick of the builders to catch even the slightest breeze on a hot day.

From behind an exquisite iron-wrought and silver railing we look down at Jinnah’s white marble coffin, but it does not contain his bones. They are buried in a vault underground. “Just like Mumtaz Mahal in the Taj Mahal was buried by Shah Jehan below the ground, so that she would not be disturbed by the masses of pilgrims. I don’t see this happening here”. Cathy says and smiles wickedly.

“Tell me, Helmi, do you know anything about the women in Jinnah’s life?” I am glad that I did my homework before taking this inquisitive lady around the city.

“Jinnah had married a Parsi lady and they had a daughter called Dina. Interestingly, Jinnah’s wife Ruttie and daughter are almost never mentioned in any tour guide, because it appears inexplicable to many Pakistanis that their revered Quaid had married a non-Muslim lady.

In fact, it took me quite a bit of research to find information about his wife and daughter. Wikipedia has two photographs, but otherwise their images must have been deleted from history books and autobiographies by some very busy people with censorship in mind. Dina is especially scorned because she had the audacity to have married a Christian and she also left to live elsewhere.

Fatima Jinnah, Jinnah’s sister, however is a well known personality in . She was also a strong headed politician like her brother. She almost managed to restore democracy in the mid- sixties despite vote-rigging and corruption when she took on Field Marshal Ayub Khan.

Jinnah’s sister died in 1967 and she is buried at the grounds of Jinnah’s Mausoleum too.

Quite recently, I tell Cathy, actually on Nov 3, Mukhtaran Mai, a Pakistani gang rape victim who single-handedly waged a battle on her rapists against all odds did receive the Glamour magazine’s ‘Women of the Year’ award for this year. Four month earlier in August, Mukhtaran Mai, the Pakistani government honoured her with the Fatima Jinnah gold medal award for bravery and courage.  

“I am not sure who was braver, Muktharan or Fatima”. I am saying after relating to her the tragic but widely published story of Mukhtaran Mai.

It is nearly midday when we take photographs of the photogenic guards with their Kalashnikovs at the Mausoleum and then I ask Cathy:”How about lunch and coffee at the Marriot? The Frere Hall is just opposite the hotel – it is another must see of the British icons in Karachi.”

 “That would be very nice”, Cathy says, and with a sideways look she says after a short pause. “Where did you say can we buy pashminas?”

 

*Graphic Art by spartanjen

More of Jen's Graphic Art of Jinnah's Tomb here

 

Posted by: Lewana at November 22, 2005 09:24 | link | comments (16)
travel, karachi, jinnahstomb

NEVER A DULL MOMENT

Ahmed from Bangalore already said it. Bomb explosions, Islamic militancy and sectarian violence in Karachi have been part and parcel of this violent city for decades. That’s why Karachi 's latest bomb blast is not as frightening to Karachiites as you may think. Over the past two years I witnessed several bombs attacks, some of them in my immediate neighbourhood.  I live ten minutes driving distance from yesterday’s incident. I am passing that crossing almost daily on my day to day errands. What’s a tad frightening is that we may be looking at a new series of similar attacks after a comparatively peaceful time in recent months.

Today I learned that the separatist Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed responsibility for the attack, saying attacks would continue unless the Pakistani government halted its greedy demands for resources from Balochistan. The border to Balochistan is only a few kilometres away from Hajji Ali Goth, where I spend most Fridays fishing and teaching my illiterate fisher folk friends.

You may remember that I related in one of my previous posts that the village did not have a single drop of water or electricity over the hottest summer months. One does not need to be extremely intelligent to figure that very soon these tribal separatists will have no problem to recruit more terrorists to their ranks.

If this claim proves to be true, this incident would ring in a new series of attacks on targets frequented by expatriates as well as government-owned oil companies, pipelines and other infrastructures in Karachi . The BLA basically desires autonomy for Baluchistan , but I think they would be satisfied with a fairer distribution of i.e.energy resources and better revenue for their gas at the moment.

Unfortunately at the moment the Government in Islamabad may have little time or interest to deal with such demands, especially after the devastating earthquake that hit and killed 80 000 people last month.

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I am so grateful to Thomas Schmerbeck who took the photos yesterday of the location of the blast. The images were taken about an hour after the explosion (~ 8:45 am) and he forwarded the pictures to me via e-mail. After that – due to my sluggish broadband connection - it took me several hours to upload them to picture host photobucket.com and finally I got them (after three failed attempts) up onto motime and to my other blog at http://eastwest.blogspk.com  at ~ 5 pm.

 You can see on the photographs that the burning building and flaming cars had already been doused with water at the time Thomas took the pictures. BBC and CNN, however, had their fiery pictures up on the Net barely minutes after the incident happened. It makes you wonder whether their stringers are already in place with camera in hand shortly before the detonations.

[Addendum]

Shortly before uploading my thoughts about yesterday’s incident I learn that the BLA has now denied its claim for the bombing in Karachi yesterday.

One can look at Karachi from any angle and draw different conclusions, but one thing everyone will agree upon. There is NEVER a dull moment.

Posted by: Lewana at November 16, 2005 19:25 | link | comments (11)
karachi, bomb blast in karachi, never a dull moment

Bomb Blast in Karachi

Bad news travels fast.

This morning at 9.30 h am my driver Desmond walks visibly shaken into my study and tells me that a huge car bomb has exploded in Karachi's Central Business district. The bomb ripped a huge hole into the Fast Food outlet of KFC shortly before 9 o'clock. The Sheraton and Pearl Continental are located only a few meters away from the unpleasant incident.

As usual unfortunate passer-bys on their way to work have been killed and injured.

How ironic that at this very moment I was reading a headline in the DAWN: KARACHI: City’s image now positive world over. A local reporter wrote that "the Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan said that Karachi has emerged as one of the safest cities in the world.

A lot of rumours are going around right now. It seems too much of a coincidence that the car bomb explosion coincides with a hearing in a Karachi court today against Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was sentenced to death for kidnapping and slitting Daniel Pearl’s throat three years ago.

It makes me wonder whther Pakistan is really winning its battle against terrorists operating in the country?

All photos ©Thomas Schmerbeck

Posted by: Lewana at November 15, 2005 17:10 | link | comments (6)
karachi, bomb blast in karachi

Dum Spiro Spero

 Have I ever mentioned Bernie to you? He was the nicest guy you could ever hope to know in Karachi . Sure, he was no James Bond, but just like James he could solve problems. If your generator exploded at three o’clock in the night, you could wake Bernie and he would turn up on your doorstep and fix it.

Bernie also loved the great outdoors; and he was mad about fishing.  They say that “the man who goes fishing gets something more than the fish he catches”.

Read more...

Posted by: Lewana at November 08, 2005 16:59 | link | comments (9)
tales from hajji ali goth, dum spiro spero