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The long road home: A journey from Chitral to Islamabad
By Frida Khan
Before us is sheer rock, an expanse as high as the eye can see, streaked with piles of dirty snow and excavated rubble. And passing through the belly of this rock, like a feat of laparoscopic surgery, is the Lowari Tunnel. PHOTO: FRIDA KHAN
It’s a journey that adds perspective to your life.
The endlessness of theQaqlasht mountainmeadows, the sky and the snow-capped peaks make you feel small. Then there’s the story of Qurban, an illiterate woman living in the village ofBooni.She fought to get herself enrolled in an enterprise development course, while fending off critics who threatened to attack her with acid. She now runs three shops, owns her own home and supports the education of her four nieces and nephews. On top of this, she won a national enterprise award in the process, which makes one realise how trivial their personal quotidian challenges are.
Our flight from Chitral to Islamabad got cancelled. The prospect of my daughter and I stranded in a brown, dimly lit hotel room in Chitral made us want nothing more than to go home, no matter how beautiful the town was.
Qaqlasht mountains.
Qaqlasht mountain meadows.
Qurban, an illiterate woman living in the village of Booni.
The only way to get home without having to wait another five days would have been by road; through the Lowari Tunnel, high in the Hindu Kush Mountains. The tunnel is still under construction and once it has been built, it will provide the only all-weather land route out of Chitral. Until then, it functions in its unfinished state for two hours a day and two days a week.
Chitral.
My daughter, Aisha, and I rented a car and were on our way with our driver, Shamsuddin. The route is stunning; green valley’s flowing out from in between cloud-clad rock mountains, widening and coming to rest alongside the muddy river. The season had only just started changing, which is why the trees were still a shy green, and the apricot blossoms blushed under the spring sun. The mountains are grand, towering above their jagged ridges, a testament to the geological forces that ripped them apart millions of years ago. And the more recent man-made ones that tore through them to carve out this winding, rocky, ribbon of a road that we were on.
The beauty that surrounded us.
Chitral
At certain points, the melting snow turned into ******** that inundate the road and although the road easily became a river – our car did not turn into a boat. Shamsuddin, much to his consternation, had to slow down and splash, slip and scrape his way through. To the driver’s horror, in some places he had to overtake a car at the various blind, hair-pin turned along the way. All of this made for a harrowing journey, but one that Shamsuddin managed with great skill. He adroitly navigated the bends and bumps with his left hand on the wheel and the right on his mobile phone, receiving and making phone calls or text messages.
I was tempted to tell him off and stop him from using his phone while driving; he might be ambidextrous but I was certain that he was not ambiocular. Regardless, I hesitated to say anything. He was young, had a long, black beard and wore a prayer cap. He had already told me that he came from a long line of village maulvis (religious scholars). I even overheard him speaking to his friend on the phone about an accident we had seen on the way, saying that the cause of it must have been the driver neglecting his Friday prayers. I don’t think he would have taken kindly to a woman, especially one with an immodestly uncovered head, travelling alone with her daughter, challenging his expertise. I thought of framing the request in a way that would be palatable to him.
“Bhai, bay shak zindagi maut Allah kay haat may hai aur siraf uss nay kal daykhay hain laikin agar aap apnay dono haat wheel par rakhlay aur dono aankhay sarak par to Allah ki bohat mehrbani hogee.”
(Without a doubt, life and death are in the hands of Allah and He alone has seen the future, but if you could keep both of your hands on the steering wheel and your sight on the road, the grace of God will be upon us).
Even as I said the statement, I was aware that I was pandering to the worst stereotypes; how I imagined he was judging me and how I was judging him. But before I could approach the issue, we were stopped at a police check post.
I roll down my window. The policeman looked inside and then asked the driver,
“Are they foreigners or Pakistanis?”
“Pakistanis” Shamsuddin replied.
“Show me their ID cards”
I handed them over.
“What are you doing here?” he asked me.
“I came on holiday with my daughter.”
He looked doubtful.
“On holiday? Daughter?”
“I came with,” I said, helpfully completing his sentence.
He looked at the ID cards again.
“Frida Khan. Aisha Memon,” he felt that he was on to something. And he threw me a challenging look.
“The surnames are different.”
I pointed to my card, where it said ‘Husband’s name’. I read it out, “Abdul Qadir Memon.”
Satisfied, the policeman returned our ID cards. In that instant, a grudge I had held for 18 long years against a NADRA official simply melted away. The official had told me I could no longer use my father’s name since I had recently married.
My daughter and I trying to blend in after being called foreigners.
I was reminded of the time when I was travelling to Tokyo back in 2000. Aisha was two and my son, Hassan, was three. We were at the Karachi airport getting our passports checked at the immigration counter. The official looked at our passports, then at a list, and then again at our passports.
“You can go. Aisha can go. But not him,” he said, pointing to Hassan standing next to me, about as tall as my knee, holding my hand.
“Why can’t he go?” I asked.
“Because his name is on the Exit Control List”.
“What for?”
“Bank fraud.”
I bent down and looked Hassan in the eye.
“Have you been a naughty boy again, Hassan?”
“No, Mummy”, he replied.
And with that solemn assurance he was waved through, exactly as we were today.
We joined a long line of vehicles threaded along the mountain track waiting for the Lowari Tunnel to open. The tunnel opens for traffic from one side, then closes, then it opens for the other side, and then closes again for three days. The traffic includes buses, passenger vans, pickups, lorries, jeeps and cars and some vehicles are parked from the night before to ensure that they get a spot in the queue to make it through before the tunnel closes for the day.
The buses and cars were full of people going to Peshawar and Islamabad for work, to shop for business supplies, to meet friends and family, go to hospitals, for higher education, and sometimes recreation. The lorries and pickups that were empty saved a load of sand in the back. Our driver explained that the sand was to weigh them down and give them stability, so they could make the climb up the mountain, to the tunnel. When they return five days later, they are loaded with groceries, household goods, cooking oil and gas cylinders, cement and flour. Once unloaded, they would repeat this treacherous journey.
Twice a week, every week and sometimes, all their life.
During summers, Lowari Top, the passage over the top of the Hindu Kush Mountains also opens, and helps distribute the traffic. I asked Shamsuddin how much further Lowari Top was from the tunnel.
“48 bends up.”
He replied with the swiftness and confidence of one who had made each one of those turns many times.
Even though the trip to the top added a few hours to the journey, he said that he preferred it immensely over the tunnel.
As we approached the tunnel, I began to understand why. We had left the trees and fields far behind. Before us was sheer rock, an expanse as high as the eye could see, streaked with piles of dirty snow and excavated rubble. And passing through the belly of this rock, like a feat of laparoscopic surgery, was the Lowari Tunnel. We could see the colourful line of vehicles stretched out before us, each one paused at yet another check post to register its number and driver’s name, before being passed through one by one like beads on a rosary, pregnant with prayer, as they entered the tunnel.
........
By Frida Khan
Before us is sheer rock, an expanse as high as the eye can see, streaked with piles of dirty snow and excavated rubble. And passing through the belly of this rock, like a feat of laparoscopic surgery, is the Lowari Tunnel. PHOTO: FRIDA KHAN
It’s a journey that adds perspective to your life.
The endlessness of theQaqlasht mountainmeadows, the sky and the snow-capped peaks make you feel small. Then there’s the story of Qurban, an illiterate woman living in the village ofBooni.She fought to get herself enrolled in an enterprise development course, while fending off critics who threatened to attack her with acid. She now runs three shops, owns her own home and supports the education of her four nieces and nephews. On top of this, she won a national enterprise award in the process, which makes one realise how trivial their personal quotidian challenges are.
Our flight from Chitral to Islamabad got cancelled. The prospect of my daughter and I stranded in a brown, dimly lit hotel room in Chitral made us want nothing more than to go home, no matter how beautiful the town was.
Qaqlasht mountains.
Qaqlasht mountain meadows.
Qurban, an illiterate woman living in the village of Booni.
The only way to get home without having to wait another five days would have been by road; through the Lowari Tunnel, high in the Hindu Kush Mountains. The tunnel is still under construction and once it has been built, it will provide the only all-weather land route out of Chitral. Until then, it functions in its unfinished state for two hours a day and two days a week.
Chitral.
My daughter, Aisha, and I rented a car and were on our way with our driver, Shamsuddin. The route is stunning; green valley’s flowing out from in between cloud-clad rock mountains, widening and coming to rest alongside the muddy river. The season had only just started changing, which is why the trees were still a shy green, and the apricot blossoms blushed under the spring sun. The mountains are grand, towering above their jagged ridges, a testament to the geological forces that ripped them apart millions of years ago. And the more recent man-made ones that tore through them to carve out this winding, rocky, ribbon of a road that we were on.
The beauty that surrounded us.
Chitral
At certain points, the melting snow turned into ******** that inundate the road and although the road easily became a river – our car did not turn into a boat. Shamsuddin, much to his consternation, had to slow down and splash, slip and scrape his way through. To the driver’s horror, in some places he had to overtake a car at the various blind, hair-pin turned along the way. All of this made for a harrowing journey, but one that Shamsuddin managed with great skill. He adroitly navigated the bends and bumps with his left hand on the wheel and the right on his mobile phone, receiving and making phone calls or text messages.
I was tempted to tell him off and stop him from using his phone while driving; he might be ambidextrous but I was certain that he was not ambiocular. Regardless, I hesitated to say anything. He was young, had a long, black beard and wore a prayer cap. He had already told me that he came from a long line of village maulvis (religious scholars). I even overheard him speaking to his friend on the phone about an accident we had seen on the way, saying that the cause of it must have been the driver neglecting his Friday prayers. I don’t think he would have taken kindly to a woman, especially one with an immodestly uncovered head, travelling alone with her daughter, challenging his expertise. I thought of framing the request in a way that would be palatable to him.
“Bhai, bay shak zindagi maut Allah kay haat may hai aur siraf uss nay kal daykhay hain laikin agar aap apnay dono haat wheel par rakhlay aur dono aankhay sarak par to Allah ki bohat mehrbani hogee.”
(Without a doubt, life and death are in the hands of Allah and He alone has seen the future, but if you could keep both of your hands on the steering wheel and your sight on the road, the grace of God will be upon us).
Even as I said the statement, I was aware that I was pandering to the worst stereotypes; how I imagined he was judging me and how I was judging him. But before I could approach the issue, we were stopped at a police check post.
I roll down my window. The policeman looked inside and then asked the driver,
“Are they foreigners or Pakistanis?”
“Pakistanis” Shamsuddin replied.
“Show me their ID cards”
I handed them over.
“What are you doing here?” he asked me.
“I came on holiday with my daughter.”
He looked doubtful.
“On holiday? Daughter?”
“I came with,” I said, helpfully completing his sentence.
He looked at the ID cards again.
“Frida Khan. Aisha Memon,” he felt that he was on to something. And he threw me a challenging look.
“The surnames are different.”
I pointed to my card, where it said ‘Husband’s name’. I read it out, “Abdul Qadir Memon.”
Satisfied, the policeman returned our ID cards. In that instant, a grudge I had held for 18 long years against a NADRA official simply melted away. The official had told me I could no longer use my father’s name since I had recently married.
My daughter and I trying to blend in after being called foreigners.
I was reminded of the time when I was travelling to Tokyo back in 2000. Aisha was two and my son, Hassan, was three. We were at the Karachi airport getting our passports checked at the immigration counter. The official looked at our passports, then at a list, and then again at our passports.
“You can go. Aisha can go. But not him,” he said, pointing to Hassan standing next to me, about as tall as my knee, holding my hand.
“Why can’t he go?” I asked.
“Because his name is on the Exit Control List”.
“What for?”
“Bank fraud.”
I bent down and looked Hassan in the eye.
“Have you been a naughty boy again, Hassan?”
“No, Mummy”, he replied.
And with that solemn assurance he was waved through, exactly as we were today.
We joined a long line of vehicles threaded along the mountain track waiting for the Lowari Tunnel to open. The tunnel opens for traffic from one side, then closes, then it opens for the other side, and then closes again for three days. The traffic includes buses, passenger vans, pickups, lorries, jeeps and cars and some vehicles are parked from the night before to ensure that they get a spot in the queue to make it through before the tunnel closes for the day.
The buses and cars were full of people going to Peshawar and Islamabad for work, to shop for business supplies, to meet friends and family, go to hospitals, for higher education, and sometimes recreation. The lorries and pickups that were empty saved a load of sand in the back. Our driver explained that the sand was to weigh them down and give them stability, so they could make the climb up the mountain, to the tunnel. When they return five days later, they are loaded with groceries, household goods, cooking oil and gas cylinders, cement and flour. Once unloaded, they would repeat this treacherous journey.
Twice a week, every week and sometimes, all their life.
During summers, Lowari Top, the passage over the top of the Hindu Kush Mountains also opens, and helps distribute the traffic. I asked Shamsuddin how much further Lowari Top was from the tunnel.
“48 bends up.”
He replied with the swiftness and confidence of one who had made each one of those turns many times.
Even though the trip to the top added a few hours to the journey, he said that he preferred it immensely over the tunnel.
As we approached the tunnel, I began to understand why. We had left the trees and fields far behind. Before us was sheer rock, an expanse as high as the eye could see, streaked with piles of dirty snow and excavated rubble. And passing through the belly of this rock, like a feat of laparoscopic surgery, was the Lowari Tunnel. We could see the colourful line of vehicles stretched out before us, each one paused at yet another check post to register its number and driver’s name, before being passed through one by one like beads on a rosary, pregnant with prayer, as they entered the tunnel.
........
