Pakistan: The North [part 2]

So where did we leave off? Oh yes, Jaan Sahib and the omelets. The eggs were served in a generous buffet, complete with toast, jam and imported apple juice. The breakfast congregation was the first time the group was able to consolidate and mingle without the anxiety of flight delays and first-time awkwardness. The Argentinean ambassador’s wife, however, insisted, without the burden of politeness, that we “get out of this place now,” leaving Jaan Sahib our host, who had been busy hosting, struggling to finish his omelet. The wife’s frustration was compounded when Mobina (somebody else’s wife who I forgot to mention earlier) sauntered outside for a mid-morning-post-breakfast cigarette, which, a Benson & Hedges 100, was smoked at what seemed to be a calculatedly leisured pace, foreshadowing more serious tensions between the two as the journey progressed. At the other end of the room, Zubair, who hadn’t yet contributed much, was feverously combing the newspaper for conversational ammunition, while Naeem, ever armed with his cell phone, was busy with the thankless task of working out hotel logistics. My parents tried unsuccessfully to penetrate the Spanish and Argentinean delegation, but they were too busy being unimpressed with the omelets and arbitrary nature of the breakfast in general.

First impressions not holding much promise I decided to let the mountains to do the entertaining on the trip. Breakfast was about an hour and a half, despite the best efforts of the Argentinean wife, and we finally made it on to the two coasters that would be our transports for the rest of the journey. The coasters provided a perfect platform for the polarization of the group, as the Spaniards and Argentineans piled into one bus, while us Pakistanis and the Canadian, rekindling colonial ties, settled for bus 2. Kajra mohabat wala and shahbaz kalander singing, we set off into the Hunza hills, past Karimabad and to our hotel in Gulmit.

The drive was through the mountains reminded me of the route through the Austrian Alps to Salzburg: pretty but not imposing. Along side the rail-less single lane road ran the newly assertive Gilgit River. Across the river on the other side of the valley wall were messages written into the mountainside using white rock. “Welcome our Hazir Imam!,” they yelled, “Welcome Agha Khan.” One thing we found during our trip was that the writ of the federal government runs thinner and thinner the further north you go, and, as a result, public works projects have been undertaken not by the Pakistani authorities, but through the generous donations of the Agha Khan. The Agha Khan is the ideological leader of the Ismaili sect, itself an offshoot of Shi’te Islam. We found, the deeper into Gilgit we went, that the Agha Khan is revered not only as a religious leader, but as an administrator, executive and patron. On our immediate left rose the sheer rock that had been partially disturbed for the construction of the road. Enormous boulders and gushing waterfalls hung precariously above us, reminding us that we would soon be at the inhospitable mercy of nature.

Around mid-afternoon we finally arrived at our hotel in Gulmit, a comfortable place, but lacking, for the most part, electricity and running water. However, before we got a chance to enjoy these luxuries, Naeem insisted that we keep moving as evening would soon be upon us. My parents and a few others, Mobina and her cigarettes included, decided to stay behind, leaving me in the midst of Spaniards and Argentineans. Spaniards and Argentineans had coalesced into a single unit by this point, and proceeded to dominate the next leg of the journey. We went onwards only 5km, but the trip took about 45 minutes as we wove our way through ever-higher peaks and less accommodating roads. I honestly had no idea where we were going, but Naeem, Jaan and Spaniards and Argentineans were happy with whatever was going on so I thought it awkward to ask. Quite suddenly, the coasters stopped half way up a dirt road on the side of a mountain quite a way away from the main road. We pushed and shoved our way out of the coasters and Spaniards and Argentineans proceeded to follow one of the many guides that had begun to swarm around the entourage. Curious, I of course followed. A little way up the mountain, over a somewhat inauspicious ridge, lay, majestically, the Gulmit glacier: 10 miles of flowing ice meandering and cascading over mountain ridges, scintillating in the afternoon sun. “Now there’s something you don’t see everyday,” Naeem confirmed. Spaniards and Arentineans furiously conferenced, trying to decide whose camera had higher resolution. Jaan Sahib, who had seen all this before, lit a cigarette and spoke about the glacier with haughty familiarity, as if he himself had created the ice from the sediment of mountain. We were on a foot-wide pathway well above the glacier that ran along its eastern bank. Naeem, infected by Jaan Sahib’s disinterest, decided to stay back. A Spaniard and Argentinean had managed to produce a camera from the bus and had begun sprawling on the ground for more unnecessarily incredible angles. Onwards up the pathway they scurried, stopping every now and again for photo opportunity and obnoxiously loud Spanish conversation. The glacier, ancient, serene, grew larger, longer with every corner we turned; the ice took on more unbelievable configurations. Letting Spaniards and Argentineans proceed further, and with Naeem and Jaan acceptably occupied by the confused Canadian, I stopped and took stock.

Dear rearders, it is difficult to describe the feeling that the grandeur of nature can inspire in a person. Cliché or not, I felt small, insignificant, powerless. In my mind, I pictured the shores of the of the sub-continent crash into the shores of Asia, creating, by geological coincidence, some of the most beautiful and awe-inspiring phenomenon man will ever witness. The process is still happening as South Asia continues to push into the mainland (as evidenced by the tragic 2005 Kashmir earthquake). This means, I ruminated, the very earth we tread on here in India and Pakistan, trembles with kinetic energy. There is a lot of energy here a lot of good happening and a lot our people have to offer. I encourage you, dear readers, to pay a visit.