Visiting Khuzdar

I and my former employer, a good friend of mine, had planned the sojourn when it was time to conduct the introductory training of the product we had provided the Higher Education Commission at the University of Engineering and Technology Khuzdar, Balochistan. I was in Karachi then, and had just come back from Peshawar with fresh memories of the wonderful food and hospitality of the Pashtoons. The weather in Peshawar had been very pleasant, but Karachi was humid. The misery was compounded by the repeated power failures in the city of lights, thanks to the KESC. For many reasons including the weather I was eagerly looking forward to visiting Khuzdar for the assignment, and my partner and myself made haste in preparing for the road trip.

The driver who was all ready and excited for the long drive greeted me early in the morning. With all the necessities finally in the trunk of the vehicle we set off for Khuzdar, hoping to reach there in five hours. The heavy traffic and congestion of Karachi made everyone a bit miserable initially, but soon all was well and smooth as we got on the highway. It was highway ruled by trucks and buses, and our car deftly made its way through the obstacle course created by those monstrous machines.

There was a small diversion at a certain point before Hub, and the road was lined with white stones to guide the motorists. Merrily going down the narrow lane surrounded by trucks and buses, neither of us realized that the front left wheel of our vehicle was approaching an inappropriately placed white stone on the road. We heard a loud thud, and a sudden jolt shook us. We could not stop there to check the damage, and since the car appeared to be running just fine, we continued our journey without considering the impending danger.

It wasn’t late when the driver suddenly realized that something was very wrong with the car. He kept trying to accelerate, but the car would not respond appropriately. We had passed through narrow roads through the hills, and had entered Vinder when the misfortunes started to happen. All three of us started inspecting the vehicle to see where the problem was, and after much painstaking research came to the conclusion that the axle had come off because of that bad white rock we had met earlier. The structure seemed slightly deformed and loose, and the absence of a lock that kept the axle in place meant that we could not go any further without the help of a mechanic.

Now on a road surrounded by dry desert full of god-knows-what kinds of poisonous reptiles and highwaymen, we were not very hopeful about finding a mechanic. Nobody wanted to go away from the car, and my partner had to muster up some courage to stop a passing truck for a lift to the nearest petrol station. Me and the driver waited for 45 minutes before he finally arrived accompanied with a dark complexioned man wearing a tattered shalwaar kameez. He had heavy bag on his shoulder, and his blackened hands indicated that he was an experienced mechanic who offered his services to unfortunate travelers like us on the Vinder highway. After quickly making some adjustments, he made the car mobile again and led us to his shop in a sleepy village nearby.

Ustaad Abdul Ghani is what he preferred to be called. In his small but airy shop he looked for a tool that he said would help us in re-adjusting the wheel in case anything bad happened further in our journey. We paid him for his services, and with a little less hope in our hearts set off again for our destination.

It was not late when the driver realized that the axle had come off again. This time we were not anywhere near a village, or a petrol station, or a restaurant for the truck drivers. We were in the middle of a sand storm, and it was not an easy task to re-adjust the wheel on the extremely narrow road. Occasionally a bus, truck, or UN vehicle would drive past us without stopping to offer any help. The driver got to work, and frustrated with what was happening, my partner took off his shoes in the middle of the road and sat down on his haunches, letting the sand storm smother him till he could take it no more. We were extremely tired and wanted to lay down somewhere for a while. Realizing that it would not be safe for us to go any further on the dangerous road, we aborted the mission and decided to head back home.

Six times the axle came off; and six times we had to re-adjust the wheel on our way back, doing a 20-minute operation each time. We were still in Vinder, and were starting to believe that the place was cursed. Our clothes, hair, ears and eyes were full of sand, and we were mighty pleased to see a small mosque as we neared the end of Vinder. Throwing our shoes in the trunk and pulling up our trousers we headed straight for the ablution area and did wudu even though it was not time for prayer. As my partner sat in a nearby restaurant drinking tea, all the while looking at the setting sun over the barren hills, I indulged in the sheer pleasure of doing wudu over and over again in the midst of the rocky mountains after a tiring and tense day.

While the driver walked around the car with his tools, occasionally smiling and laughing to himself as he enjoyed the songs on his radio, I practiced throwing stones at the hills behind us. I was repeatedly warned not to walk over the hills, because it could have resulted in getting a few rounds fired from an AK-47 in my skull. So I threw the stones as far as I could, and watched them drop with a plop over the dunes. There was a strange power around us. Maybe it was just the large trucks and buses and their equally large drivers, or maybe it was the ruggedness and serenity of the desert that surrounded us which made us feel that way.

The daal we had eaten with balochi naan at a small restaurant energized us for the remaining trip, and for some strange reason the driver seemed very excited when my partner and me approached him after tea. He told us that all three of us were stupid, and that we could have just adjusted the axle without ever removing the whole wheel. He demonstrated his hypothesis by opening the bonnet, and with a light push fixed the problem in a matter of seconds. The balochis at the restaurant watched with amusement as three educated young men wearing trousers slapped their foreheads and jumped inside their vehicle. The locals had told us that the mosque and the small restaurant was the end of Vinder. We did not have any problems with the vehicle as soon as we had moved out of that region.

Finally we reached Karachi in a terrible state. Those who were waiting anxiously looked at us and laughed. We had not been in contact with anyone throughout the day because cellular networks were down in Vinder and the adjoining areas. After a hearty meal and a much-needed bath, we went to sleep. The fun did not end yet, because the next day I had to go to Khuzdar alone… by bus.

…

I boarded the 7:30 AM bus leaving for Khuzdar. It was just like those buses we had seen fly past us when we had come to an unexpected halt in Vinder, and I felt as if I had boarded a small airplane. Other people in the bus had more luggage, and the middle-aged man sitting next to me said that most of the passengers were going to Quetta. I was the only one in the bus who had to stop at Khuzdar. My friend had advised me to get off the bus at the Jamrok stop in Khuzdar, and that’s what I told the driver of the bus, who seemed least interested in what the passengers were doing and more on drinking his kehva. He was balochi, and so were the three young conductors. The bus took the same route we had taken, but was moving at twice the speed.

The bus stopped at a certain location after crossing Vinder and Hub to re-fuel. The fuel was being brought in by certain means from Iran. I was rather surprised to see a deep freezer and a pedestal fan under a makeshift restaurant, and treated myself to a refreshing drink. The heat was unbearable, and I stood under the canopy made of broad dried leaves with the others. That place had everything from restrooms to restaurants, and I could tell from the women’s faces that spending some time in one of those restrooms had not been a very pleasant experience for them. The driver threw his cigarette, rolled up his sleeves and got back to his seat. A balochi malang wearing a large dark green robe and many rings approached the passengers before they boarded the bus, saying something aloud. He raised his hands up in the air in a very dramatic way to bid farewell.

The bus was being driven at frightening speed, and the guy sitting next to me said that this is how they usually drive to get on time. The drivers are experts, and I wondered if they could take everyone to Quetta with their eyes closed! I did not feel too good when the bus started going up and down a mountainous region we had reached, and tried chewing some gum to keep myself from decorating the front seat with partially digested breakfast. Bored camels, sheep and shepherds could be seen scattered here and there in the dry desert and the hills, and occasionally one could see very interesting man made forms which sometimes looked broken entrances of deserted ghost towns, mysterious walls of ancient graveyards, and small semi-spherical houses made out of mud and clay. I felt very strange, and an unfamiliar flood of emotions raced through me, as I looked at the strange figures that were the very essence of the new territory I was in now.

After a while the bus stopped at one of the highest points on the road and the driver signaled the conductors to take out the tools from the compartment. Something was not right, because the air conditioner had been shut down a while back and people were asked to open their windows instead. It looked like a routine job for the driver and his assistants as they began fixing the mighty engine of the machine all of us were sitting on. The passengers got out of the bus for some fresh air. As soon as I got off the bus, a strong gust of wind greeted me and nearly made me fall off the steps. The sun seemed brighter than ever, and a dazzling yellow and gold of the rocky mountains blinded our eyes. A small white goat with one leg bandaged came limping over to the bus, and the disappeared in the rocks below. The way its leg had been properly dressed with small wooden sticks and white cloth showed that the hearts of people living in that area weren’t as stony as this place. But strangely no one could be seen for miles.

The problem was fixed and soon we were off to Khuzdar again. Now that there were orders to keep all windows open, I pulled back the curtains to have a better view of the landscape. We were now descending from the mountains, and on our right was a relatively greener patch of land that looked like some sort of a farm. Dark clouds could be seen coming up ahead, and soon we could feel large cold droplets falling in through the open windows. But orders are orders, and with the windows open we enjoyed the wonderful rain in Balochistan as we finally got off the mountainous region and entered a populated region with dark black mountains on one side, and small yellow orangish peaks on the other.

One of the conductors asked if anyone had to get off at Jamrok. I raised my hand. Soon the bus came to a halt at the Jamrok stop where I got off and looked for a taxi that would take me to the University. I did not have any difficulty in finding one because there were apparently tons of them waiting on the other side of the road. The good driver asked me to quickly jump in, and we were off to the Khuzdar University. We took a shortcut through a small colony, the streets of which were wide enough to let one car pass at a time. Through the twists and turns of the small colony I could see scantily clad children walking around, but no women. The driver asked a few questions about the purpose of my visit, and said my exact words to the guard at the entrance of the University in his balochi accent. The old guard had a good look at me, smiled, and let us in.

…

The guest rooms were located on the farthest end of the University. The lecturers had been waiting for me in the staff room, and were a bit surprised to see me, probably because they had been expecting a more senior instructor. I looked around me as I talked with them on the main road of the University, and wondered how lucky these people were to be in such a peaceful place. A very senior professor had his car ready to drop me at the guesthouse, and after some chitchat over a cup of tea I retired to my room.

The good man in charge of the hostels and guestrooms quickly asked the attendants to give me a good supply of candles and matchsticks. When I asked why I would be needed so many of those, he said that there has been no electricity in the University for over a week, and the authorities might take many more weeks to fix the problem. Thoroughly satisfied with the lifetime’s supply of candles and matchsticks, I decided to walk around the place to familiarize myself with the people and surroundings.

I received my very first welcome to the guesthouse from a very shy and hungry little resident. Since my attendants were nowhere to be seen and the place appeared to be deserted, I made myself comfortable on a plastic chair with my host sitting comfortably by my side, scratching himself. He did not have much to say, unfortunately, but from the way he made pitiful sounds in his own tongue made me realize that he had not had anything to eat for quite some time, or maybe it was just another clever tactic to get something from the new guest. I had a few salted biscuits leftover from my bus trip, and offered him some. I had no idea what this could have led to, and soon his brothers and sisters surrounded me, each looking at me with the same pitiful face he had shown me earlier. I offered them the remaining biscuits, and the only word I got to hear from them in response to my generosity was ‘meow’.

My host, who shall henceforth be referred to as Cat, disappeared as soon as a large Toyota pickup came roaring down the causeway and stopped a few feet in front of the main entrance. An armed guard stepped out with a tall bearded man in white shalwaar kameez. He was the Registrar, and after a hearty welcome asked me if I felt comfortable in the guesthouse. ‘So far so good!’ I thought to myself, and bid him farewell when he had alerted the attendants.

As soon as the guard drove out of the guest rooms area, creating a wake which mildly shook the tall and lean evergreens on either side of the gate beside the white boundary wall, a boy came charging down the corridor on my left and stopped a few feet short of the chair I was sitting on with his arms folded in utter humility. He asked in clean Urdu if I needed something to drink, and I asked for a plain glass of water, because that’s the first thing I had been testing in all unfamiliar territories I had been visiting. Running back to the kitchen on the other side of the compound with Cat close behind him, he checked if the other rooms were clean or not, because everyone was expecting more guests that night. He brought me a glass of fresh water, which I drank slowly as I watched the trees move with the winds, and occasionally show the enormous dark black object far, far behind them.

I was sitting in what looked like a valley straight out of a scene from Tolkiens Lord of the Rings. Through the gates and the tall trees I could see the tallest peak before me. It was not very dark yet, and I could see many levels on this magnificent mountain that cast shadows on it at various places. To its right was a smaller sierra of equally dark peaks fading into the distance, as if they were the kings’ soldiers, waiting for their orders to attack. Behind the guest house opposite the sierra was a pale mountain, short and stretched out over the plains, as if confronting the ‘Dark King’ on the other side. The wind blew from the northwest, through the small gap between the Dark King and its Soldiers.

It started raining later soon after the evening prayer. The attendants turned on a few yellow lights in the guesthouses corridor and the octagonal verandah, because the power had somehow been restored, only for a while of course. Realizing that it would be difficult to move around in the guesthouse with inadequate lighting, I did some illumination of my own with the stockpile of candles and matchsticks. I put one in the middle of the main corridor, one near the sitting area, and two inside my room. The candles looked brighter than their electrical counterparts, and created strange shifting shadows of the smaller shrubs and clay figures that had been placed alongside the path of the corridor, and in the small patch of grass which was decorated with creepers and some unfamiliar plants.

The Dark King looked menacing and terrifying just sitting under the nimbus hovering above it. Occasionally a bright flash of light up from the heavens would illuminate every nook and cranny of the magnificent mountain, and I could make out strange faces on it each time it was lit up. Faces full of sorrow, and faces full of fright. Faces of happiness, anger, disgust, and even power and lust. The rain lashed against the walls of the guesthouse, and shook the evergreens violently. It slowly started to obscure the view of the Dark King as it intensified, creating even more effects at the base of the peak. Every delayed clap of thunder celebrated the magic of the electrifying light show the heavens had put up for Khuzdar, and the rain washed away all ills that had accumulated over the days.

I watched the rainwater move and splash about on the causeway near the verandah. The candle flickered as a draft suddenly came from the left. The attendant was coming down the corridor with a large metal tray full of plates and dishes, and was being closely followed by Cat, who was eager to know what was being served for dinner. I preferred eating outside, so I helped him with a small table in the verandah on which he placed the candles and neatly arranged the dishes. Surprised to see so much food I asked him if he would join me in the feast. He humbly declined my invitation and swinging his cloth that he always carried back on his shoulder quickly ran back to the kitchen. Cat made itself comfortable near one of the pillars, as if preparing to catch the small morsels of roti and the scrumptious chicken, which he thought I might throw at him. Soon I realized that I was surrounded by Cat’s friends, and thus had to share a lot more than I had thought I would have to. Fortunately the food that I was served had a lot of charbi, and my friends thoroughly enjoyed pawing and chewing the small bits of fat I threw out on the causeway. I enjoyed watching the cats run after each piece and return totally soaked, with their meal between their teeth.

The storm continued throughout the night. I slept rather comfortably even with a horde of mosquitoes flying around and sound of the constant hitting of the broken metal window frame against its panes. I had to lock the door just to keep Cat and his friends outside, and with a couple of candles by my side I went to sleep with the nagging thought that the Dark King was right outside my room, waiting very patiently and peacefully for dawn.

…

I walked to the mechanical engineering department for my first session next morning, and was surprised to see the participants already there. From my past experiences I had learned that it was always the teacher who made the mistake of coming early to the class, but here was a group of students clad in shining white shalwar kameez, waiting eagerly for me to come and tell them a few words about the new product they were about to learn. But bad news awaited me there, and I was informed that there was no electricity in the department, and that I would have to deliver a lecture without the computers and multimedia equipment. I thought it wouldn’t be too hard, but soon I realized that I was constantly referring to the software I was teaching as ‘that product’, and not ‘this product’, which made the students feel a bit uneasy, as if they had been torn apart from the wonderful new thing they were going to learn. I tried rephrasing myself at times, but after a tiring day I told them that it would be better if we could at least arrange a small generator to power up a computer and a project. After much deliberation, one of the lecturers came to the conclusion that a small generator would be borrowed from another department to serve our purpose.

And so it was decided that the next day would be spent acquiring fuel for the generator, and the generator itself to power up the multimedia system in the classroom.

The staff asked if I would like to be dropped back to my guest room. But I declined their kind gesture, and said that I would like to walk back there because I enjoyed the scenery very much. So all of them walked with me, because the housing colony of the staff members was more or less a kilometer away from the guesthouse. We parted ways when the road split, and I went to the sitting area where the attendant was waiting patiently for me to come so that he might go and get some bread for lunch.

I didn’t sleep so well that night, because I had heard a bomb explosion which sounded as if something had exploded right outside the university boundary. The guesthouse was near the boundary wall, so I kept worrying that something or someone might jump over the wall wielding machineguns and riddle me with bullets! Nothing like that happened though, and the soft mewing of Cat and his friends outside comforted me.

…

It rained cats and dogs the other day, and I was lucky enough to have reached the department earlier because the storm intensified. It was getting very dark, and due to inadequate light in the classroom I could not even demonstrate the product on the white board. So everyone was very patiently waiting for the generator to arrive and light up the classroom, and our hearts.

Finally, the kind lecturer came running down the hall with the generator and quickly plugged it into the main supply. I was so happy to see the tube lights light up, and the computer whirr with power. I wanted to start the demonstration as soon as possible, because I feared that the storm might not let the generator run outside for too long. And that’s just what happened. The wires kept coming off, and the lecturer had to go and put them back in every time to keep the computer running. The computer took some time to restart, and that wasted a lot of time. So the lecturer decided that he would stand outside holding he wires while I would conduct the class! My heart really melted when he said that, and even though I did not want him to stand outside in the rain holding the wires of the generator next to the main supply, I had to complete the hours because that was part of the course requirements. After sometime the storm subsided, and he came back in all soaked, yet smiling and full of enthusiasm.

The next two days went well, especially the last day when the power was miraculously restored in the university. For the first time they enjoyed the presentation without the problems of tripping generators, mischievous storms, and boring lectures on the white board. As usual, they were of the opinion that the course should’ve been much longer, and that they were unable to grasp the intricacies of the software in such a short period of time. I understood that, but I told them that it was my job to complete the course in the assigned time, and that they were most welcome to contact me anytime for any problems they were having with the software.

I had to leave for Karachi that night, and arrangements were being made for my departure from the guesthouse. I was served a good rice and meat dinner that night, but I wondered where Cat was. Maybe the attendant didn’t want him to bother me on my last night in the University and drove them all away. Everything was so silent in the large dining hall, and the sounds of my spoon and fork resonated through the room. I finished quickly and went outside for a stroll before the van driver came to pick me up and drop me off at Jamrok. Dark King was silent, and so were the other mountains on the other side. There were no clouds, no rain, and no strong winds. The serenity and the soft cold wind brought a tear to my eye.

During my short stay in Khuzdar I had been thinking about a few things. I wondered why it is in the human nature to always try to run away from someplace he has been living in for so long, and later think about home, and the comforts he had there. Why does man always seek absolute peace and tranquility in different places, when the true peace and happiness is always somewhere deep down in his heart? Why is it that Nature in all its wondrous manifestations always enthralls man, and forces him to abandon all and live in the midst of the fascinating creations of the Almighty till the end of his time?

I learned that true peace comes from within, and that no matter how beautiful your surrounding world seems, or how much Nature tries to keep your spirits alive, it is always that tiny spark inside your heart which makes your life worth living. I had always wanted to go far away to some place where I could be at peace with myself with the problems of modern life, and during those four days I understood that it’s not wise to run away from your troubles and worries, but to face them directly, and to engage in efforts which would help you recreate a wonderful world around you, a world with all the beautiful dark and bright mountains, strong winds, tall evergreens and fascinating creatures of God.

I boarded a small Mercedes van from Jamrok late in the night, and after a very tiring and uncomfortable journey through a dark Balochistan reached Karachi, where I was picked up at 4 AM in the morning.

It seemed to me that I had just awoken from a dream, but the signatures of my students on the small attendance paper told me that it was all very real.