Rawalakot: Rediscovered

Whenever someone talks of the beautiful North or Azad Kashmir i find myself rolling on the ground in fits of laughter.The best comment about your so called majestic North can be read in ``Hunza Daastaan`` by Mustansar Hussain Tarar where a tourist returning from the track is found commenting ``Hunza, my foot, what is so special about it?``( coughing dust).Similarly Azad Kashmir seems just a haphazard growth of herbs and shrubs when compared to Indian Kashmir.It is Indian Kashmir which truly deserves to be called Jannat Nazir but there too the Paki rodents from across the LoC are ruining the paradise.I have only seen it on TV (courtesy BBC) and is still mesmerised by the charm and beauty.Simply said, feast for the eyes.
The real beauty of a place is the people living there.It only takes a few bad eggs to spoil the atmosphere and peace.

Mujh se mut poochh narasai ka dard ae dost
ke angoor khatte hain

Nice article. Be great to see a map and track the route; I imagine you went north - east from Islamabad? The article was very visual; though I wish you had written more about the food rather than just dal mash! :)

Dear Parag:

Thank you for liking the article. I am terrible with directions therefore I always avoid `em in my ranting. You are right about the food; I should have but then I was vary of the word count that kept on mounting despite my best efforts.

Well, he, the cook i.e. made mutton ginger, fried chicken and fried bhindi and without any exaggertion, all of those dishes were out of this world!

ciao

Nadeem

Thank you Nadeem, for yet another refreshing article. Presumably you are back to petrol driven cars now (or does diesel do it for you, too?) and so faced no difficulty in uphill drives.

My brief sojourn in Pakistan as well as attempts to get a look at POK (okok . . . ) also convinced me that there was an amazing difference in environmental care there.

Is that missile still parked on that roundabout outside Islamabad, pointing towards India, on the road to Faisalabad and does the board still show ``Srinagar 129 kms`` or whatever? Just curious.

Thank you Nadeem Akram for sharing such a wonderful and useful article with us.

I would have been much better if such articles contain few photographs also...photo speaks...

Thanks once again and please keep on writing.