Train to Pakistan 2004: Just Another Touristy Day.

too bad you didn`t try pappasallis. It`s in the same building as pizza hut only on the other side. Their italian-american stuff, in my opinion, is much better than anything pizza hut can offer.
Hope you`re allowed to visit Murree the next time.

#8 ranjha, #12 veeresh
you are both right about blue areas :) The initial plan divided islamabad into color-coded areas. Blue was for commercial areas and maroon, i think, for industrial area. One specific market became more famous as THE ``Blue Area`` though and that`s how islamabad residents usually refer to it now.

#17 ijaz_gul
islamabad is no longer a ghost town at eid. People have started adopting it as their home and the number going back to ``apnay gaaon/pind`` for the eid holidays has decreased

#20 Romair
Dont expect alot from Lashari. All he`s doing is making money (for himself, not the CDA) by allowing the massacre of all the green belts. Just look at what he`s done to the one between sectors G and H and you`ll know what i`m talking about. And the newfound obsession (read idiocy) with planting Palm Trees in Islamabad. Twice the CDA bought hundreds of Palm trees at an exorbitant price and planted them along the main roads and twice the trees (as expected) wilted. Islamabad environment supporting Palm trees??? Common sense, anyone?

interesting...hey, no harm knowing about another country....i guess we indians should be grateful that we have a free press, a bounty of magazines on all topics from automobiles to politics at very low prices, a surfeit of choice in all matters as consumers from cars to cosmetics..YES, i can see my pakistani friends with the proverbial chip on their shoulder vis-a-vis india , immediately scoffing at me.I don`t care.I am grateful that since i was born in south asia i wasn`t born in a god-forsaken country like bangladesh or an evil , greedy culture like pakistan.I`ve heard that the motto for pakistan is ``brother , brother f**k each other``.How sad!!...Is it true.Is that how it is.Can anyone enlighten me.I`m willing to be wrong.

Romair & Dost

Alright, if you say so, I will spare them just for once next time. But I am watching them.

Man Mohan Singh`s nickname in the Primary School was ``Mona``.

Yesterday, Geo TV took us to a small village, Jha, near Chakwal, where Man Mohan Singh was born.

They showed us its Primary School register where the entry was:

Name: Man Mohan Singh
Cast: Kohli
Profession: Dukandari (Shop Keeper)

An old man, sitting on a Charpoy and smoking Hukka, explained how he and Man Mohan Singh went to the school. The Primary School is still functioning as it was.

He invited Man Mohan Singh to visit this small village of 200 mud huts.

dost mittar #18 You are in good company as a ``son of the soil`` of what is now Pakistan: Manmohan Singh is another son of the soil. My brother had the same emotional feelings when he visited our ancestral village in India last September and visited our ancestral home and brought back a piece of the wall from the original house that was still standing. This was the place where my parents had been married, and where we had lived since at least the early 19th century I think.

On the other hand - I have fallen in love with every country on earth I have ever visited, so dont mind me. :-)

re:#18 by dost-mittar
``You won`t in all probability hear a south indian saying these kind of things, unless it is Mani Shankar Aiyar who is also emotionally attached to Pakistan.``
Because Mani Shankar Iyer is married to a Punjabi woman?
Or is it because his real name is Md bin Tughlaq?
I am sure it is one of the two. Please fill me in.
Sridhar

Urstruly #15: I would have to disagree with you.

I have read a lot of the write-ups in nearly all the major Indian English magazines, during the cricket series. And they have been very appreciative and objective, about Pakistan. In fact, a bit overly appreciative, if you ask me. I think the Indian writers went out of their way to portray a good picture of Pakistan. Much of this had to do with the Pakistanis being extremely good hosts. And probably much of it had to do with the fact, that the Indians had come in expecting the worst, due to their otherwise low exposure to Pakistan, and the propoganda of their govt. and media vis-a-vis Pakistan.

I think this trip really opened up their eyes about Pakistan, apparently, mostly on the good side. Which is what I had predicted a long time ago.

If anyone makes the effort to learn about another country or person, it should be appreciated. This had always been my biggest complain with Indians, i.e. they had such strong views about Pakistan, while they knew next to nothing about the place. The ones who have spent their own money to travel to Pakistan, should be given credit. As should their journalists, who have almost gone over-board in praising Pakistan.

Now I have just one complain left, i.e. I hope Indians realize that this was just a first introduction. And I hope they don`t claim expertise (good or bad) about Pakistan, through just one visit.......

dost-mittar#16: I visit Pakistan intermittently. So it is easy to notice changes, when one visits a city after five to ten years, which perhaps the locals do not notice.

The biggest thing I noticed about Islamabad, in the last visit, is that it is much more crowded and dirtier than it used to be ten years ago. It is becoming a bit like Rawalpindi. There was a time when it was squeaky clean. In its survey two years ago, Asiaweek (the same magazine that ranks Asian universities) ranked Islamabad as the best city to live in South Asia; slightly ahead of Banglore, which was second.

Lahore has apparently improved by leaps and bounds, from what I hear. I haven`t visited it in a long time. Apparently Shahbaz Sharif, the Chief Minister, and Kamran Lashari, the beaurecrat, have improved Lahore a great deal. Now Lashari is running Islamabad. He is kind of celebrity in fixing cities.

We used to go to Islamabad club, now and then. It was one of the only, if not only, place in Islamabad, which had a swimming pool, where girls swam alongside boys. So you could see girls (nearly all foreigners) in bathing suits. Every now and then, Pakistani girls would show up, also. That was worth the price of admission.

``She is hesitant, so I need to go through the
motions, wherein I tell her that she is like my daughter and her mother
is like my sister so won`t she please accept this from me?
``

HAHAHA!! I can think of a dozen crude jokes here but I shall let this be :)

Romair:
Yes, the view of Islamabad from Daman-e-Koh is really quite panaromic; one can really get an aerial view of the sectoral planning of the city.

Urstruly:
``Now Pakistanis know very well how prejudiced, ungrateful, and demeaning you people are. You people take other people`s hospitality as some kind of weakness.``

If you think that THIS is ungrateful, I wonder if I should send in the next installment of my travelogue, which is frankly quite critical. Veeresh and I may not live in Pakistan -neither do you for that matter- but we love your mulk, which we regard as our vatan, and we think it gives us some right to say the kind of things we do. You won`t in all probability hear a south indian saying these kind of things, unless it is Mani Shankar Aiyar who is also emotionally attached to Pakistan.

All I can say is REAL GOOD!!! I admire your accurate obsevations on things that otherwise seem insignificant.

Islamabad is also known as a ghost town. On Eid holidays, once the salaried people go back home, it gives a deserted look.
Cheerios

veeresh:
This is another entertaining account from you. BTW what do you mean by ``cease fire line``? The Islamabad Club is simply superb; is any of Delhi clubs as good; the only one I had seen was the National Sports Club and it was nothing like IC.

``Exchanging the weak and poor of one side for the other, while the rich grabbed whatever they wanted anyways. Knowing a bit about the subject from the India end of things, I tend to agree.``
You probably meant something different from what this sentence suggests; it apparently suggests that hindus/sikhs who left Pakistan were poorer than the Muslims who stayed back and the Muslims who went to Pakistan were poorer than those who stayed back.

Malik

I am sorry to say this but this episode reads like a 8th grader`s essay on his summer vacation. ``We went there.....``, ``We came back from there.....`` kind of stuff. There is no insight, no expression. It is too plane and senitized. Most of other Indian people have written quite enlightening pieces about their visits to our country. Now Pakistanis know very well how prejudiced, ungrateful, and demeaning you people are. You people take other people`s hospitality as some kind of weakness. Shame on you. Next time you people come back to my country, some serious ass whupping is in order.

Veeresh Jee

This was a comfortable read & really enjoyable - you painting the picture so accurately. I think you wrote it with a low blood pressure.

I remember when we use to land at Bombay some years back, they did not let the crew to go into the lounge. But One Dollar got us all the latest Indian filmi magazines in the cockpit. Newspapers & magazines are really cheap in India.

I am apprehensive of visiting India not because of the general public or the politicians on top but of the lowly intelligence paople who would think ``What a ex-military Pakistani doing in India?``.

Somehow these paradoxes of India-Pakistan go hand in hand. On one hand, one is offered a free cup of tea and, on the other hand, one is not allowed to visit the harmless Murree. The Pakistani security apparatus thinks that every Indian is out to spy and perhaps similar feelings are on the other side. It is apparent that these taxiwallas, hotels & motels are under pressure too to keep a look out. We still have unsophisticated intelligence philosophy in both countries with no ``intelligent profiling``; and almost illetrate guys at the bottom rung.

I remember an over 80 years old rickety bridge near Shahpur (Sargodha), on Jhelum river, having a ``Warning`` of not to be photographed. Presently, the only useful purpose that this ``Warning`` is serving is that whenever the police wants to punish some one, he is posted at this location.

Your interest in Autos is also quite evident - the tyres, makes and the chassiss.

I am not worried about you. With what kind of impression did Raghu leave the country?

Very nice.
The point about bones is a good one, but a) cremation b) rivers?