My Pakistan Diary: Roots! A Spiritual Journey

dost-mittar #33
As your RAWagent-on-call, I felt duty-bound to search with one `s` too:)

http://www.waulah.com/Tourist/kusakfort.html

They appeared from backward or Gujjar class

Excuse me!!!!

Please dont associate my caste with being backward or stereotyping the millions of Gujjars in South Asia, i dont know about India but in Pakistan Gujjar is not labelled into one class or social group, i.e. backward, forward thinking etc. in my family there are all sorts, backward thinking, moderate, and progressive, just like in any rajput, jut, arrain, ramgarhya, patra etc family

Pmishra #20

Many religious Sikh women cover their heads with a chunni, and if you ever watch alpha punjabi where they have the religious singers, those girls seem to be wearing some kind of hijab type thing under their chunni so as to totally cover their hair.

but otherwise even in pakistan the chunni is off the head and takes its place as a mere shoulder scarf for the most part. mainly married girls wear a chunni as it shows a kind of `grown upness` commanding respect from all in society for her status as a married woman.

#43 Mubakr

Why are you apologising for something you didnt do (unless ur really old and did that stuff during partition). Should i expect an apology from every Sikh or Hindu for what happened to my family when they left Indian Punjab?

the past has happened we cant change it, its time to move on and just be normal to each other.

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Kaurasach....

Dude... your knowledge about the Sikh Panth is seriously deficient.

Maharaja Ranjit Singh came to the Kashi Vishwanath Temple and gave a lot
of gold ( and gold umbrella - if I remember correctly )

The division between Sikhs and Hindus was only created in the 19th century
by the Brits ( and of course Pakis and Secularists act as if they are two different
religions :-) )

The first male child in Hindu families used to be offered to the Panth to fight against
the mughals. Go read the Granth Sahib and see how many references to Ram
are there.

Millions of people from the South travel to Varanasi every year and many come
to immerse the ashes in the Ganga. Many people from the North come to
see the various Shakti peethams.

So your assertions about the reverse are completely wrong.

Farzana at # 30:

I agree with your post, but I wanted to know from someone who visited Pakistan and experienced Pakistani mentality and behavior first hand. Dost saaheb traveled along with his wife and had a far amount of interaction with local people than I normally have as a traveler. So his opinion would be much more worth it.

:-)

Veeresh at # 28:

I recall that NHK told Chowkies a number of time that not all Pakistani ethnic groups hate India at same level.

Pashtoons these days tend to hate the USA, Afghanistan`s northern Alliance and UK (not necessarily in that order) much more than India. However, I am sure that if Pushtoons become net friendly and start interacting with Indians on the net, they will turn anti-Indians quickly.

:-)

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dost-mitar at # 50:

It was my honor to hear from you.

Both of your areas of answers (preserving the culture and savings) come as pleasant surprises. I had absolutely no idea of how Pakistani Punjab`s culture was faring vis-a-vis Indian Punjab`s. I would just like to mention that Afghan Pashtoons tend to look down upon Pakistani Pashtoons telling us that our Pushto has become much more liberal. On a separate note, we are becoming sick of hearing too much bhangra based Punjabi music on Pakistani channles ;-)

On trade with India, I consider myself to be open to it, yet there is a fear of the unknown. I know that open trade will help every body (prices in Pakistan will turn for the better, incompetent industry eating up our valuable resources will die out, competent Pakistani providers will have access to a larger market, etc.), yet I have a feeling that Pakistanis having low rate of savings already, like you pointed out, will start consuming even more once cheaper goods from India make it to Pakistani markets.

On another front, on the basis of your travel in Pakistan, do you think that Pakistani tourism stood a competitive chance in todays world, if promoted? I am referring to cultural, archaeological, historical and natural resources based tourism.

Dear Dost-mittarji:

Look forward to the pix...and my vacation was...a lot of heat, a lot of warmth...including fever:)
- - -
#37:

[ha ha ha .... Now Farzana Versey is back talking about bigotry - after making sure
all her old articles have been purged : )
The same Versey who supports the JKLF but lives off the freedom of India
what a farcey .]

Excuse me...my old articles are ALL there...and I wish the ones elsewhere also had archives of ages ago, do you understand? Before shooting off your mouth, do a check. As for living off the freedom of India, I am a part of it. I do not wish to discuss JKLF or any other thing here, now...my views are already known.

HE

I am in full agreement with your case gainst NS, BB, and Altaf. I wish they all were dead and gone too. The problem is that Musharaf and army lacks judicial and moral authority to prosecute their crimes. All faujis can do is to set up kangroo courts and persecute but they cannot prosecute because they themselves have violated the highest law in the land. The only people who can prosecute these criminals are the people of Pakistan either through court and if not through court by their vote. Now fauji interference has turned these criminals into heroes.

And now it is gonna get worst - the evil empire has read the writing on the wall that it cannot `yet` compete with more experienced former colonial powers and it has begun a process to accept the status quo. In this paradigm shift of the evil empire it is just a matter of days that Musharaf will become a political liability for them. Whether this guy gets killed or choose to exile somewhere the alternative `democratic` leadreship that will be imposed on us through military will be either one of these three characters. And now when army`s frontman i.e. president of Pakistan is once again armed with 58(2)B we will have to go through the deja vu of 90`s all over again.

Use your common sense. Do not support these psycopaths who would go as far as breaking this country and its people apart by giving us curses like MQM and Bangladesh. We MUST discredit army as a political institution by disbanding it, disarming it, and denouncing its so called shaheeds and heroes first. We must impose social boycott to faujis, their families, and their friends by making them outcasts and leapers. Army must be humiliated, hated, and degraded exactly the way they have earned it.

#48 kaurasch, #47 dost-mittar

I am glad to hear that ``ghunghat`` tradition is fading in Punjab. It is an ugly tradition that has to do with women hiding their faces in public. My impressions of Punjab and J&K are from the 70`s and 80`s. At this time my cousins and friends still covered their heads in public. My cousin who was studying in Ludhiana would repeatedly be asked where her brother/father was if she walked around alone in public. The implication was that women should not move around without a male family member.

If this is over, well and good, however I remain very unimpressed by status of women in Punjabi and North Indian culture. And, yes, I do believe it is a negative borrowing from islam, just like pathetic condition of some hindu widows is an anti-female hindu tradition.

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on ghunD/parda: All women of the village did ghunD/kuhND from all men of the village older than their husbands. They did not do it from younger men...that is why there are so many jokes/folk boliyan about `diyor` `bharjai`....`JeTh` on the other hand had to rely on a occasional accidental look at the younger bharjai.....From the time(early 70`s) I know of women of my grandmother`s age, most of them did not do `kuhND` from other men in the village..reason..most of the elder ones were already dead...and younger ones were their `diyors` and sons. `kuhND` was associated with honor, izzat, sharfat, hayaa...during these times. This was for women who married to the village...girls born in the village did not wear kuhND at all and had much more freedom than the married ones.....these were the kuRiyan chiRhiyan of the village just enjoying their youthfull years and waiting to be married and move to some other village/town where the new rules of `kuhND` and other behaviour will apply to them.

Women of my mothers age(she is 70 yrs now)...started with the a big `kuhND` and somewhere around 1970`s they started abandoning it..mostly making an excuse I was not aware when the elder guy walked into house...but they really did not like doing `kuhND`...`kuhND` had turned a symbol of backwardness, illiteracy..kind of like... look I am from 60`s. Another thing is that these older women did not wear dopatta...they wore `chaador`..it was a bigger and heavier piece of fabric with some light `crotia` work on it....those types of chadors are hard to buy now from shops in Amritsar and Ludhiana....Most stocks of this fabric I saw was in Afghan stores in US...when I saw rolls of this fabric in a local Afghan store it reminded me of my grandmother and other women who used to wear it.

Women of my age and my elder sister`s age did not do kuhND at all..even if they were only high school fail and lived in the pinD. girls I went to school with in high school did not even wear dopatta most of the time when in school campus...tyhey will fold it and put it next to their `basta` on desk....but when they went home after `chhutti` they will hang it on their shoulders.....there are only pockets of communities here and there in far flung rural places which don`t have TV yet that they don`t know about the euphenism of backwardness that goes with the `kuhND`.

Covering the head with dopatta is mostly on formal occasions like going to gurdwara...during some wedding ceremonies..when some stranger is visiting and you are present in the same room.

All my above observations are from Majha region of Amritsar Gurdaspur...as you go Eastward you can see things more liberal than that. As the wiseone once said..India lives in many centuries simultaneously.....I won`t be surprised if some women are doing big `kuhND` with a heavy chador in my village today...but it would be an exception....there would be many times more girls in jeans and skirts going to the local English medium school than women in kuhND.

dost-mittar,

....... you have it all wrong .... urstruly is a usurper from arabia - we don`t want him in our house ....... the problem with most pakis is that they are confused about their roots ....... whereas you went looking for your roots in kalar kahar, most of us who live in kalar kahar go looking for our roots in mecca and medina and somtimes in najaf and karbala............. it is sick and perverse ..........

stuka#31:
No, I did not see any signs of either Bhaun or Pind Dadan Khan, although I am sure I was within a running distance of both at some point.

Urstruly#32
Wow! You have rendered me truly speechless!
You are right! I did break my part of the deal. The deal was that you were to get your own house and I mine. I was to leave yours and you were to leave mine, so neither of us would be a pain in the butt of the other. You did fulfil your part of the deal and continue to do so until today. I failed! I did not throw you completely out of my house. So, you continued to stay in mine and multiplied. Do you really want me to do to you what you have done to me - throw you completely out of my house and make anyone unfortunate to remain here impotent, invisible and inaudible?

Satyamvada#38
Thanks for the complete verse and the beautiful translation.

nadeemakr#40:
I feel a lot of affiniti with you.:)

It is interesting that you talk about your doing some shooting at the Kussak fort. The driver Zaheer, had mentioned that some people used the fort for shooting a film. I asked him if he knew the name of the film that was shot there but he did not know.
BTW do you know any history of the fort. Looks like it was built as some sort of military fortification.

Yes, I have read about Malot. As for janjuas, their story was well known to the hindus of the earlier generation. They were called janjuas because they used to wear ``janeus`` before their conversion, the sacred thread that high-caste hindus used to wear.

ahmadzai#27

I am so glad that you enjoyed my travelogues. It was encouraging comments, such as yours, on my travelogues on India last year that inspired me to do the same for Pakistan this year. If I were alone and had more time, I would have liked to travel more by buses and trains and mingled with ordinary folks more than I did this time around.

On advice, my piece on heritage was in relation only to historical monuments. On some aspects of culture, I think that Pakistanis are doing a better job than Indians, who seem to have been swept off their feet by the western culture. Pakistanis have kept their modesty in dress that Indians have abandoned and they also seem to be keeping some of their traditions, for example, arranged marriages better. And while the Indian panjabi cultural scene -songs/dance/literature- is much more vibrant than that in Pakistan, the Panjabi songs I do hear from Pakistani singers are more along the lines I heard growing up from the likes of Mastana/Surinder-Parkash Kaur than the hybrid music I hear from the Indian side.

I do have some advice for your country on economics. While Shaukat Ali is doing an A-1 job, I don`t think anyone is addressing what I consider to be a major structural problem in the Pakistani economy, namely, a lack of savings culture. The savings rate in Pakistan is much lower than in India and dismal compared to other Asian countries. There is a paradox that while the Indian economy is far more advanced than Pakistan`s, there is not much difference in the standard of living between the two countries. This is so because Pakistan has been fortunate that due to geopolitical situations, from time to time, it has been saved from facing catastrophe by help from the U.S, Saudi Arabia and the international organizations; but Pakistan can not always count upon fortuitous circumstances to enable it to continue to live beyond its means.

My other advice would be to open up its economy to India, albeit with transitionary protectionist measures to enable some of its infant industries to grow and able to face competition. Contrary to popular opinion in Pakistan, this would benefit Pakistan a lot more than it would India. Some Pakistani firms would certainly go under but the ones that survive would be much more leaner and meaner and have a much larger market available to them than is the case at present. And the consumer, of course, would be the big winner.