The Snow Will Melt An AN-12 of the IAF took off for Leh on 07feb'68, and had to turn back due to bad weather over J&K, and then went delayed. Missing for almost 35 years (except for one report in 1987) many relatives believed that the aircraft had been taken to Pakistan. Then in 2003, one dead body with uniform and documents intact was found, after which more were located as well as parts of the aircraft.

Likewise, the airplane "Stardust" went adrift in the Andes, and the glacier finally returned the aircraft and the bodies after 50 years.

I could not understand the reference to Zia's plane crash, though.

Reflections During a US Visa Grind Brilliantly recorded and written, but I am surprised that they let you take a pen and paper in to take down all these notes and observations, or did you buy/borrow a ball-pen at every step from the guards or what?

Notes from the Sunderbans Thank you all, there were some Hindu/Muslim observations which I left out. Then there were some observations about airline food also which I left out. And finally there were many observations about the whole Bangladesh thing which I left out too.

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AM/4 - that plastic blown up in the water is the way they fish over there, just could not figure it out, plan to go there again in December with water-proof camera, needs to be salt-water proof too as well as mud proof. Eucalyptus is following the Government and shows up where ``they`` have placed brick roads, sad but true. However, almost 85% of the Indian Sunderbans is declared as a ``core`` area so nothing changes there, hopefully, and even entry into those areas is very difficult, you really have to have a purpose like photography or whatever.

Shah2/3 - thanks. Yes, there are also supposed to be treasures that flow down the rivers and then settle in the delta, appearing every now and then.

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The Secret Is: Don’t Worry, Buy Happy What the new evangelists do is to try to make you and me feel really really inadequate unless we buy what they are trying to sell. Somehow, the RD and Soviet books were different in that aspect. So now, thanks to children who are more aware than I am because they probably did not read the RD or Soviet books, I get to read, see and appreciate BANKSY.

Go figure.

But neat article, I can share your sentiments. I live off one of the most polluted crossroads in Delhi, and there are two hoardings for medical insurance staring at me through the window as I type this, maybe that is the secret here?

Why Have This Train At All? Much is being made about lists and tickets on this train, when the simple truth is that for the domestic legs, whether from Delhi to Attari or LaHore to Wagah, there was simply no control of any sort.

I would hazard a guess as well as state a common perception, that there would have been enough W/T travellers as well as the standard issue hawkers/urchins on board, on both legs. In addition, there would be a few ``extras`` of the sort we see in trains all over the sub-Continent, the petty crooks, the sharpies, etc.

nb/318 - bits and pieces, mostly. Unable to perform proper ``gusal`` also.

Various/xxx - I can not understand why you find it strange that given a choice of a reserved berth at say 160/oo rupees, and an unreserved seat at say 120/oo, there are many people in our countries who would opt for the 120/oo option? Especially in an 11 wagon train with around 600 pax on board, and if said people are travelling with extended families? Once again, please visit Wagah/Attari to understand the poverty that travels on this train before going on and on without understanding ground realities. How many of you will understand that person ``a`` travels to India and often person ``b`` travels back, on the same documents, for a variety of reasons?

And while we are at plastic identity cards, now we will need totally fire-proof ones also, right? So then what`s the solution, metal dog-tags for all, that`s a good one too.

pmishra2/291- very valid. But then governance all over the world has no issue collaborating with the fundoos, right, so why single out the Indian Government?

delhiwala/257 - there are logistical problems with you solution. Too many hair baths, for one.

ZahraJ/255 - well, a cheap way to cross borders will be needed for India and Pakistan, and the best would be to run very short distance small trains from Amritsar to Lahore. I will once again implore my Pakistani interactors here to visit Wagah and LaHore to see the India train come in to get a grip on facts before passing long judgements about passenger lists and ID cards. Sometimes I think many people here have no idea of what real poverty in our countries is . . . while at the same time wanting to fulfil at lowest cost the urge to travel for pilgrimiage or meeting with families or even claiming inheritances or switching family members.

Why Have This Train At All? Salim/192 - thank you, I hope you are doing well too, it is good to read your posts most of the time though I wish you would ignore the taunts and the attacks and get along with your humour, some of which has been pointed at me also, but taken in good spirit, I assure you.

(Though that stuff about the tall fair Customs officer which I walked into, and our friend Omar Q and his inability to get the bear and hunter joke were, what do I say, differently interesting. Khair . . .)

few factual points:-

a) The Indian Consulate in Karachi is held up because the Pakistani Government is unwilling to pay market rents in Mumbai City and also unwilling to locate in the suburbs or New Mumbai. So till the Pakistani Government gets a fix on what they wish to do in Mumbai, the Indian Consulate in Karachi is not permitted to function as a visa issuing centre. As a matter of fact, India has positioned a Consul in Karachi for the past few years.

b) The Thar Express was laid up for the past few months, more due to the amazing floods experienced, please blame global warming.

c) Our friend Ijaz Gul has been able to spot the correct reason here, and more power to his keyboard, I say?

d) The state of some of the people at Safdarjung Hospital is terrible, and while it has moved ahead from the provide blankets and hot food scenario, it has not solved the reality that there are still a lot of unidentified bodies as wel as multiple claimants. Compensation will be a terribly difficult issue to resolve.

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Thank you for your analysis too. I do wish I had saved some of your earlier posts, they were excellent, as barachota if I recall, as long as one did not succumb to the flattery . . . . hmmm . . .

Why Have This Train At All? tahmed32/160 - for somebody who said that this article should be ignored, you seem to be all over the place as the most frequent interactor. Thanks, again and have a nice day - I was hoping you would spot the usage of the word ``pilgrim`` and go for it, but I guess you are getting better? No hard feelings . . .

Why Have This Train At All? dullabhati/119 - on Pakistani side, the distance is not covered by soldiers on horseback like on India side, but checked by static forces about 50 feet apart. The railway track on the Pakistani side is very badly maintained, the culverts are collapsing and there is no ballast stone left, on the border-Wagah stretch. On the Wagah-LaHore stretch, maximum speed is 40 kmph and often trin slows to a crawl of 10-15 kmph due to lack of track maintenance.

sadna/116 - the train doors are certainly not locked from outside - but the wagons are solidly loaded with cargo/goods so movement becomes difficult. Also, much of what is inside is combustible/flammable. This is an inherent part of a train which is 80% occupied by the poorer Pakistanis and 20% by the poorer Indians, travelling to Pakistan with everything they can lay their hands on and returning with dry fruits. Much of the cargo is also allowed because the stuff is given religious significance. (The dry fruit is often declared as ``prasad`` and the plastics/medicines/chemicals from India are often declared as ``gifts from Ajmer/fallanah hazrat/etc``

(The richer passengers use the flights - a 747-777-310/PIA and a 320/IC from Delhi, a 777-747-310/PIA and a 320-/UL from Mumbai - which often go full - so that gives you an idea of the loads, as well as by the many buses that now cross . . . ) 500-700 of the poorest then are left for the trains. As I have repeatedly said, go to Wagah, go to LaHore RS when this train comes in and speak to the 3-wheeler drivers. I did.

plays8 and others - ofcourse people cooked on this train. As they do on many trains in Pakistan, mentioned here by my worthy Pakistani colleagues, and in some trains in India. Though it has come down in India after some fires a few years ago.

Get a perspective - it is mostly the poor from India Pakistan who travel on this train, who carry their own stoves and utensils, and buy fresh food to cook all over the place. In addition, much of the additional baggage is overlooked for the obvious reasons. See a Hajj flight or a pilgrim train to understand better.

delhiwala/57 - It would be easy to make the Samjhauta security and checking at Delhi RS a fraction of the way the Delhi-Lahore or ex-Amritsar/Kashmir buses to Pakistan are checked. But my point is simple - this train was and is designed for smuggling. That - and the kind of baggage carried by passengers/angadiyas/others - just makes this sort of attack easier.

Why Have This Train At All? Folio/Ally/others:- Euro-Star type (or if you please, Shatabdi Express ``German`` design coaches) kind of train costs around 700-800 air-con chair car with light hand baggage only from New Delhi to Amritsar, and takes between 5-6 hours. 3-4 trains in each direction per day, and another 10-12 trains that take 6-7 hours too, costing slightly less. In addition, plenty of ``normal`` trains on this route.

Samjhauta Express, 2nd Class 3-tier, permitting as much baggage as people can sneak on board (though officialy 35 kilos or thereabouts per head) costs Rs 119.oo per adult, Delhi to Lahore, children below 5 free. Takes about 5-6 sometimes 7 hours.

You do the math, most of the people who use this ``interntional`` train do so for economic reasons.

hamidm2:- we haff our sources, and I thank you for the humour, but these are open secrets just like the jehad boxes at Lahore RS and the ballast-less condition of the Wagah-Lahore track as it crosses the border and when it crosses MoghalPura.

samar1982:- I spent years in a railway town, and agree that Indian Railways are doing a fantastic job. But, twice or thrice week, they need to mount security as well as due diligence on this Samjhauta Express. That`s all I am saying

Why Have This Train At All? Zeemax/12, certainly there are combustibles carried on this train (you have to wade through the plastic being unloaded at Wagah station/Pakistan), I don`t know what happens with acetic anhydride about which there have always been rumours, and it is widely reported that there were bombs which went off as well as failed to go off. I know what happens to fires when it is accompanied by motion so the flames gutting everything inside or outside is very much in line.

Ships catch fire and sink even while surrounded by oceans, for lesser and smaller reasons, so please don`t underestimate the whole issue and strength of a few litres or gallons or kilos of inflammables with explosives - just search for photographs of ships that have caught fire and you will get what I mean.

nb/11, I think this blast happened because the nexus between the terrorists and the overall bad guys as well as those engaged in illegal commerce/smuggling between our countries is in position, and shall suffer the most if things improve between India and Pakistan. Just imagine how many inertia levels will change in both countries if just Indian movies and Indian booze go legit? Simple minds will now break this down into religious stuff, but I don`t buy religious fundoos in a vacuum any more either.

HP/9, how do you know who is Pakistani and who is not on this board? But thanks anyways.

Zahraj/8, please take the morning train from Lahore to Wagah border and get a clear understanding of what happens on this Lahore - Delhi route. (Arrange to have somebody pick you up and drive you back from Wagah, though . . . maybe Yasser will oblige, he promised me a long ago - before Dunkin Donuts came and changed him - that he would do it for me . . . ) As for trains, the romance ensues. Once things improve, I shall come to Lahore and go as far North and West as the lines take me in Pakistan.

Ranjit/7, point, noted. I am not being flippant, tired and fed up of this hypocrisy, yes. And what does sympathy achieve? What I have to do, I do, and for that maybe you could join me and some others at Safdarjung hospital? Sympathy not needed there, just logistical support.

Why Have This Train At All? Ranjit & Anil, is it your contention that terrorists operate and exist in a vacuum, independent of the ground realities?

Please read the article from that perspective.

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Zahraj - the train was like any other 2nd Class 3-tier train in India, and that`s that, the latest that the Indian Railways offers in this class. Look at the price of the ticket also. Capable of running at 130kmph on one of the fastest routes in the country.

Issue here is that the long Delhi - Attari leg done through the night is asking for trouble, but maintained mainly to provide the existing vested interests with a safe option, when a safer shorter Amritsar-Attari option is now available. Who are these vested options? Look around you in Pakistan, from the jehad boxes right outside Lahore Railway Station to the easy availability of Indian booze and all the way up to the movement of acetic anydrides, and so on and so forth. The answers for this blast are related to cross border smuggling, and that is what needs to be nipped.

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Phantom of the Opera I saw the Pakistani version about 3 years ago, and I want to say again that I very much liked it. As a matter of fact, this was my review then:-

http://www.chowk.com/show_article.cgi?aid=00003644&channel=&threshold=1&layout=0&order=0&start=60&end=69&page=10


2000-2200, 17th April`04:- for these two hours, I am able to put the complete Indo-Pak Hindu-Muslim pissing-competition observation-comparision thing behind me.

I am in a super-chilled air-conditioned auditorium full of people sitting everywhere, seeing and being seen, who look and sound like they are from DefCol, New Delhi, talking English and Punjabi in accents I can relate to. The content is not important, often not relevant, the syntax and grammar used with or without lisps define class, style, cash as well as alleged intelligence. I am surrounded by people, young, middle-aged and old, who are obviously from The Correct Set. A long on wind and short on humour speech by the otherwise erudite Director on cell-phone manners falls on instrument clasped ears of people who simply do not seem to know how to set their phones on silent or vibrator modes.

``The Phantom of the Opera`` is a play which probably needs no introduction, I can either tell you the story here, or I can take time out to give credit where it is due. I choose the latter, you can surely buy from a wide range of CDs and DVDs. The dance steps, if you wish to, are great value for money in case you wish to amaze other people in nightclubs the world over.

But all the same . . . for almost two hours, we watch and listen to the agonisingly romantic unfolding of love above and below the surface of the world. Set in the late 19th Century, the set designer Sarah Adeel`s work, and the backdrops placed by the Hunerkada Team, Zulfikar Bureny as groupleader, at the Islamabad Club Auditorium, are absolutely gorgeous, vividly exotic. I can still sense the colours used. The same group also presents the human sculptures, which come to life only when the Phantom is into the last verses of his passionate love song. ``Up there is all hell``, belts out the Phantom from his lair, below. How true?

Hammad Azim as the Phantom is behind a mask throughout, but does he know how to deliver, dance and twirl and put forth stage presence! The two female leads manage to complement each other, the bitchy Carlotta played by Rushika Weerasooriya and the winsome opera singer Christine played by Ambreem Mirza. Of the page girls, the audience favourite was the wonderful drag queen cameo by Jalal Manzar Bashir. Ali Azfar Naqvi plays a pliant manager while Salman Akhtar as the opera owner and husband to Carlotta, strikes the correct chords from the married males present. But best of all, in my opinion, is Raja Zia-ul-Haq as Gerard the composer, probably the one role that inspires every human emotion from onstage and off.

Once again:- buy the CD. See the DVD. If somebody can get hold of the Islamabad version, music set by Marcus Morris, and review it at The Chowk . . .? Somebody from Lahore, perhaps?

The advertisements in the little booklet they give before the play are indicative - Serena Hotels helps you experience time, U-Fone pays via SMS, Bank Alfalah is a caring bank, Dolce Vita have a sleep system with imported German springs and a local model in a purple caftan, Nestle hi-calcium and low-fat milk gives you vitality and repeats the message in Urdu with Swiss quality, Nestle once again gives you hi-calcium low fat yogurt as well as butter rozana, and finally Nestle Everyday instant something gives you energy. Next, First Fidelity Leasing Modaraba gets you a new car in just 72 hours, Nirala Sweets are proudly upholding traditions since 1948, Grapevine does something I can not really figure out but it may be an events/PR firm, Pepsi says Pepsi, and Red Earth cosmetics show a lot of leg. The Director pauses as he rattles off the list of sponsors.

The mysterious GG at http://www.rungg.com shows some sad throwback to the `60s kind of guys next to the Thuraya Satellite Mobile phone for 34k only, after which you are invited to Trust Commercial Bank Limited before you move on to WakGas, the largest and the only ISO 9002 LPG purveyors. Akhtar Ali and Asociates work in a distinguished way to do advisory and sales tax, and Dawn Bread pushes an oversize club sandwich into a little girl`s mouth while Diet Coke promises you that you shall look good and feel even better with 1 calorie. Mobilink will reshape communications, and finally, on the rear cover, apna hai Total shows a young boy too young for tricycles hugging a gas station attendant. That, by the way, is what the ``and our sponsors who we love a lot`` speech was like, both before and after the show.

Then, in addition, both before and after the show, the Director thanked everybody in the audience he could place, and some he couldn`t, or who were probably not there but would get feedback. Most of all, it did seem as though he was getting a boner for the Islamabad authorities, something about getting permission for this play and hoping for future permission for an amusement park or something like that. Perfectly valid. The butter, I mean, rozana applied on, thick.

Many people who left for a smoke or a bite during the interval were not let back in, and could be heard thumping on the doors, in vain.

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Happy New Year, all. Shall prevail on Shah Sharabeel to please try to do his show in Delhi, also. I shall never be able to forget or repay the absolute generosity he showed to an unknown Indian in Islamabad that night.

Rawalakot: Rediscovered 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.

Don’t Shoot the Messenger Thank you, Shandana, and so apt for not just Karachi but much of South Asia!

Wonderful insight, must ask you, do you take notes or is all this ad-lib before crashing at night?

The Death of a Nawab Nazar/Ijaz - appreciate your ground level inputs. From here in India, barring the few of us with linkages to Baluchistan, the rest are not impacted. And frankly, many of us hope and wish that Pakistan gets its house in order whichever way is best for it, so that we have lesser problems in India of the attributed to Pakistan sort.

Right or wrong, that`s how it is.

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What is the ground reality in Karachi, though, since we see a lot of smoke and fire and stuff on television, but it could be any city in Pakistan. Indicators would be - are people sending their children to school? Is the port functioning smoothly? Are the buses/taxies operating at normal fares?

And most of all, how is the middle class taking it?

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Would the Pakistani Army have decimated Nawab Bugti without American approvals is another obvious question. Or was this, also, a covert operation by the now Independent State of ISI?

The Death of a Nawab Well, we just saw on CNN that one section of the Pakistani Government is saying that Bugti died ``accidentally`` due to a mine-blast, and another section is saying that he was killed.

As were a lot of other people killed in this military action.