Himalaya (2004) Read online

  The last miles of the journey are less fraught, a slow glide into the wide Vale of Peshawar, with time to indulge the voyeuristic pleasures of railway travel: surreptitious views over high walls into courtyards and back gardens, glimpses of life backstage, where mothers and wives prepare food and hang out the washing, and children carry bundles of wood and bring the cows and goats home. As the train passes it gives a look-at-me whistle. The animals run away from it, the children run towards it, and the women stare with a frank curiosity they’d never allow themselves if their men folk were about.

  On the outskirts of Peshawar we pass one of the newest cities in Pakistan, the Kachi Gahi refugee camp, thought to be the largest in the world. It grew up in 1982 to deal with the displacement of Afghans after the Soviet invasion. Because the Afghans are great entrepreneurs, trade has thrived here and almost anything from guns to drugs to washing machines is available in Smuggler’s Bazaar, the heart of this warren of sheds and shacks. Since the fall of the Taliban the trickle of overladen trucks returning to Afghanistan has become a flood, yet 1.5 million refugees remain in this camp alone. And this is a fraction of the 18 million displaced people for whom Pakistan is their temporary home.

  Zahoor Duranni tells me all this without any emotion, other than some quiet pride that his country has dealt with this enormous burden without complaint.

  He gestures down towards the sprawling camp.

  ‘We’re all the same people.’

  Day Two : Peshawar

  It’s 7.30 in the morning and the throng of humanity I saw at the refugee camps last night is reproduced on the streets of Peshawar. Beside the Grand Trunk Road is the Bala Hisar, a huge and sprawling pink brick fortress that seems to have squeezed civilian life into a crush of nearby side streets.

  Zahoor tells me that most of the people here are small farmers in town for the day to buy and sell. This is peasant capitalism, with no co-operatives or supermarket chains getting in the way as individuals set up stalls or simply open bundles of whatever they have, wherever they want.

  There is a loose sort of organization. Chargan Mandi is the chicken market, Sabzi Mandi is the vegetable market and Chour Bazaar is basically Things Fallen Off The Back Of A Lorry market.

  Zahoor advises us to remove all BBC stickers from our vehicles.

  ‘Just to be safe,’ he says, apologetically. There are plenty of Taliban sympathizers among these milling crowds, and with the highly unpopular Iraq war only recently over, our presence here in the conservative North-West Frontier Province makes us, though he never actually uses the word, targets. Hence our police escort and the armed guard deputed to stay by my side at all times.

  I understand their concern, but emphasizing our separateness seems only to serve the purpose of those who want to keep people apart. It saddens me that extremists, on both sides, should have preempted the natural act of communication.

  We drink some green tea at a smoky cafe with a dark and cheerful interior, and carry on regardless. There is so much to take in. The profusion of stuff. Mangoes from the Punjab piled up alongside bananas from Sind Province to the south, onions, squash, pears, peaches, a wheelbarrow of apricots being heaved through the crowd by a tiny old man, two young boys carrying nets to catch pigeons, which they will later sell. Beside a pick-up, a group of men are squatting down. One of them scoops up a half-dozen live chicks, stuffing them into a small cloth bag and pulling the drawstring tight. At a shop-front behind them a man sits cross-legged stirring rice and meat in a pan the size of a small pond.

  There is a sudden flurry of movement. Traders pick up their wares and abandon their pitches, as, preceded by a lugubrious wail, a diesel locomotive looms up from nowhere, towering above the crowds and heading for the very heart of the market. At the very last minute, and with considerable reluctance, the throng parts to allow the nine o’clock to Karachi to continue its 1100-mile cross-country journey.

  No sooner has the last coach rumbled through than the market reassembles, with little more than a vague irritation on the part of the traders that they should have to share their railway track with trains.

  Peshawar, whose name means ‘The Place at the Frontier’, is the first big city on the Pakistan side of the Khyber Pass and was once encircled by a stout protective wall, with 16 gates to allow travellers and merchants through. One of the first places they gathered was Qissa Khwani Bazaar, which means Storyteller Street, for it was here that voyagers to and from the west would swap tales of the outside world.

  Today, Storyteller Street has become Dental Alley. In between the photocopiers, money-changers and electric fan shops is a profusion of premises hung with painted signs depicting gleaming gnashers clamped tight between wholesomely pink gums.

  I enter a tiny, hexagonal room at the base of one of the remaining stone towers of the Kabuli Gate. Most of the space is taken up by the impressive bulk of Abdul Wahid, proprietor of the Khyber Dentist Clinic.

  Stone walls keep the clinic pleasantly cool, but it’s impossible to keep out the roar of Peshawar’s mighty traffic. An unbroken succession of private buses, turning out of the junction with Hospital Street, hoot furiously at each other while their conductors shout for business, yelling their destinations, selling tickets on the move and, when full, slapping the sides of their vehicles with cacophonous panache.

  I’ve spent a lifetime in dental treatment of one kind or another, so I’m quite interested to see how Mr Wahid works. I squeeze into his chair, taking care not to dislodge the ominously placed green plastic bucket beside it. As I settle back I find myself staring at a wall decorated with a pair of dentures and a copy of the Koran.

  The side walls are hung with various examples of gnasher-related art work: a collage of glamorous lady film stars with big toothy grins, a framed set of photos of drills at work in diseased mouths (fortunately in black and white) and a faded chart depicting ‘The Four Steps Of Dental Decay’.

  I avert my eyes, only to catch sight of an ancient rusty drill, standing to one side of the chair like a withered arm.

  With fingers the size of small trees, Abdul Wahid stretches my mouth into a rictal grin and feels around inside, squeezing each tooth in a vice-like grip. He doesn’t seem impressed by my Disneyland of caps and bridges, and suggests I give up using toothpaste and use powder and my finger instead.

  His charges are reasonable: 100-300 rupees (PS1-PS3) for an extraction, fillings from as little as 50p and a full set of acrylic dentures from PS15, though these look as though they may have been enjoyed by more than one previous owner.

  If artistic self-expression has an outlet in Peshawar it seems to be in transport. Taxis, buses, auto-rickshaws and trucks are rampantly customized, bedecked with lurid colours, gleaming attachments, chrome strips, mirrors, glittering lights, prods, protuberances and general ornamentation that would have them instantly pulled over by the police in any Western city.

  Zahoor takes me to a grimy yard on the outskirts of the city, where a half-dozen trucks are being beautified by teams of painters and mechanics, welders and artists, working side by side in Ruskinian harmony. They’re assisted by a number of young boys, helping out fathers, uncles and cousins, and learning how to strip down gear-boxes long before their voices break.

  Decoration is ubiquitous and uninhibited. No inch of the vehicle, apart from the windscreen and the tyres, remains unadorned. Everywhere else is covered in whatever the owner and artist agree on, from abstract shapes to animals, birds, flowers, vignettes of mountain scenery, roadside views, Koranic verses, names and Roman numerals.

  A fringe of painted chains hangs down from the bumpers like beads on a flapper’s dress. Multicoloured hubcaps protrude from the wheels, a combination of Damien Hirst and Boadicea.

  We’re offered tea in grubby enamel cups as one of the master painters begins work on the tailgate of a truck. A green base has already been applied (green being the colour of Islam) and he is now, with extraordinary speed and confidence, sketching the outline of a partridge, a bird he
ld in high regard by the Pathans, who believe it has many powers including the exorcism of devils.

  Less than an hour later the partridge is six feet high and standing proudly on top of a pile of stones in a romantic alpine landscape of lakes, snow-capped mountains, and houses set on tree-lined river banks, above which a name has been delicately picked out in Pashto. ‘The Flower of Durband’, a reference to the owner’s home village.

  The head and his team of seven take a week to decorate a truck from start to finish, for which they charge 15,000 rupees (PS150).

  By the time we get back to the hotel, exhausted but exhilarated by the intensity of life here, I’m ready for a beer at the Gulbar, about the only place in Peshawar where alcohol can legally be sold, to non-Muslims only of course. But the doors are firmly closed, bound together with adhesive tape. A sticker announces that the bar has been ‘sealed off’ until further notice, by order of the local authorities.

  I learn later that this has nothing to do with hygiene or any trading malpractice. It’s to do with moves by the MMA, the conservative Islamist majority in the local assembly, to introduce Sharia law on the North-West Frontier.

  The Sharia law would not only ban alcohol for foreigners (hardly a nightmare) but close cinemas, ban non-religious music, forbid male doctors to examine women, forbid male tailors to make garments for women, and make failure to pray punishable by law.

  Eat at the hotel’s Chinese restaurant and, with only tea to linger over, am back in my room by nine. A small sticker is attached to the desktop in my bedroom. On it is an arrow indicating the direction of Mecca, and a card, which reads ‘For Prayer Mat Dial 47’.

  Day Three : South to Darra Adam Khel

  Islam has been dominant in this part of the world since ad 711, when Muhammad Bin Qasim of Damascus conquered the Indus valley, which had been Buddhist for hundreds of years. Islam was once at the forefront of cultural and political progress but now, it seems, up here on the North-West Frontier, it’s being taken in the opposite direction.

  Certainly the belligerence of the Iraq war and the incompetence of the peace has given the Islamists great new material as they pursue their goal of oppressive obedience.

  The world is, fortunately, never clear and simple, and as we ride south to Darra Adam Khel, a town devoted almost entirely to the production of guns, I find myself confused by Zahoor’s defence of such a place. Weapons, he says, have always been important to the proud, unconquered people who live on the North-West Frontier.

  ‘For them,’ he explains, ‘a gun is a social necessity. Pathans carry guns the way Londoners carry umbrellas.’

  What’s more, he claims that the existence of and respect for the gun has reduced crime and kept order.

  ‘Charlton Heston would be proud of them,’ I suggest.

  Zahoor nods seriously.

  ‘He was in Peshawar.’

  Why should I not be surprised that Charlton Heston was in Peshawar? The common ground is, of course, the West. The Wild West and the North-West Frontier have so much in common: proud, patriarchal societies with a marked dislike of outside interference, and strict moral codes of their own.

  One of the twin pillars of Pathan tribal society is the concept of melmastia - hospitality. Unfortunately, the other is badal - revenge - which can be swift and violent and provoked by as little as a glance at someone else’s wife.

  A few miles due south of Peshawar, we’re halted at a barrier marking the transition between what are called the Settled Areas and the Tribal Areas. Beyond this our Peshawar police escort has no jurisdiction, so they are replaced by thinner, less well-equipped Tribal police who seem delighted to see us. We pull out behind them onto a busy road full of toiling over-loaded trucks heading south in the direction of Karachi.

  In the fields veiled women bend in rows, cutting sheaves of corn, and beside the road schoolboys are playing cricket in their uniform blue shalwar-kameez, the combination of long shirt over loose baggy trousers that is Pakistan’s national dress.

  Darra High Street, described by Geoffrey Moorhouse as ‘the noisiest street in the world’, runs for almost a mile and is filled with the roar of horn-blaring, gear-changing trucks punctuated by the crackle of gun-fire.

  You never quite know where the shots are coming from. As I cross the street a preoccupied figure in a white robe pops out of a shop behind me, raises an AK-47, blasts a few rounds into the air, shakes his head and disappears inside again to make adjustments.

  Seeking relief from the din, I walk into a small arcade running at right angles off the main street. It is, to all intents and purposes, an arms mall, consisting of everything from workshops to carpeted rooms where you can select the weapon of your choice while taking tea with the management. In one establishment an earnest, bespectacled young man sits cross-legged, fashioning a trigger for a mini-Kalashnikov using pliers and a small hammer. Next door to him an older, bearded man scrutinizes a freshly made Mauser like a scholar bent over sacred texts.

  The equipment may be low-tech but the standard of plagiarism is extremely high. Originally confined to making copies of the British Army’s great standby, the Lee Enfield .303, Darra’s retailers now offer brand-name pump-action rifles, revolvers, automatics and quite probably rocket-launchers. One man proudly shows me a James Bond pen that can fire real bullets (he proves this to me by stepping out into the street and loosing it off).

  ‘Very popular with the tourists,’ he assures me, adding regretfully, ‘Until two years ago.’

  Everything in Darra is faintly bizarre, so I’m not entirely surprised when, out of the corner of my eye, I spot an elderly man with a long white beard apparently climbing into a litter bin. Once inside he bobs down out of sight, and the crew think I’ve made the whole thing up until his face reappears over the top of the bin and, rearranging his robe, he steps out and proceeds on his way.

  The grey, serrated steel tub that would in Britain be either a bin or a council flower bed turns out to be one of the smallest public lavatories I’ve ever seen. Barely three feet high, it sits astride a narrow concrete culvert along which water flows, though not, I notice, today.

  A young man approaches and asks me where I’m from. Yesterday in Peshawar he would have been moved on pretty quickly, but today my police escort is nowhere to be seen. I later learn they’re down the main street having their photo taken by Basil.

  The young man speaks English well, but claims he’s the exception. There is a lack of money for education and most men of his age have little option but to leave school early and go straight into the gun-making business. When he hears I’m from the BBC he is complimentary. Everyone listens to their Pashto service in the evenings. They are trusted, but less so after the Iraq war.

  I bridle a little. Would he rather Saddam Hussein had remained in power?

  He shakes his head vehemently. He hated Saddam Hussein. He hated him because he accepted American help to fight a fellow Islamic country, Iran.

  I’m embarrassingly aware how much longer his memory is than mine.

  Day Four : Fatehjang

  We’ve already had to postpone our trip to see Prince Malik Ata. Mysterious objections from the government seem to centre around a security problem. Something vaguely to do with bombs and the military. As the Prince lives in the middle of agricultural countryside no-one can understand what all the fuss is about, least of all him.

  After a volley of phone calls the objections have been withdrawn and he has promised to lay on a special welcome to make up for any inconvenience.

  So we find ourselves heading east along the GT Road, crossing the great River Indus, which, along with the Tigris and Euphrates, nourished the first urban civilizations in the world. When Alexander the Great reached this point he ordered a half-mile bridge of boats to be built to carry his 50,000-strong army across. Today, much of the flow has been diverted for irrigation, but the sight of one of the world’s great rivers rolling below the battlements of the old fort at Attock makes the heart beat a little faste
r.

  Once off the Trunk Road we meander along country lanes. Brick kilns are the only signs of industry; otherwise it’s quietly rural. At one point we pass a funeral. A small procession, led by a group of men dressed head to foot in white is carrying the body through the bush. They all appear to be hurrying.

  The entrance to Prince Malik’s country estate consists of modest cast-iron gates set between concrete posts. Once through them we follow a long, secretive track through acacia thickets, which, after almost half a mile, opens out onto a rather grand avenue of maples, beneath which a small crowd struggles to control a number of stocky, short-legged bulls wearing scarlet pom-pom hats and garlands round their necks. An open, four-wheeled carriage with a plumed and turbanned rider at the reins stands waiting behind two chestnut palominos. Fifteen elderly men in white shalwars and black-trimmed gold waistcoats are drawn to attention. One or two of them carry rifles. All are having orders barked at them by a figure in a brilliant white cotton shalwar and tight black sleeveless tunic sitting astride a black stallion. Beneath a bulbous turban, a magnificently curled moustache dominates a fleshy face. A pair of watery, aristocratic eyes turns towards us.

  ‘We must go soon, I cannot hold the bulls much longer.’

  Roger steps down from the vehicle, exchanges greetings and begins to explain how he intends to shoot the sequence. But Malik Ata Muhammed Khan, Prince of the Awans, is not the slightest bit interested.

  ‘You will put Michael in the coach over there!’ he decides. ‘Then I will tell them to begin the procession, and your camera will get a good shot from here.’

  There is clearly no point in arguing, and I hurry back down the drive to the waiting carriage.

  ‘Michael!’ he bawls after me. ‘Walk round the side! Those bulls are dangerous!’

  As if to prove his point, one of them breaks free of its restraining rope, snorts, lowers its head and kicks out (maybe in protest at having to wear a scarlet pom-pom hat). Someone goes down.