Chakwal…the next frontier

Islamabad diary

Thanks to the efforts of Lt Gen Ashfaq Nadeem, corps commander Multan, there is a new interchange on the Motorway at Neela-Dullah – Dullah being the general’s village. When this interchange opens in a few days it will take me an hour and some minutes to get from my village Bhagwal to Islamabad.

When the new Islamabad airport opens it will be easier to reach it from Bhagwal than Islamabad. Kallar Kahar is to the south of my village, Chakwal within easy reach. If 15 years ago someone had told me that this is how the new road network would open up areas long considered remote, I would have dismissed it as daydreaming. That this is happening in my lifetime, and turning the region south of Islamabad virtually into an extended suburb of the capital, never ceases to amaze me.

Once upon a time – just to give you an idea of this rural transformation – it took five hours to get from Rawalpindi to Bhagwal. The hour and a quarter it now takes is little short of a revolution.

Back in the old days if I found myself in Bhagwal and had to write a column here, I would type it out and then have it sent to Chakwal and from the telephone exchange there have it faxed to Karachi. I would then telephone to enquire whether the pages were clear or not. The new broadband services have changed all that. And I have access to YouTube. Imagine having your laptop in front of you and being able to listen to – well, anyone – any of the masters, western or eastern.

I suppose the young of today take all this for granted. I don’t because etched in my memory is how things were. So if anyone tells you nothing has happened in Pakistan or nothing has changed don’t for a moment believe him. Of course I am not unmindful of the usual chorus…the millions living in poverty and the usual litany of problems with which we are all familiar. But the structure of living has been transformed, distances have shrunk and things scarcely imaginable just a few years ago – convenient roads, the internet, smart phones – are now part of our lives.

I could never imagine living permanently in my village. It was a place to go to occasionally but one never stayed there for long. The big city always lured you back. Things happened there and that’s where all the excitement was. With the transformation of the rural scene – not fully complete but happening at a rapid pace – it is now possible to contemplate life as a country gentleman (not that I am one…and my old bungalow is not a stately mansion), simply because the geographical divide between village and city is breaking down.

Taxila and Wah are suburbs of Islamabad. Rewat will soon be an extension of Islamabad. Then there is Chakri, Ch Nisar’s village, and Chakwal right on the motorway. Very soon all I’ll need to go to Islamabad for will be to meet my barber at the Islamabad Club or get my regular quota from my spiritual confessor.

The Chinese came with massage parlours and perhaps that would have been another reason to test the sights and sounds of the capital but the fearsome amazons of the Lal Masjid’s burqa brigade took care of that. The China-Pak Economic Corridor will be the only corridor of its kind without this necessary accompaniment of Chinese living.

The northern route out of Islamabad towards Murree is crowded. The Bhara Kahu bazaar is a horror and going to Murree there’s no way you can avoid it. The southern axis is more serene and thus easier on the nerves because the motorway ensures you don’t get the usual bazaars on the way. And the countryside is marvellous, still relatively untouched, pristine and pure.

The most beautiful stretch of Chakwal was from Kallar Kahar to Choa Saidan Shah: the Kahoon Valley. But cement plants are ruining this bit of paradise. By the time they are done with limestone extraction little of this beauty will remain.

Pakistan’s leadership crisis has never been more evident than in the limited imagination of its rulers. As if Wah and its surroundings had not been laid waste already by a cement plant and countless stone quarries, General Ziaul Haq gave permission for another cement plant just next to the Margalla Hills. A 1300 acre site was set aside for limestone extraction…which means that in the fullness of time all those acres will be dead and gone, of no use to man, beast or bird, the life having been sucked out of them.

Gen Musharraf leased huge swathes of the Kahoon Valley to three huge cement plants. The government of Shahbaz Sharif is giving further tracts of land for more cement plants. This is vandalism in the name of development.

Ours is a beautiful land, from the mountains to the sea. If only we could see its beauty with the eyes of the eagle or the artist we would be more careful about its endless bounties. We would take better care of our shoreline and our fish resources. We would ban modern methods of fishing which are destructive beyond measure, destroying the riches of the sea in a senseless manner. We would be more careful of our forests. And we wouldn’t damage the environment the way we heedlessly do.

The Kahoon Valley would earn more money from tourism than it would ever gain from the hideousness being visited upon it. Katas Raj is a Hindu pilgrimage site, Hasanabdal a holy place for Sikhs. If travel restrictions between India and Pakistan eased – and both countries could manage their relationship in a more sensible manner – we could have an influx of visitors that we would find hard to handle.

The area between Kallar Kahar and Chakri can do with a five-star hotel where travellers from Lahore could rest for the night before coming to Islamabad, now thanks to development a crowded city with too many cars on its roads and not enough of a public transport system despite all the hoopla surrounding the metro bus service.

I am often asked why I don’t live in Islamabad. I ask in return what exactly I miss by not living there. Are there music conferences or ballet and opera highlights taking place in Islamabad, theatrical performances, great art exhibitions, which I miss by staying in a village?

Yes, the thing missing in our small towns and rural areas is ‘entertainment’. There are no dance clubs in any of our major cities – at the altar of piety we saw to their disappearance some decades ago – but there are private parties. You can have the occasional mujra in a village. At the village of Karsal which is very near my village dancing girls from Lahore and Chiniot arrive in large numbers during the annual urs. But private parties of the kind which are a feature of the social scene in our three large cities – Islamabad, Lahore, Karachi and that’s about it – are missing from the great rural panorama.

Of course other compensations exist. But it’s a hassle laying your hands on them. Simple things considered routine anywhere else we have turned into mighty struggles. We have shown a remarkable gift for making life more difficult than it need be.

Email: bhagwal63@gmail.com