Last year in October, I had a chance to travel to Chitral to conduct a training session at the University of Chitral. The first thought I had, even before leaving for the valley up north, was to include a trip to Kalash valleys. How can one miss that, right? It is a must if you are in Chitral.

I have seen many documentaries on the subject and read a lot about the enchanted Kalash valleys, inhabited by people still following an ancient code of conduct. One thing I am very good with is my imagination. I have always imagined living there to be fascinating; in wooden dwellings, constructed in such a manner that scores of abodes appear to be one big house, integrated vertically through connecting staircases and horizontally using tiny bridges. I imagined the dark nights with starry skies, smoky cauldrons, wolves howling, shamanic music, ancient rituals and alien languages.

The fascination of the times before us is not something uncommon. Most of us are captivated by accounts of earlier epochs and wish that we could travel back in time to experience the charms of the days when the people lived like a big family in a tribe or in city states - the times when the human race was not so addicted to technology that human-to-human interaction should required deliberate effort.

However, a few places in the world still appear to be stuck in an ear untouched by the onslaught of modern technology. There remain organic in nature and feel mythological in their perspectives. Kalash valleys – the hidden jewel of Pakistan, are one of those unique places. The Kalash or the Kalasha are the only pagan minority residing in the Chitral district. They form the smallest minority community in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. They follow a spiritual journey that can be described as a mix of Paganism, Animism and Hinduism. The Kalasha live in three valleys of Chitral namely, Rumbur, Bumburet and Birir.

The origins of the Kalasha remain unresolved as their history is shrouded in mystery and controversy. Of these many theories, three carry great significance and are considered closest to reality. The grandest of all is that the Kalasha are the descendants of the people who accompanied Alexander the Great. Many historians believe that they are an indigenous tribe from the neighbouring area of Nuristan also called Kafiristan. It is believed that in 1895 Amir Abdul Rahman, the Afghan king, conquered Nursitan and forced the inhabitants of the area to convert to Islam. Many of them fled to Chitral to avoid the forced conversion. The third theory claims that the ancestors of the Kalasha migrated from a distant place in South Asia called Tsiam. The Kalasha folk songs and fables hint at their roots in Tsiam. The language of the Kalasha people is a Dardic tongue.

Finally, the day arrived. I and my friends were all set to visit the famed valleys as the training session with the exceedingly bright students of Chitral had concluded. A jeep was waiting for us. The journey began. It took us more than two hours for the 40 kilometres drive. The road was in a poor condition and there was no road at all past the Bumburet valley bridge. From that point on, it was a rocky dirt trail; so narrow that only one vehicle could pass through at a time. On the other side, a sharp edge along the river was all you would have. So, there was very limited room to adjust if you were unfortunate to meet a vehicle coming towards you. Thrice the side mirror on our jeep hit jeeps driving in the other direction. The drivers would smile at each other to acknowledge that it was none of their fault. My excitement for a socially and technologically secluded valley helped me bear the uncomfortable journey.

During the drive, we saw nothing but barren mountains with few trees here and there and a little water way down the edge. A few kilometers ahead of Bumburet, the greenery started. Suddenly, it was a lush green meadow. It looked like someone had carved a slithering road, right through the middle of a dense forest. The towering mountains around us felt like the walls of a fort. These mountain walls provided a perfect cover, allowing very little sunlight for a short time. Resultantly, the weather was pleasant - cloudy and misty most of the time. Gradually, we could also see some people. Many smiled at us. The girls wore beautiful dresses. Most of the men and women had Greek features. The people were welcoming and hospitable. Their wooden dwellings looked like something out of a fairy tale. There were clusters of wooden homes of various sizes and heights, connected on all sides by wooden staircases – allowing movement up, down, right, left and in diagonal directions. It seemed that the residents were all one big family. The village had it a magical look about it. It was as if we had stepped onto another planet, in another time and reached another civilisation. Then there was a reality check. An ‘uncle’ asked in Urdu, Chai piyenge? (would you like some tea?). For a moment, we were in awe, as if Urdu didn’t fit.

When night fell cold swept across the valley. The air felt damp. There was a little drizzle. One could smell the smoky cauldrons. There was sheer darkness with spots of lights and deafening silence… Lost in time, I enjoyed every sip of my strong tea; an experience of a lifetime.

We walked through a graveyard. Kalasha people are trying hard to stick to their centuries-old customs and rituals. A death is a celebration. They sing and dance around the bodies of their loved ones for two to three days before burying them in a coffin and offer a feast typically sacrificing many goats to feed the guests who come to celebrate (not mourn or condole) the death. The Kalash leave their bodies in the graveyard and not bury them. They put them in a wooden box and leave them under the open sky. Bare skeletons and human bones are a common sight in the graveyard. The personal belongings of the deceased (axes, knives and guns etc) are consigned to the graves with them. It is believed that the visiting spirits need these. A resident I befriended told me that some of the Kalash people have now started burying their dead. Watching many coffins lying around for years is a strange feeling for the first timers. The idea of celebrating a death is as interesting as it is intriguing.

The next thing that I saw took me by surprise. The tourists seem to have disturbed the social fabric of the valley as they often intrude on private space of many Kalasha. As our jeep passed by some girls, they either hid their faces with a scarf or turned their backs to us. One of them told us that some of the tourists take pictures of them and then put them up on social media, without their consent. The visitors need certainly to understand that these people have a life of their own and should not be seen as a mere tourist attraction.

A local friend told me that a decade or two ago, Kalash women would accompany visiting tourist groups across the valleys as their guides and local people would open their doors to visitors and invite them in to experience the ancient lifestyle of Kalasha people. After these people faced problems with some of the tourists, the tour guides vanished and the doors closed. No one is invited in any longer unless they have a local friend. Now they also won’t let you take pictures.

Going deeper into the valley, we saw modern technology, including bikes, cars, LCD TVs, mobile phones and laptop computers, not to mention a surge in concrete buildings. It is not that I am hostile to technology, but it not what I had imagined. Technology could have been incorporated more subtly. It seems in some places to have altered the distinct ecosystem of the valley. The cherry on the top was seeing mural advertisements of famous cellular phone brands and some huge banners. This certainly did ruin the look of the valley. I felt sad. Imagine the pain of the indigenous people, who are witnessing their culture, their values, their way of living on the brink of extinction. Soon they might become history. I don’t want this jewel to vanish. I want my children to see the charming place and meet its people. I sensed how strongly Kalasha people want to hold on to their roots. Most of them want their children to follow in their footsteps.

How can we preserve the valley’s original ecology and still provide the economic opportunities the locals need to earn their livelihoods? Maybe there is a lesson or two in Skansen where Sweden’s good old days have been painstakingly re-created in a model village. It is an open-air museum and zoo located on the island of Djurgården. It was opened on October 11, 1891, by Artur Hazelius – teacher, scholar, folklorist – to show the way of life in different parts of Sweden before the industrial era. Skansen attracts more than 1.3 million visitors each year. The exhibits over the 75 acres site include a full replica of an average 19th-century town, in which craftsmen in traditional dresses demonstrate their skills as tanners, shoemakers, silversmiths, bakers and glass-blowers in period surroundings. Pakistan, too, can establish a replica of Kalasha valleys. This can help in creating job opportunities for the local people and taxes for the government.

I will never forget the warmth and hospitality of the Kalasha people, in particular the tiny village of Batrik, where a man gave us a whole basket of freshly plucked red juicy apples and took us inside his home to let us experience how an ordinary Kalasha spends his life.

When night fell, the cold swept across the valley. The air felt damp. There was a little drizzle. One could smell smoky cauldrons. There was sheer darkness with spots of lights and a deafening silence… lost in time, I enjoyed every sip of my strong tea - an experience of a lifetime.

Let’s make Kalash valleys the face of Pakistan’s tourism map for the year 2022.

The writer is a research economist at the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics (PIDE), Islamabad.