Where the Indus is Young (5 page)

I find the insect population of this room peculiarly nauseating, though I’m not an anti-insect person, apart from spiders. These horrors come scuttling across the table, apparently attracted by the
light of two tiny candles provided by the management. (Gilgit’s electricity supply rarely functions for more than thirty consecutive minutes.) About an inch long, excluding a lot of antennae, they are yellowish-brown and seem, as they move, to be of a rubbery
consistency
. They look not unlike a cross between mini-frogs and maxi-spiders and if I hadn’t observed them before opening my Punial water I might have mistaken them for a symptom of Central Asian DTs.

I had just turned in last night when Behram called, with two younger classmates, to offer me hash or opium – or both, if I felt like mixing smokes. It depressed me to learn that during this past summer a number of hippies had made their way here. What with
Chinese-built
motorways, and PTDC tuition in fleecing tourists, and opium-hunting hippies, the stage really is set for the degeneration and despoliation of this whole region. I certainly would not wish to return after another eleven years. And inevitably the knowledge of what is about to happen tinges with sadness one’s present pleasure.

We went for a memorable four-hour walk this morning, up the left bank of the river. Rachel was thrilled to find herself on the longest suspension bridge in Asia, which can take only one jeep at a time and swayed perceptibly even when we crossed on foot. Halfway over we paused to watch three magnificent yaks being driven down to a butcher’s slaughtering area by the edge of the water. The Muslim feast of Id, during which much meat is eaten, coincides this year with Christmas. Normally yaks are not seen here because the altitude – 4,500 feet – is far too low for them.

As though to celebrate its winter solstice the sun never once shone today and beneath a pewter sky the Gilgit Valley looked grim indeed; but it was the sort of grimness I love. Snow-powdered rock peaks rose above the jade-green river as it swirled between wide beaches of fine brown sand, from which Rachel delightedly collected a pocketful of many-coloured, water-smoothed stones. Near the path were rounded boulders, the size of cottages, sculptured into Henry Moore shapes by aeons of sandstorms and summer floods. And on our
right vast slopes of grey shale – the very epitome of aridity – swept up and up to merge at last with the greyness of the sky. By the time we got back to the Jubilee it was penetratingly cold and we could see snow falling on the surrounding mountains.

Our immediate plans have acquired a fine patina of uncertainty. We may or may not set off for Skardu on the 23rd, depending on such a variety of factors involving the private lives of so many
jeep-owners
that I have long since given up trying to grasp the situation. But in Gilgit this vagueness about future movements worries me not at all. One can’t help liking this odd little town, though today it was at its least attractive with sheets of ice, mud and diesel oil on its street, and a piercing, gusty wind raising clouds of fine dust, and the stony mountains frowning down on its barren valley.

We spotted some nice legends in the bazaar this afternoon: ‘
THE HAZARA BEAKER AND CANFECSHNER
’ and ‘
RE-PEARS FOR AUTO MUBOILS DONE HAST
’. After some thought I concluded that ‘hast’ must be the illegitimate offspring of ‘hastily’ and ‘fast’. But is it prudent to re-pear auto muboils hastily? Would it not be more effective to promise careful work? Obviously not, in a town where most drivers have a death-wish. Nowhere else have I seen such appalling driving; the avoidance of jeeps, trucks and tractors has had to become a new popular sport. The Military Police jeeps are among the worst offenders; tractors go at speeds I never conceived possible and all rules of the road are ignored.

Gilgit’s is very much the bazaar of an area where no one is rich, not even the hereditary Rajas. The only shop offering what might be called ‘luxury goods’ is owned by a handsome young smuggler who gets all his stock from the notorious Landikotal intercontinental market. Today he was displaying several brand new Marks and Spencer sweaters for the equivalent of £1.40; and also an astonishing array of transistors, tape-recorders, cameras, watches, bottles of scent, glassware, china and Irish linen table-napkins. Fascinated, I asked who in Gilgit was likely to crave these last items. He laughed and explained that they were left over from the summer trade. It seems the more astute American tourists bypass the Irish House in Bond Street and go to Gilgit bazaar for their table linen. Everything
in that shop was being sold for about one-third the normal price in its country of origin.

At the government depot I bought two gallons of subsidised
kerosene
for Rs.3.50 a gallon, the down-country price, and no one can deny that such concessions are needed here. Today we saw a small boy carefully mopping up some oil that had leaked on to the road from a parked truck; his oily rag, when burned in an old tin this evening, will slightly shorten the cold hours. It amazes me that the locals can remain so cheerful in winter; and because their tough, squalid, impoverished existence doesn’t seem to demoralise them, it doesn’t affect the observer as Indian slums do. Yet the Gilgitis are without the Pathan’s vigour, charm and intelligence; I suspect their average IQ is rather below normal.

I was honoured just now by a visit from a locally famous Ismaili ‘saint and scholar’, Haji Nasir, who comes from Hunza. He is an impressive character, in the mid-fifties with fine features, very fair skin and an aura of goodness, calm and strength. He it was who devised a script for Brusheski, the hitherto unwritten language of Hunza, and he has published several books in Urdu and Persian.

Haji Nasir was introduced by the man whom Rachel describes as ‘our best friend in Gilgit’. This is – I quote from his green-printed, gold-edged visiting-card – ‘Ghulam Mohammad Beg Hunzaie, Honorary Secretary, His Highness the Aga Khan Ismailia Supreme Council’. Ghulam is a tall well-built man who always wears a Karakul cap and dark spectacles. He lives in the Jubilee for months on end (the owner is his brother-in-law) and has done a lot to help us.

We woke to a crisp, sunny morning, with powdery snow – which soon vanished – softening the harshness of the nearby mountains.

Haji Nasir had invited us to call on him after breakfast ‘For more talk of religion and insignificant refreshments’ – an irresistible invitation! As it is difficult to find individual houses in Gilgit I asked a youth in the bazaar where Haji Nasir lived and he promptly
replied, ‘Follow me! I am his son!’ We were led up a narrow, winding passage, between the smooth grey mud walls of many compounds, until we came to a double-door of weathered and warped wood, leading into a neat little compound with rooms opening off a verandah on two sides. Our guide took us straight to his father’s study-cum-prayer-room, where Haji Nasir was sitting on the floor, on a red velvet quilt spread over cushions, reading a superbly illustrated and illuminated seventeenth-century Persian manuscript. We sat on the edge of a charpoy and Rachel drew pictures while the Haji and I talked about Buddhism. Then I was shown his latest Karachi publication, a slim volume of religious poetry written in Persian to commemorate a double family tragedy – the death of his eldest son in an air-crash between Pindi and Gilgit, and the death of his favourite nephew, a few months later, in a jeep crash between Gilgit and Skardu.

The moment we arrived our host had produced plates of dried apricots and apricot kernels from under the charpoy. After about an hour we were joined by two quiet, serious young men, who seemed to be disciples or pupils of the Haji, and then tea and biscuits were served. Our host went to the door to take the trays from his womenfolk; very strict purdah is observed in Gilgit town, which no doubt explains the covert hostility I sometimes arouse in the bazaar.

As we sipped our tea Haji Nasir asked, ‘Where in America is Ireland? Is it near New York? Is it a big city?’ I found this refreshing in 1974, from a scholar so genuinely learned in his own sphere. It seemed a faint and pleasing echo of Marco Polo days, when other continents were so remote that nobody could reasonably be expected to know the first thing about them.

It is very noticeable here that even those who speak English (of sorts) are quite ignorant about the outside world, including Pakistan. Most seem grateful to Mr Bhutto’s government for its subsidies, but they habitually refer to ‘Pakistan’ as though it were a friendly neighbouring state rather than their own country. And some people – usually articulate and educated above the average – openly resent Gilgit’s recent amalgamation in that new entity, the Northern Areas.
This faction points out that since the link with down-country has been strengthened Gilgit’s crime rate has increased alarmingly. Previously, various petty rajas administered justice within their own tiny territories and there were no police hereabouts; nor, it seems, was there any great need for them, outside of the notorious Chilas district. But now a police force is being built up by Pakistan and in many villages is taking over the old British Rest Houses, for lack of any other accommodation. And some down-country officers are said to be introducing bribery, as an escape from punishment, into areas where rough justice was traditionally meted out swiftly and surely according to Islamic law. Luckily not many down-country officers have been imported; most of the senior police are being recruited from the ex-rajas’ families – a clever move on Pakistan’s part.

It was noon when we left Haji Nasir to look for the house of another friend, who had invited us to lunch today and carefully inscribed his name and address in my notebook: ‘Mir Aman Shah BA, cotracter, House No. 700.’ He, too, had come to our room last evening, with a gift of half a bottle of Punial water under his blanket, and had sat on his haunches by the reeking little oil-stove telling me the story of his life. Aged thirty-five and a native of Punial, he graduated from Lahore University but failed to get a job
down-country
, where he knew nobody; so now he works as a part-time building contractor in Gilgit. The rest of his time is spent farming at home. He talks of his wife with an eloquent affection rare among Muslims, has great dignity and is a most entertaining and congenial companion. His forefathers migrated from Afghanistan, but so long ago that none of the family now speaks Pushtu.

As we were doggedly looking for No. 700 Behram and his best friend came beamingly towards us. There are only two streets in Gilgit, so after a few days’ residence one is bound to meet acquaintances as one perambulates. Even with Behram’s assistance it was not easy to find No. 700, which is one of scores of tiny dwellings tucked away between the two bazaar areas. This is a much slummier district than the Haji’s. Domestic rubbish blocks the foul open sewers, the mud compound walls are crumbling and the children look filthy and starved.

When eventually we found No. 700, with the aid of a skinny
one-eyed
little boy, Behram and his friend accompanied us into the compound. Aman Shah had never met them before but this worried nobody. They were entertained to home-distilled arak while I enjoyed Punial water, and then Behram was sent out to fetch our lunch from an eating-house – the usual chapattis and stewed, stringy goat. In these Muslim circles the drinking of alcohol creates the sort of daring, conspiratorial atmosphere which might have been created twenty years ago in Europe by drug-taking. Yet here the use of hash, opium or anything else smokeable is as respectable as going to the pub at home. There is even a
government-licensed
drug-merchant in the bazaar, so no wonder the hippies are moving in.

Aman Shah apologised for his room, a small rented bed-sitter furnished with two unsteady charpoys and a wooden crate. The sky had clouded over again and we sat huddled around another tiny reeking oil-stove. Chunks of mud fell off the walls as we talked, the bedding was flea-spotted and the earth floor was littered with
discarded
bones, cigarette ends, pomegranate husks and broken apricot stones from which the kernels had been removed.

Last evening I was very touched by the wistful longing with which Aman Shah looked at my few precious books. So I lent him one – Ian Stephen’s
Pakistan
and today his conversation revealed that he had been up half the night studying it. His is a type too often met in Asia – sad with unfulfilled potentiality.

During the afternoon we went for a walk through agricultural suburbs overlooking the river. The sun was setting when we turned back towards the town and in one dusky alley we almost collided with a web of collapsed electric wires, near a fallen pole. As we hastily stepped back a youth materialised from a doorway vaguely brandishing a length of red cloth on the end of a stick. ‘No pass!’ he said. ‘Alive wires!’ And to prove his point he indicated a dead calf …

At this season the local livestock are the most miserable I have ever seen, with calves hardly as big as our sheep, and cows the size of our calves. My tender-hearted daughter has more than once been
reduced to tears by the plight of wandering cattle in the bazaar, who ravenously eat every scrap of paper thrown to the ground – including cigarette packet tinfoil, which must surely have dire effects. All the tea-houses use condensed milk, tinned in Germany, Holland, San Francisco or Singapore and costing Rs.3.50 for fourteen ounces.

Ghulam Mohammad had assured us it would be possible to get a jeep to Skardu today but this morning there was no sign of any such vehicle. Moreover, the young government official with whom we were supposed to be sharing costs had evaporated. At 7.45 I set off to look for him but he was not in the doss-house where he had said he would be, or in the other doss-house to which I was directed, or visiting the sentry outside the Residency, who is his first cousin and the brother of his wife-to-be. Finally I wrote him off and asked Ghulam Mohammad to help me make independent arrangements. I was then told that no jeeps will be leaving here for three days because of the Id festivities; but when Behram reappeared at my elbow, in his genie-like way, he said this was nonsense – Id had nothing to do with it – it was because bad weather had made the track through the Indus Gorge too dangerous. ‘It is not a good track,’ Behram explained, ‘always jeeps are falling off into the Indus.’ An unfortunate turn of phrase, conjuring up Doré-esque visions of black yawning chasms receiving a cascade of jeeps from which shrieking victims tumble through the air en route for the river …