An open travel account
Chalo will definitely revive people's interest in the genre of travel writing
By Altaf Hussain Asad
Chalo, Masud Alam Kee Safri Kahanian
By Masud Alam
Published by
Sanjh Publications
Pages 294
Rs 320
ISBN 978-969-8957-52-0
There was a time when people didn't miss a chance to write a book about their travels abroad. Majority of these travelogues were trashy, and so this genre slowly degenerated. Still some writers -- such as Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Begum Akhtar Riazuddin etc. -- carried on the tradition. Now Masud Alam's book Chalo seems to have revived people's interest in the genre of travel-writing.

Time flies
Memories stretching from a Fokker flying into Gilgit to a tombstone in the overhead rack to an aircraft held together with old plastic shopping bags...
By Chris Cork
Tombstones do not usually count as hand luggage, but this one did. It was the real McCoy, grey marble about two-and-a-half feet long and being carried by a man I vaguely knew from the work I then did as director of an NGO. "That a tombstone?" I said. "Yes" he replied, "I picked it up today to take back for a friend." We drank a cup of tea and at the appointed time sauntered out to the little Fokker that plied between Gilgit and Rawalpindi. My friend carried the tombstone under his arm and we chatted of people we knew, local gossip and the difficulties of finding funding. He put the tombstone -- unsecured, and it must have weighed a good 20 kilos possibly more -- in the overhead rack and off we went. Nobody batted an eyelid. The cabin staff thought there was nothing even remotely odd that a large chunk of marble might decide to interact with the laws of gravity in the event of a little turbulence and, to be honest, I can't say I was especially flummoxed either -- it was just another of 'those things' that happened in Pakistan. (In case you were wondering at the quality of my memory -- forget it, my daily diaries have been mined for this canter through encounters with aircraft.)

For most people Islamabad is hardly the place to be on a long free weekend. Islamabad becomes even less attractive when it comes to Eid. After all, isn't it called 'City without a Soul'? But is it truly so?

The answer to this question depends upon the person who is searching for a soul. If it's a linguist, a population geographer or a historian, the said quotation may actually be true. But if what you are looking for is a lot of birds to shoot -- in the Margalla Hills -- then I must say Islamabad has quite a mighty soul.

My friend Nausherwan is a Pakistani working in the US. He is a member of the Cat Specialists Group researching the Big Cats of Pakistan. He also manages his own website dedicated to the wildlife of Pakistan.

And so one fine morning after Eid, we packed our shooting gear and headed for the foothills of the mighty Himalayas in my car. Though we had not anticipated any action before reaching the destination, we weren't surprised to find a flock of rooks feeding in a roadside wheat field.

Rooks are medium-sized all -- black larger cousins of the common house crow we all inadvertently meet up with every day. Their presence wasn't surprising because they are known to winter in the plains of the Potohar plateau all the way from Jhelum to the foothills of the Himalayas.

Rooks were not the kind of birds we were out to shoot, yet we decided to give them a shot or two. Luckily, the rooks were cooperative, and within a few minutes, we bagged a couple of them from the inside of the car.

Fast forward half an hour and a couple of police pickets and we were at Trail 5, at the piedmont of the Margalla Hills. Here Nausherwan's NIC, printed in English as standard for Pakistanis living in USA, came as a shock to the policemen on duty.

Picking up our gear we headed into the hills following the track. The initial part of the trail was quiet and birdless. Little was seen except for the horribly common Himalayan bulbuls. Certainly a far cry from what we had expected, they weren't bad enough to be left alone. So a few shots were fired, as long as they willingly posed.

Next we spotted a babbler picking at the ground. Closer inspection revealed the bird to be a common but not-so-widespread rusty-cheeked scimitar-babbler. This medium-sized babbler specie is restricted in its distribution in Pakistan to the Margalla Hills. With these credentials, the babbler in focus was not a bad choice.

Due to its shy nature, the babbler was approached with due diligence but it refused to permit a decent shot. Some shots were taken but unfortunately, all missed the mark.

A few minutes walk past the babbler introduced us to the Kalij pheasants. Now these were the kind of birds I was yearning to shoot: with its grace and elegance and stupendously shy nature, it was worth a gem. Yet the pair in question was hidden behind too dense a growth of underbrush to allow for a shot.

Presently, a family party of closeby black-chinned babblers initiated a chorus of sounds. This sparrow-sized babbler is hardly the best candidate for being shot, but since we were in the hills, we decided to leave nothing behind.

The black-chinned babbler is restricted in its worldwide distribution to India, Nepal and Pakistan. In Pakistan, its distribution is limited to the Margalla Hills. For most of the time these miniature babblers eluded my shots. Finally they decided to give in.

The morning till this point had been quite bland. Expected species such as Himalayan treepies, fulvous-breasted woodpeckers and white-cheeked tits were nowhere to be seen. Tired of aiming at babblers alone, I was about to give up the shooting gear when, all of a sudden, a surprise sprang up right in the middle of the track.

A male Kalij pheasant right in the middle of the track was unexpected; but equally wished for. I quickly crouched, forcing Nausherwan to follow suit.

Slowly making my way forward, I found the bird alarmed and ready to flee. I took a few shots from where I was. A few shots… but the bird disappeared.

Apparently, the male Kalij pheasant managed to make it across the track but the females with him were stranded on the opposite side of the track. Desperate to reunite, the constant chuckling of the females indicated that if we stayed put for a while, they could make an attempt to cross the track too.

Shortly we were proved right. One of the females emerged out of the forest. Aware of our presence, the female came to the middle of the track, turned back and disappeared… It came out again… At last the frightened soul gave up her frantic endeavours to get across, leaving us with no option but to move on.

We spotted another male Kalij pheasant spurting across the track in a visible hurry. We thought more will follow. We waited. Although the remaining pheasants could not be spotted in the thick undergrowth, their constant rattling of foot movement made it easy to keep track of the birds.

Next a female sped across again giving no time to bag it.

The exit point had been marked by now and constant foot rattles meant at least one more bird was to follow. In no time, a handsome male emerged. His entry was much the same as that of the previous female, only this time, I was better prepared. I finally bagged the creature.

The pheasants had made the day for us. They were much more than we had anticipated. As if their shots were not enough, a keen and cute rusty-cheeked scimitar-babbler soon showed up, allowing for some more shots.

Two hours in the wilderness had tired us. I handed the shooting gear over to its owner, Nausherwan. We slowly trod back to the parking lot, agreeing Islamabad might not be the best place to spend a longish weekend but it certainly is where one can have some interesting bird shooting.

Chalo, Masud Alam Kee Safri Kahanian

By Masud Alam

Published by

Sanjh Publications

Pages 294

Rs 320

ISBN 978-969-8957-52-0

There was a time when people didn't miss a chance to write a book about their travels abroad. Majority of these travelogues were trashy, and so this genre slowly degenerated. Still some writers -- such as Mustansar Hussain Tarar, Begum Akhtar Riazuddin etc. -- carried on the tradition. Now Masud Alam's book Chalo seems to have revived people's interest in the genre of travel-writing.

Masud got a chance to visit many countries as a seasoned broadcaster and journalist. Initially, he didn't plan to get his travel writings published but this book saw the light of day since his friends greatly enjoyed his travel experiences.

Chalo engrosses the reader from page one. Travel writings took his fancy from childhood. A notebook would always be by his side -- to jot down his experiences as they came by.

Masud Alam is not a travel writer who juggles between personal experiences and lectures in history. Here and there Masud quotes negatives and positives of the lands he visited. Like in London the traffic runs at a snail's pace. Road widening is not on the cards as Londoners simply dislike such schemes. They obey the traffic rules. Whereas, here in Pakistan, the city godfathers are always planning/scheming to widen the roads -- to facilitate only the elite and to make the traffic more messy.

From London to Amsterdam. Masud writes cycling is a favourite pastime of people in Amsterdam. They enjoy holidays cycling away. It's at this point that one gets to read the hilarious account of his cycle transforming into one immortalised by Patras Buhkari in Marhoom Ki Yaad Mein. At the same he warns his readers to beware of cycle lifters in Amsterdam.

His account of Amsterdam becomes livelier when he narrates his experience of walking into shops to inhale opium, heroin or hashish. With limited shops and coffee houses in the city, this business attracts addicts from across the globe.

The adventurer in Masud Alam prods him incessantly. Read the chapter 'Maan Na Maan Yahoodi Mein Tera Mehman' and you will realise that his appetite for foreign lands in insatiable. He is in Limasol, Cyprus. He learns that a cruise runs between Limasol and Haifa. He wants to give it a try, although the odds are heavily stacked against him: There is a clear warning on his passport that it cannot be used for Israel. But Masud is not the one to give in so easily. Travel agent encourages and so he boards a cruise liner heading towards Haifa. His plan is to reach Haifa and board a bus for Jerusalem.

But it was not to be an easy sail. Once in Haifa, the Israeli officials arrest him and put him behind bars. Soon after he is sent back to Limasol -- thus crashing his dream of visiting Jerusalem. He may be disappointed with his trip to Jerusalem but his pen does not disappoint readers.

The prose is exceptional, his sense of humour is refreshing to say the least. Even his account of travel from Islamabad to Faisalabad and Jhang on the motorway is as engrossing as the ones to the foreign lands.

Basically, Masud's travel adventures enthral the readers, who so easily relate to him roaming in France, Kenya, Denmark, USA, Holland, Sweden and Norway. His writings are free from pretensions and do not bore the readers with unnecessary details. Chalo is a book that will definitely revive the tottering genre of travel writing.

Tombstones do not usually count as hand luggage, but this one did. It was the real McCoy, grey marble about two-and-a-half feet long and being carried by a man I vaguely knew from the work I then did as director of an NGO. "That a tombstone?" I said. "Yes" he replied, "I picked it up today to take back for a friend." We drank a cup of tea and at the appointed time sauntered out to the little Fokker that plied between Gilgit and Rawalpindi. My friend carried the tombstone under his arm and we chatted of people we knew, local gossip and the difficulties of finding funding. He put the tombstone -- unsecured, and it must have weighed a good 20 kilos possibly more -- in the overhead rack and off we went. Nobody batted an eyelid. The cabin staff thought there was nothing even remotely odd that a large chunk of marble might decide to interact with the laws of gravity in the event of a little turbulence and, to be honest, I can't say I was especially flummoxed either -- it was just another of 'those things' that happened in Pakistan. (In case you were wondering at the quality of my memory -- forget it, my daily diaries have been mined for this canter through encounters with aircraft.)

Flying into Gilgit -- if you can get a seat -- is one of the all-time great flights a person can make. You need a seat to starboard on the way up and to port on the way down, as the view of Nanga Parbat is something everybody should see once in their lifetime -- even the local people find it awe-inspiring.

But back to getting a ticket. In the mid-1990s, you needed armour-plated attitude to get yourself to the front of the brawling scrum that was besieging the ticket desk in Pindi. I have never ever been to get a Gilgit ticket when it was anything other than mayhem. As time went by, I was gradually recognised by the ticketing staff and steered towards the back office, a cup of tea and 'a definite maybe' for a ticket on the morrow. It was almost never a certainty, as every flight was -- still is -- weather-dependent and if there is cloud on the Babusar Pass then there is no flight. Often there was no flight for days -- weeks -- and a trip up the Karakorum Highway in the depths of winter, beckoned.

"Err… excuse me steward… but do you think this is OK? I mean is it safe?" He leaned across me as I was buckling myself in, looked out of the window to my left, shrugged and said, "Yes… no problem." What had attracted my attention at not much more than arms length from me was that a part of the engine cowling was secured by a red plastic tie, the kind of thing that one sees used by police forces these days to secure rioters and robbers and the like. Looking at the other cowling fasteners along the nacelle I again pointed out that whilst decorative, a red plastic tie did not seem to be what Mr Fokker had in mind when he designed the aircraft.

Sighing, no doubt at the thought that he was going to have to put up with a troublesome passenger for the next hour, the steward again pointed out that it was perfectly safe otherwise the aircraft would not have been cleared to fly and would you like a cup of tea? Fine, says I, wondering if whatever insurance company covered the aircraft had 'red plastic ties securing engine cowlings, absolutely not a problem' somewhere in the small print of their contract.

Hammered almost flat by the heat, we walked towards the arrivals hall at Bahawalpur. It was the first time I had flown into my local airport, it was 1996 and it had a surprise for me -- roses. Until the new airport buildings were opened a couple of years back Bahawalpur had probably the best-kept gardens, and without doubt the finest roses -- of any airport in the country that I have visited. The whole place was a blaze of colour and washed by subtle fragrances that did much to take your mind off the fact that your brain was getting fried to a crisp. Out front, serried banks of pot plants all clearly loved and cared for and now gone. There was something rather civilised about the flowers at Bahawalpur airport I always thought… and the new airport building has all the character and charm of a box of tissues. Sad, but time flies.

I also continue to fly. The Fokkers have been pensioned of -- at last, they were becoming something less than a joke -- and I recently flew home from Karachi. There seemed to have been an outbreak of modernity since my last visit. A coffee-and-cakes franchise sold me exorbitantly priced but delicious cappuccino. The bookstores (two of them) made a visit to the airport worthwhile even if you were not flying anywhere. There were internet access points (having a sleep when I went to check my mails) and the toilets were close to international standards of cleanliness -- which they most certainly had not been on my previous transit. Finding the boarding gate proved a little difficult because somebody had thoughtfully placed a large flat-screen TV in front of the number almost completely obscuring it, and once on the bus for transfer to the aircraft -- there were just eight of us. Eight. As in two less than ten. I remembered that when I flew to Chitral one morning in October 2008 there had been just six, and wondered if they would have flown if it had just been me that showed up. The seat was comfortable, there were no overhead tombstones, the aircraft did not seem to be held together with old plastic shopping bags and on arrival nothing but a taxi driver who needed a severe telling off for trying to extort too much 'gora tax' from me -- and no roses. Time flies.