A Rawalpindi adventure

I like to embark on an epic quest now and then, and when I saw truck decorating workshops listed in a Lonely Planet guidebook as one of three tourist destinations in the Islamabad area, I knew I had to find them. That the workshops were in Rawalpindi, Islamabad’s gritty sister city, made my quest all the more appealing.

Rawalpindi, to me nothing more than a home for the airport and the place to get furniture at lower prices than in Islamabad. It made sense that something as industrial as truck workshops would be in this other city, reputed to be so much dirtier and crowded, yet more ‘real,’ than Islamabad.

The directions in the guidebook were pretty vague, involving an obscure road, a pony-cart stand, and a bridge. I knew it would be a challenge to find the place.

I was not sure if the regular Suzuki taxis would take me all the way to this distant land of Rawalpindi, but the second driver I talked to assented. I climbed into his yellow car and we wheeled down the freeway past the Zero Point, past the airport and into unknown territory.

Going down Murree Road into the heart of Pindi I soon knew that I was not in Islamabad anymore. A man with a missing arm begged for money at an intersection. Children trying to earn a few rupees wiped windshields with greasy rags. Three donkeys carried concrete rubble in sacks. Tuk-tuk exhaust hung in the air.

The taxi dropped me at a crowded intersection in the middle of the main Raja Bazaar. I bought a 10-rupee bag of potato chips from a street snack cart and drifted through the crowded market area. People, donkeys, motorcycles, forklifts, tractors, bicycles, and cars pressed through narrow lanes between brown brick buildings built long before Islamabad was even thought of.

Soon I began to ask directions to those decorated trucks I wanted to find. A young man in a hardware store did not understand my request, even after I drew a picture of a truck with flowers on its side. I tried again with a man inside an electronics shop. He interrupted his cricket-watching and told me, “Go to China Market, College Road.”

I waved down a tuk-tuk and went to China Market. There was nothing resembling truck workshops there, however, only cloth stores and a tiny shop selling police hats, uniforms and name badges. The two men inside told me I was in the wrong place. “Go to Pirwadhai,” they said. “There you will find decorated trucks.”

At Pirwadhai I found instead a long row of lumber shops and auto-parts stores. Trash and stagnant water gathered in a road-side gutter. Buses from a nearby bus bay crowded the streets. It felt like the right kind of place, but I could see no truck decorating workshops.

While I stood, uncertain, beside a stack of tyres, a man invited me into a tyre shop for a cup of tea. I answered questions about America, and he showed me photographs of his trip to visit a brother in England. When I left he told me where the workshops would be. He also gave me his mobile number. “I am your little brother,” he said. “If you have any trouble in Pakistan you call me.”

Following his directions, I soon found the promised workshops — only they were for buses, not trucks. It was getting late and my quest had tired me, so I decided buses would be an adequate substitute.

In a large dirt area ringed by low-slung mechanical shops I found a sort of bus heaven. Rusting skeletons crowded the middle of the yard. Nearer to the shops working buses waited for a brake overhaul from the mechanics or a new interior from men sewing seat cushions. All around me were the sounds of metal being hammered and welded, smells of grease and paint and the acrid tang of welding sparks.

As I wandered this maze of mechanical activity, at first I only saw the sleek, newer buses being prepared for sweeping graphics and balloon letters to be airbrushed on their sides. I pressed on and finally found what would satisfy my quest — a bus being decorated in the old, ornate style with brightly painted borders and pictures covering every square inch of space.

As a worker fastened strips of brightly painted metal to the roofline of an under-construction bus frame, his supervisor told me how they take the old bus skeletons and make them new again. His eyes shone with the pride of a craftsman as I took photos of the work in progress.

With my quest fulfilled, at least well enough for this day’s adventure, I caught a taxi back to Islamabad. Approaching the orderly, tree-filled city, it felt good to see the Margalla Hills again. I realised, though, that I would miss the grit and vitality of the Pindi street scene. Perhaps I’ll find another quest to take me there again.

John Larren is a visiting writer from the United States living in Islamabad. Readers can e-mail their comments to him at islstories@yahoo.com