THE hype after 9/11 prevented my annual December sojourn to Pakistan in 2001. And, this time, Bush’s plans to decimate Iraq notwithstanding, I was definitely going to the sohni dharti. Ardeshir Cowasjee has so appropriately nicknamed us “winter Pakistanis” — in Karachi, in December, there is barely a family that does not have some relative or other visiting from North America.
In the hiatus of two years, a fair amount has changed in Karachi. Then there are some things that do not change at all, some things that one hopes would have changed and some that one is so glad did not.
Our nation was never brought up to respect a queue. When I arrived, I found three immigration counters at the airport in Karachi — one for Pakistani passport holders, and another for foreign passport holders and a third for diplomats and businessmen. I promptly stood at the counter for the foreign passport holders, even though the counter was unattended. I thought that the guy would probably be on break and will be back soon.
Someone very condescendingly shooed me into the diplomat/businessman line in which there was an excuse for a queue. The accretion to the line was from the sides, not from its end. Every now and then there would be the advent of a person looking entirely preoccupied and in a rush, who would walk right up to the front of the line. As I was in no mood for concessions, I would say, “Sir the line starts in the back, there.”
The person would look entirely befuddled and sort of trip and tumble to the back, probably calling me the choicest adjectives, but did I care?
The immigration officer had a ‘mehraab’ on his forehead — that circular mark that the regular observance of prayer causes — and, in my mind, he immediately earned all kinds of respect. A few perfunctory questions and just as nonchalantly he moved what looked like a microphone but it was a camera and photographed me. He should have let me know so that I could have smiled.
There is a certain smell in the air in the winters of Karachi — not the one that prevails after the fish truck has passed — and that has thankfully not changed. Azaan from multiple mosques has not changed either and after the sterile silence in the United States, this is by far the most endearing aspect of Pakistan. I even ushered in the New Year listening to fireworks and gunshots fired in the air battling the reading of naats and qaseedas from the loudspeakers of the mosques.
Mainly, men answer the call to prayer in congregation. A minuscule number of mosques have any arrangement for women to pray. Winter Pakistanis can be an eccentric breed. Groomed by Ramazan and fired with the zeal of being in the Islami mumlikat, I had decided that I needed to advance spiritually and instead of doing qaza prayers at Isha, I must pray at the appointed time. I had not realized that this was a venture of significant difficulty in the Islami mumlikat.
As a woman you either arrange your shopping and eating out schedule such that you are able to pray at home or at someone’s home. If you were shopping, you would be best advised to relegate your prayers to the qaza pile. But spiritual zeal and the joy of being in the Islami mumlikat had distorted my sense of proportion.
My friend was always mindful of the driver’s prayers. One day, he said he would drop us at a shopping centre and go and say the Asr prayer in the mosque.
“Can I come and pray with you also?” I asked.
“No, no,” he said visibly uncomfortable. Clearly, there was no arrangement whatsoever for ladies at the nearby mosque. Undeterred, at the shopping centre and I requested for a prayer rug and qibla direction from a rather witty shopkeeper. Bless him, out came a prayer rug, he laid it in the proper direction and I prayed.
The driver and my friend chuckled at my questions about why there were no arrangements for women to pray in a mosque, and said simply that there were no arrangements as the middle and upper middle class women did not pray! Having seen the likes of them dressed in spaghetti straps and flood-level shalwars, or hip-hugging jeans and waist-revealing cropped tops, traipsing up and down the shopping malls, I had no choice but to believe them.
What was impressive was that shopkeepers do respond to the azaan and seem to take turns minding the store, or else get the customer to mind it for a while. And this phenomenon was not age-related either, for the young and the old male Pakistani shopkeepers are frequently bearded and the slightly older are mehraabed as well.
The charming officer at a large bank in Clifton apologized that my work might take a few minutes wait. No problem, I told her, could I pray in the meantime? Kudos to her that without batting an eye she went about arranging for it. The boss’s son sat in the boss’s office playing a computer game and he was not going to move for some dame wanting to pray! Another bank officer moved to another cubicle and whilst vacating the cubicle for me asked the first officer in quite a shrill voice, “Are you sure the boss won’t be upset when he finds out?”
I did the usual round of weddings, mehndis and dinners, and the arrangements and the food are still daunting in how elaborate they are. Conversation at these events is always interesting. In the US, you could be talking to a multi-millionaire and never really know it. In Pakistan, should someone earn this distinction, you would know it and by the time you were done you would even have a rough idea of his or her net worth, or at least the number of houses and makes of cars that they own. On the flip side, you yourself start out as being a nobody and when people talking to you find out that you are a doctor, their attention is a trifle sparked, but not too much. When they find out that you practice in the US of A, they are attentive and suddenly not just interested in you, but a whole lot more interesting themselves.
Besides the metal detectors at the hotels, the American school and government buildings, the other change was the rise of materialism. People seemed to be in a frenzied pace to make money. It is perhaps the lack of organization or the flagrant disregard of time that people appear preoccupied, for I am sure ordinary tasks take more effort and nothing can be taken for granted. Those lazy hazy days of my youth in Pakistan where one could have unhurried discussions seemed this time to be all but a memento of the past. For what discussion could I have with one that is preoccupied with the mundane tasks of living, especially when I have a pet peeve of requiring the full attention of the other person?
I have always travelled to Pakistan prepared with a load of antibiotics to combat the traveller’s diarrhoea that is almost inevitable. The widespread use now of bottled water appears to have made a significant difference, for despite a long stay and feasting at places with varied levels of hygiene, my Americanized gastrointestinal tract returned unscathed.
By far the highest point of my visit though was an evening of qawwali by Bahauddin Qawwal. A live musical performance is always a pleasurable experience and the group sang Rumi, Sachal Sarmast, Shirazi, Jami, Khusrao and others, keeping the audience engaged till 3am.
All in all, the sojourn was great. And, God willing, an encore will be this winter as well. And speaking of songs, one rings in my mind: Sohni dharti, Allah rakhey qadam qadam abaad tujhey.
THE hype after 9/11 prevented my annual December sojourn to Pakistan in 2001. And, this time, Bush’s plans to decimate Iraq notwithstanding, I was definitely going to the sohni dharti. Ardeshir Cowasjee has so appropriately nicknamed us “winter Pakistanis” — in Karachi, in December, there is barely a family that does not have some relative or other visiting from North America.
