Prophetically, it seems, I told our hotel manager in Naran in mid-July that I didn’t think we’d be back. And three months later, with long stretches of the Kaghan Valley Road destroyed by the earthquake, who can return there? Who can leave?
Strangely, during our month-long sojourn in Naran in 2001 there was another tremendous disaster. Suddenly, out of nowhere, it seemed, there came a huge mudslide, on the very spot where I had lately been photographing in Dungiseri, sweeping away houses, fields, holidaymakers and their vehicles, damming the river and destroying forever the beauty of nearby Chittakatta. But the message of this, and of all that we have seen and heard regarding nature’s latest, most dreadful cataclysm, is that somehow life goes on. Nowadays, on that huge spoon of mud that devastated Dungiseri and its environs, people are ploughing new fields, and a makeshift bridge spans the freezing glacial stream.
In the wake of the earthquake, our national sense of loss is tremendous; a small part of each one of us has died Concerning the earthquake, however, it took a few days for the enormity of the disaster to sink in. My husband sat stoically watching it all on TV, but I was inclined to disappear in case I upset him by weeping openly. The loss of life, especially amongst children, the agony of those watching their loved ones die in remote and not-so-remote mountain villages due to lack of infrastructure and equipment, is heartbreaking. Then what of those ferried by helicopter to faraway hospitals, some of them sole survivors of their families? How will they return home, and to whom, and to what? Yet others have never been recovered. Their souls have gone to God, while their bodies lie quietly mouldering away in the ruins of their houses.
The waxing and waning of the moon is a symbol of man’s mortality in certain cultures. How many moons will wax and wane before succour reaches the still inaccessible mountain villages, or before relief, rehabilitation and psychiatric counselling of survivors are even halfway completed? Poseidon, “the earth-shaker”, god of earthquakes in Greek mythology, must be well satisfied with his work this time.
The belief that God punishes us through natural disasters is inherent in man’s nature. Well, I admit that there is a feeling that one should cut off one’s hair and go into a convent. But on the other hand, why should God so ruthlessly exterminate so many innocent mountain folk, so many children? What have they done to deserve this?
Meanwhile, on our first trip to Naran in 1991, I photographed a little girl carrying a lamb. “One little lamb carrying another,” I now say, thinking of all those other recently lost lambs, both human and animal. On a later trip I photographed a graveyard lying on a hilltop, with the river, symbol of life and purification, flowing ever onwards down below, just as life flows on despite all tragedies. Some of the graves were those of children, pitifully small. But at least the parents knew what became of these little ones, and where they were buried, unlike the “lost generation” of the quake area. Seeing a rose drop its petals nearby, I shuddered, recalling an old Saxon belief that on the death of a child, the ghostly figure of death could be seen to leave the house and pick a rose outside, having plucked off a life. As I stood musing, some calves came to graze among the graves, and children played happily a few yards downhill. The Kunhar River flowed on through the mist descending upon the not-so-eternal mountains, while tall trees stood sentinel beside it.
A few days ago, a school re-opened in Balakot with graves in its playground. Those who lie buried there have left no further trace, like the birds flying through the sky above. Their faces will remain etched in local memory for a while, then will slowly fade, unlike memories of the earthquake. The children of today and of succeeding generations will play in the school grounds as before. Plans for rebuilding are taking shape in Balakot and Azad Kashmir, and to this end the renowned architect, Yasmeen Lari, has been catapulted out of Lahore Fort’s former dungeons — her home away from home for the last two years while directing restoration work in the fort. Other experts, too, are converging on these places. Rebuilding will take loads of money and oceans of time, but it will slowly, very slowly, take shape.
Our national sense of loss is tremendous, and in this broad sweep of the hand of death, a small part of each one of us has died. The English priest and poet, John Donne, has described most exquisitely the wounds we all feel, saying, “No man is an island ... entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main. If a clod is washed away by the sea, Europe is the less ... Any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind; and therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; it tolls for thee.”
Prophetically, it seems, I told our hotel manager in Naran in mid-July that I didn’t think we’d be back. And three months later, with long stretches of the Kaghan Valley Road destroyed by the earthquake, who can return there? Who can leave?
Concerning the earthquake, however, it took a few days for the enormity of the disaster to sink in. My husband sat stoically watching it all on TV, but I was inclined to disappear in case I upset him by weeping openly. The loss of life, especially amongst children, the agony of those watching their loved ones die in remote and not-so-remote mountain villages due to lack of infrastructure and equipment, is heartbreaking. Then what of those ferried by helicopter to faraway hospitals, some of them sole survivors of their families? How will they return home, and to whom, and to what? Yet others have never been recovered. Their souls have gone to God, while their bodies lie quietly mouldering away in the ruins of their houses.
The belief that God punishes us through natural disasters is inherent in man’s nature. Well, I admit that there is a feeling that one should cut off one’s hair and go into a convent. But on the other hand, why should God so ruthlessly exterminate so many innocent mountain folk, so many children? What have they done to deserve this?
A few days ago, a school re-opened in Balakot with graves in its playground. Those who lie buried there have left no further trace, like the birds flying through the sky above. Their faces will remain etched in local memory for a while, then will slowly fade, unlike memories of the earthquake. The children of today and of succeeding generations will play in the school grounds as before. Plans for rebuilding are taking shape in Balakot and Azad Kashmir, and to this end the renowned architect, Yasmeen Lari, has been catapulted out of Lahore Fort’s former dungeons — her home away from home for the last two years while directing restoration work in the fort. Other experts, too, are converging on these places. Rebuilding will take loads of money and oceans of time, but it will slowly, very slowly, take shape.
