Day 7: Easy money, hard lives

Locations: Bhera, Miani, Malakwal, Chak Nizam, Pind Dadan Khan, Khewra, Rattu-Chah

(Click on images and videos to enlarge)

If you suddenly come across a big shopping mall at the most unexpected of places and see disposable diapers and diet Coke being sold, you should know that you have reached a town full of expatriate Pakistanis. When I crossed the railway line in Malakwal, district Mandi Bahauddin, I came across one such place. While having my favourite diet drink, I asked the mall owner, Nazeer, whether Pakistanis living abroad should have voting rights?

Just to double-check, I posed the same question to the sugarcane juice wala, next to whom I had parked my bike. He repeated the same narrative, and to add weight to his argument he told me that he had also spent some years in Europe.

I had a narrow escape at the river. While working out my route on Goggle Earth, I had decided to cross it at Chak Nizam. You can actually see a bridge on the satellite picture, labelled Victoria Bridge. I knew that this must be a railway bridge. But there is another unlabelled dotted line across the river running parallel to the bridge, I supposed that this must be the bridge for vehicles. So instead of going further north to cross the river, I decided to take this route. I tried to check with some contacts but didn’t get a clear answer. When I reached Chak Nizam, I came to know that the dotted line was a pipe line crossing the river and I have no training of riding bikes on a tight rope! Thankfully, the railway bridge had narrow pedestrian flanks on both sides and people were plying motorcycles on it, and so did I.

There are agricultural fields on the left side of the road leading to Pind Dadan Khan. The area between this road and River Jhelum, the two running parallel, is the last edge of what is called settled agriculture. In fact, the farmers here have stretched this meek opportunity to draw a livelihood a bit too much and there is no better time to evidence this than at the harvest of the year’s major crop.

Assisted by a local friend, I dropped in at village Naich where Manzoor had just finished harvesting the wheat crop. In fact, they were still busy taking care of hey. Manzoor sows 6 acres of rented land and has contemplated quitting farming many a times. He told me that the cash sent by his brother labouring in the Middle East is the family’s saving grace.

Manzoor was conscious that his occupation needed state support, subsidies and supportive policies, but had no clue how electoral politics could help him translate his interest into a cause. The main utility of the parliamentarians for them remains provision of basic services. Organisational structures are an imperative to channelise the complaints and demands of various interest groups into political demands and then governmental policies and acts. Is it in the self-interest of political parties to lay such a socio-political infrastructure?

Water is a major problem everywhere, not only for irrigation but also clean drinking water. However small may be the town that I have visited, there was a commercial enterprise filling this gap. But then, there is population whose life itself is not a commercially viable proposition. They go thirsty.

This school has voluntarily extended a water hose for the villagers, and little children spend much of their time at this water point instead of inside their school.

The couple in the video below, introduced to me as the musalee, identified potable water as the number one problem of their village. They had just completed their harvesting contract, the only time of the year they find labor in their own village. They told me that the most time-consuming and laborious of their daily chores is fetching water from a far away water point across the road. They were willing to vote for water.

The mine workers that I intended to meet were on holiday that day, so I decided to head towards my night stay spot and come back again in the morning.

I woke up to a perfect morning, I couldn’t have asked for a better start of a day – light drizzle, cool breeze, wheat field, cooing cuckoo complete with the low Potohari mountains drawing a flowing skyline. It was an out-of-a-story-book morning till my host came over with a pratha and a fried egg. His face was as flat as ever. Why doesn’t this beauty amuse you, I asked him, almost complaining. Earlier, last night he had evaded my questions about the social structure and culture of his village too.

He sat down to do some explaining. He made me realise that I am coming from a qusai-feudal agrarian rural area and I need to abandon my efforts to see things from the same perspective. It is a different place. This is a home of employees, retired and serving. Their loyalties are with their respective employees. which in most cases are ‘abstract’ institutions and not with fierce-looking men with moustache and turbans. “You were looking for a dera here. There is none in this large village. We are all on our own and independent in all our matters.” This included their political choices as well, he claimed.

My host and many others I talked to here, had no sympathy for Ayaz Amir. In the ethics of employees, following the laid down procedures is the core value. They can’t appreciate violations, let alone a rebellion. This is probably what we term conservative.

I did not agree with some of my host’s assertions and conclusions but I realised that it is not that the people here are ungrateful, it is the scenic beauty that is deceptive. Life is hard here.

I witnessed this hard life at another place. With the water issue still keeping my thoughts preoccupied, I was also negotiating sharp turns on the steep mountainous road from Khewra to Choa Saidan Shah and a signboard grabbed my attention. I took the turn following the arrow on the board. I was expecting to meet a community surviving on a small dam, as the board had eluded. I probably misread it as I instead met a community that was in want of a dam, and much more.

There is no electricity or water supply for this village in Tober Valley, of around 500 persons working mostly in the salt mines down there at Khewra. It only has Malik Iqbal, tough and enterprising, adamant on finding a way out despite the resourcelessness that is a hallmark of this region. He, however, showed me the other side of living in a state of resourcelessness – the one that motivates you to find a way out.

Iqbal was gifted a solar panel by a chance visitor to the village. He uses it to charge batteries that are then used to light up a few bulbs and charge the cell phones of the entire village. He has tried to win a road for his village but frustrated, he started doing it on self-help basis. The under construction roads are proudly named Mohammad Ali Jinnah Road and Allama Iqbal Road!

He is also investing in a tank that will be filled by water supplying tankers and will ease the villagers potable water woes. He took me to the highest point in the village. It was very windy. “Can’t the government install a pankha (implying wind mill) here.” I was so pleasantly surprised to hear that. Then came the shock. He told me he had tried to make the mill himself and was able to make the wings and the stand but failed when it came to the gear baxa (box).

Iqbal believes that when the road is complete, the village will get tourists and in anticipation of this, he has selected a spot and made some arrangements to convert it into a ‘Jhelum River View Point’.

I asked Iqbal whether he had an idea as to how much money was needed to make all of his wishes come true. He quipped immediately, “20 million.” He had already done his calculations. So, Iqbal is all set to change his world. Will he be able to?

Welcome to Tober Valley, the future Murree!

 

The village is four kilometres away from the main Khewra – Choa Saidan Shah road. The self-help under construction road and water tank.

 

Dream view: Iqbal firmly believes that his village has the potential to turn into a tourist destination.

 

The village in the valley, below left, received electricity in the previous government’s tenure. The funds for the roads, however, fell short, so the road ended half way.