IT’S one of the ditties drummed into my head from earliest childhood: Bhara Kahu, Tret, Charapani, Company Baagh, Brewery, Chitta Mor, Sunny Bank, Thanda Jhakkar; and then, finally, the magic countdown: the Murree Mall junction at Jhikagali, Lower Topa (where at the PAF base still stands an 86F Sabre, into the nose of which children still climb to have their pictures taken), and the destination, Gulehragali.

To the village of Gulehragali is where I, with my family, would go many weekends of the year to spend a couple of days in a landscape that was unbelievably verdant even as compared to Islamabad. Back then, the main Murree Road — some of the landmarks of which I have chronicled above — was the only viable way for vehicles to get to the British-era town of Murree or further beyond (in different directions) to areas such as the Galliyat, or down to the Kohala bridge leading into Azad Kashmir. It was a twisty, narrow, single-lane road, interestingly potholed, full of hairpin turns, and entirely innocent of marks of civilisation such as guard rails that could protect vehicles from the deadly gulf yawning beyond.

The names of these places are fascinating: Bhara Kahu translates loosely to the ‘place of trees that is portentous’; Charapani comes literally from ‘chara [or horsefeed] and water’ since that’s where the British used to break journey and change horses; Company Baagh refers to the East India Company; and Brewery is where the old Murree Brewery used to stand until it was burned down around Partition, the ruins of which are still discernible today. Chitta Mor is the sharp turn where the old snowline lay, and Sunny Bank refers not to the weather, but apparently a Sikh gentleman who owned a bank here.

Driving along the main Murree Road was no task for the faint-hearted, especially in those times of low horse-power cars and the absence of modern luxuries such as power steering and brake balancing. Along that single lane travelled trucks heavily laden with goods, plodding along because they are paid by the journey and not time taken; buses and wagons trying to steal a march on each other by over-speeding since their earning comes from getting to passengers first; taxis and private vehicles driven by locals who knew each pothole and hairpin turn like the palm of their hand; and bewildered non-locals trying to make sense of it all.

The march of time brought a metalled alternate route up round the other side of the hills through Angoori, and another from the Simli side, and third — long-winded — road from the Kahuta side. All these, however, were and still are used mainly by local traffic; tourists do not wander off the sign-posted path. Last came the Expressway, a motorway-standard road along which you can zoom up to Murree from Islamabad in about an hour and a half, averaging at the speed of about 60-70km/hr. The time taken may not have been reduced dramatically, but ease of driving certainly has.

Thus, for upwards of two decades, I had not used the main Murree Road, till recently, when the lure of the iftar break in the flow of traffic was tempting enough for me to turn my car thataways. And what a changed scene it was.

In some ways, the road is greatly improved: there are now fluorescent-yellow guard rails much of the way, and reflectors so that one can peep around the bend. The tarmac is smooth for a given a value thereof, and the signage is good — and no wonder, because this is the road used by the ruling family to reach their sanctuary in the hills. But the road is still single track, and the over-speeding buses frantically blowing their horns have been joined by an exponentially increased number of vehicles.

Notwithstanding the personal interest taken in the area by former prime minister Nawaz Sharif (might I add, to the area’s detriment), the verdant landscape is fighting a losing battle against the unregulated construction of khokhas, tea-stalls, potato crisp and soft-drink vendors, even barbeque pits and hotels encroaching right onto the road. There is no evidence of any food-quality checks, or indeed waste collection or sewerage disposal, which flows unimpeded down the hillside and leaches into the ground water. The population has exploded, and drugs and unemployment permeate an area where most households once grew their own kitchen gardens.

At Charapani, I was privy to a conversation with a vendor at a khokha. He was a young man. His tiny booth crawled with cockroaches and he sold pakoras, potato crisps, drinks, etc. My companion, a local, asked in Pahari what the vendor thought of Nawaz Sharif’s chances during the elections. The young man scoffed, and said (loosely translated and sanitised): “Motorways, bridges, trains …. What are we going to do with them, eat them? We need clean water to drink, schools to send our children to, opportunities beyond sitting in a stinking booth and selling chips to overfed brats from Punjab. We need hospitals and electricity. The sooner he left us alone, the better.”

The writer is a member of staff.
hajrahmumtaz@gmail.com

Published in Dawn, June 3rd, 2018