My dear friend Yousaf, who once served me an exquisite breakfast of bacon, cantaloupe & blueberries (in January!) after my bedraggled arrival in Baltimore on a PIA flight from Islamabad, asked me what I miss from my time (1990 to 1994) in Pakistan. I think of the place (mostly fondly) often, but I’m not sure I’ve ever stopped to consider what exactly I long for from there. So here goes. This is some of what I miss from Pakistan:
1. Jacaranda trees in bloom on either side of
Attaturk Avenue near our house.
2. Deliciously scented sweet peas that the
mali, or gardener, always produced in the spring, with what appeared to be truly a minimum of effort (just bits of twine dangling from a lateral wire). This year marks something like my dozenth failed attempt to grow similarly luscious sweet peas.
3. The kindness of strangers, with which I was sometimes gifted at the most unexpected (and opportune) of times.
4. A thousand smiling-faced children who turned up, nearly from nowhere, at every single stop on every single jaunt, even when all I was doing was looking for a likely bush by the side of the road.
5.
Muezzin-song five times a day. A fellow with a lovely voice did the job at the mosque near our home.
6. The
Jumma Bazar, or Friday Market, occupying a huge vacant city block. The center of the market displayed mountains of spices and exotic fruits; the streets on the exterior held side-by-side vendors of carpets, leather goods, artifacts, jewelry ... so many temptations, so much delicious haggling over requisite cups of tea and genuine courtesy.
7. The complicated negotiations (something like a drug deal, I believe) involved in the occasional bacon purchase at the Covered Market in Islamabad.
8. The shock of driving (for arid hours!) through apparently unrelenting desert, only to round a bend suddenly and find the shining wall of
Rakaposhi rising above, with a
chaikhana, marked by colorful flags & welcoming signs, just there at the curve in the road.
9. The shock of driving (for arid hours!) through apparently unrelenting desert, only to round a bend suddenly and find respite within the verdant, apricot-bearing
Hunza Valley.
10. Spending the night at a bougainvillea-covered cottage on the banks of the Indus.
11. Sipping apricot wine beneath the stars with a minor
mir (prince) somewhere in the
Northern Areas after watching an old reel-to-reel film of his grandfather hosting British dignitaries visiting his
princely state in the 1940’s.
12. Visiting a
Kalash village in the Bumburet Valley near Chitral. The mythology of the Kalash suggests that they are descended from a few of Alexander’s soldiers; there was enough fair hair and pale eyes during my visit for this tale to be plausible.
13. Stopping en route to
Gilgit to pluck garnets from the dust & shale at the side of the road.
14. Dining in
Peshawar with a journalist of some repute who kept cranes in his garden and two wives in his home. One wife (a lawyer) stayed in the kitchen to do all the cooking; the other wife (a doctor) played hostess, along with her/their husband, to our party which included my mother. After dinner, the journalist turned to my mother very courteously and asked if she would object to his smoking a little hashish.
15. The Lahore Museum &
Zamzama.
16. The scent of wild marijuana, overripe fruit and human bodies that assaulted me during my first few days in Islamabad. I spent my first night in Pakistan sleeping outside on the terrace (to my then-fiancé’s dismay) because I couldn’t get enough of that exotic, unfamiliar smell.
17. Drinking hot chocolate while strolling down the main street in wintertime
Murree, a former British hill station above Islamabad.
18. Picnicking with friends in
Nathiagali, a green & gorgeous mountain town beyond Murree.
19. The ability to throw a magnificent garden party with colorful
shamianas and lights hung in the trees for not a lot of money.
Note that I have omitted those memories … like being able to stumble out of bed, ring a bell and have coffee delivered into my waiting hands … which have nothing at all to do with Pakistan and everything to do with having lived a wretchedly overprivileged expatriate lifestyle for a few short years.
Thank you, Yousaf Sahib, for offering me the opportunity to meander along memory lane this afternoon …
