68 KM to Rawalpindi
Illustration: Abdullah Sarışen
At around 3 in the morning, at a station I have never been to, I stand outside my bus. Cheap milk coffee in my hand, in between barren cities with the exception of an occasional petrol pump. We have come to a temporary stop for refreshments. My sister, Dua, basking in her endless self-confidence, is fast asleep in the bus without a care in the world, a shawl draped over her head. Meanwhile, Baba and Ammi are back home in Karachi, probably on their third cup of chai in the last hour. I look up into the sky and notice that while it is too late to be having coffee; it’s still too early to sleep. At this time, the pitch-black sky lights up when a light green tint makes its way above us, illuminating nothing but itself. But this isn't sunlight, nor is it the cool blues hues overhead before Fajr that are all too familiar to me; this is new. Shining through this neon green are four small white dots, piercing through the sky, standing confident.
I take a large gulp of my scorching coffee, only to realise it is more milk than coffee. My trance is broken when I overhear my bus driver talking to a fellow passenger about how the Coronavirus isn't actually real."I trust this man with my life?" I think. The thought slowly turns to doubt in my head, with the slight twinge of a question mark at the very end. Here, in the light green tint, chugging hot milk amidst a conspiracy theorist bus driver while my sister somehow sleeps, I realize all that I have been holding myself back from for sixteen years.
---
Around six years ago: 2013/14. The first time I tried to leave Karachi, I was ten years old. Dua and I had been planning to go on a Pakistan Tour together for more than a month. Then, around a week before we were set to leave, our plan started coming to fruition. I started packing clothes, shoes, some Lays, and a Fresh-Up stick for extra measure. Soon enough, the day came, and we were finally leaving Karachi.
On the taxi ride over to the train station, Dua started talking about the places we’ll visit: with stories of the colossal peaks of Naran Kaghan, the haunting ice-capped views from Murree and the fairies residing in Jheel Saif-ul-Malook; who emerge at night looking for patrons to trap and drag to the depths of their lake. Ammi had tales of her own to tell: of the time she went to Skardu, visiting Dargahs and staying in supposedly haunted hotels. Suffice to say, I was excited. Finally, after ten years of the same Saddar neighbourhood, I would get to see something new. I stuck my head out the taxi window to take a final look at the city: The dusty skyscrapers, the laughing 13-year-olds wearing sunglasses and red flannels with jeans doing wheelies on their bikes, the brown-spotted cat cowering in the corner of the road. It was all so familiar, so dangerous, sometimes claustrophobic, but somehow comfortable. “I’ll miss this place,” I thought, as I looked out at the city whizzing past.
At the train station, as I waited for departure, I finished the whole Fresh-Up stick before setting off for our journey, so I went to buy some more. It was at this point, as I stood in front of the general store that an announcement was exclaimed: "Ten minutes till departure!" Suddenly, my heartbeat grew faster. I stood at the train door as Dua started skimming through the suitcase, making sure we hadn't missed something. Ammi started recording the beginning of our journey on her phone. And then, out of nowhere, I had a lump in my throat. "5 minutes till departure!" came another announcement, and my legs began to shake. Heavy breathing. Tunnel vision. Sweat. Lost balance. My ears wouldn’t register any of the information they were hearing, except for two simple words in an ocean of people screaming as the train engine's roars tore up the sky: "Khuda hafiz," Ammi said, almost with pride as she stretched her hand out so the camera could capture her waving. All the excitement faded, and I started crying, unable to step up to the train door that was right in front of me. Maybe I couldn’t bear to be away from Ammi, maybe I couldn’t bear to be away from Karachi, or maybe it was fear of the unknown. But still, at the last moment, with the Lays packet probably having exploded in our suitcase by now, I had a change of heart, and chose to stay; I held myself back from Pakistan. On the taxi ride back home, I peered out the window again to look at Karachi; it had somehow lost the charm that seemed eternal only a few hours ago.
---
I gulp down the last drop of coffee, throw the cup into the trash bin and step back on the bus. As I think about that day, A panicky voice starts racing in my head, just as it had in the taxi ride back home 6 years ago. "There's a recording of you crying.” says the voice, and my head throws a shame party all for itself, which I manage to ignore. Dua, sleeping cross-legged, is somehow comfortable through this. I squeeze myself towards the window seat without waking her up, and rest my head on the thick glass window while chilling cool air blows through a vent right above me. In the cold silence of a 3 AM bus, I hear someone listening to ‘Rejoice’ by AJJ. Their phone volume is set so high that noise is seeping out of their headphones. Upon closer inspection, I see that this is coming from a teenager two rows behind. He’s obviously going through, based on the all-black attire, huge headphones, and messy hair, either an emo or a punk phase.
Now I don’t want to say I’m embarrassed by the past but to be fair, this song’s edgy lyricism reminds me of how cynical I used to be. In fact, I still remember this song’s lyrics. Soon enough, I find myself singing, or rather, whispering along: “Your hair, it smells like burning hair. Oh Rejoice, your nails all got chewed off.” I mutter, as my sister shifts near me. Sheepishly, I think how just a year ago, that kid listening to AJJ on full volume was me. Eyeing him listening to the song, I feel older, somewhat disappointed in younger-me. After the incident at the train station, I had begun considering Pakistan nothing greater than, and I quote an actual sentence I once said, “a lifeless soulless husk; just a place on the world map next to giants like China.” So as this kid silently bops his head to AJJ, I think back to the first time I found life in Pakistan when I visited Sehwan Sharif.
---
It was 2018. Five years had passed since the train incident, and I was a fifteen-year-old emo, wearing all black, with my head resting on the window of an air-conditioned car. I looked out into a rural Sindh afternoon. We were on the way to Sehwan Sharif, a city within Sindh’s Jamshoro District, home to the shrine of Hazrat Lal Shahbaz Qalandar. As AJJ songs burst in my ears, I ignored whatever my family was talking about, and gazed outside. There, I saw large masses of never-ending isolation on Sindh’s rocky terrain. But when our journey veered closer to the destination, it started to change. I started seeing small restaurants with names I couldn’t pronounce, and mountains expanding to such extravagant heights that I would need to stick my face out of the car window to grasp their magnitude. The thought of asking my parents to stop the car so we could go climbing these mountains did occur, but I just sat back and stared at their sky-grasping height.
When we finally arrived, I realised that we were somewhere really different. The people were different, and the sky was a different shade of yellow. From the corner of my eye, I saw two teenagers, both in stained shalwar kameez, mismatched slippers, and dishevelled hair, drumming on huge steel pots, yelling "Damadam Mast Qalandar" at the top of their lungs. I removed my earphones. Naively, I took out a scrunched Rs. 20 note to offer these teenagers, assuming they were street performers. They smiled and nodded no. I ashamedly pulled the Rs. 20 note back, and bought some ice-cream for myself. Soon, as I finished my ice-cream, we entered the massive shrine in the middle of the city. With its beautiful gold dome, and parallel blue stripes on either side of the magnanimous door and around the stained glass windows, this immense piece of architecture makes the Quaid-e-Azam Mausoleum resemble a Lego set. Inside, we prayed. At least Baba did; I was too busy looking around at these never-ending pillars with inexplicable, yet enchanting markings carved into them.
When we left, a travel guide in the form of a Chin-chi driver led us up huge mountains. The Chin-chi never slowed down, nor did the driver ever honk his horn. Instead, he just yelled out to the people in front, “Niklo! Niklo Baji!” (Get out! Get out, sister!), and people jumped onto the small shops to save themselves. He drove up barely paved roads, the Chin-chi rocking hither and thither, spewing out oil as it drove. To our left were huge mountains, which had a weirdly steep slope, forming an almost perfect right angle. In between, there appeared to be windows carved into these seemingly hollow mountains. When we reached the top, we saw houses without roofs. This, the driver told us, is 'Ulti Basti,’ a former town now in ruins. The story goes as such: A long time ago, the ruler of Sehwan was afraid that Hazrat Lal Shahbaaz Qalandar and his disciple, Hazrat Bodla Bahar, were growing too popular. So the king ordered his soldiers to chop Bodla Bahar into pieces, and they did as asked. However, when Lal Shahbaaz called Bodla Bahar, all the chopped pieces combined back into human form. Lal Shahbaaz, furious, went to the ruler's Darbar and cursed that his land would turn upside down. In moments, as was Allah's will, the city inverted in on itself, and everyone, including the king, died within. I walked around, investigating the flipped houses and royal mountains. Inside the houses lay rusted pots and desaturated curtains. From the look of this place, this absurd story seemed plausible. Regardless, I didn't care whether this story was real or fake; I cared that it existed. "What other stories does Pakistan have?" I thought.
The Chin-chi driver drove us back to our car. We went through a crammed slim road through a vibrant colourful bazaar offering just as many ja'namaaz as it offered Hot Wheels cars. Once again, he never really pressed the brakes, just yelled out to the people ahead.
“I trust this man with my life?"
As exciting as this trip had been, I was exhausted. I fell asleep as soon as we went back to the car. At around 3 am, I woke up with piercing tinnitus ringing in my ear as my head slammed into the chair in front when our driver brought the car to a sharp halt. It was raining intensely, and I was dizzy and confused, looking around to see what had happened. From what I could make out through the rain, a man on the verge of falling unconscious was yelping and crying alone on the highway. Tangled in his bike, which was tearing his limbs as blood gushed out of his knees, painting the road red and chrome.
Baba, along with our driver sprinted out of the car. Without any planned coordination, they attempted to separate the man from his bike. Soon, other people came over to help. I, still half-asleep, stepped out of the car and walked towards them. The rain, now that I was outside, felt not like small droplets, but rather rubber bullets. After much pulling and thrashing, the man was detangled and carried over to a sidewalk, where he lied down and closed his eyes. Then, out of nowhere, he started laughing; his laugh was reminiscent of a sigh of relief. There was blood all over his legs. When asked, he muttered through deep breaths and long pauses, that a bus hit him, and because of the wet road, he slipped and fell. After the longest pause of the bunch, he thanked us for saving his life and managed to smile. When no hospitals answered our calls, we stopped a rickshaw and sent the man to whatever hospital was nearest. The rickshaw drove off, we got back in our car, I went back to sleep, and the journey back home continued.
---
Back in the bus, the kid listening to AJJ notices I’ve been staring at him this whole time. We make eye-contact for a second. I turn straight back and slouch down so he can’t see me, and I stay in that same disconcerting position until I fall asleep, with the nagging feeling that my spine is on the verge of snapping in half. I wake up as a ray of light makes its way through a gap in the curtains and burns straight into my eyes. I sit up from my slouch and look around to see that everyone else in the bus is still asleep. I open the curtains to get a better view. Outside, the first thing I see is a huge sign: Punjab: Pakistan’s Largest Province! I gaze further and see vast lands of endless green farms, between which, small streams flow with ease, and get divided into smaller branches, which move through the soil, irrigating the crops. I know this because I learned it in my Pakistan Studies syllabus. In fact, I’ve seen this exact place in my Geography textbook. Separated by paper then, and separated by this glass window now. However, though I don't get to feel the air, I still notice life on this farm. A man in white Shalwar Kameez walks through these fields with his son, taking small steps.
The scene outside the window slowly transitions into a small road not well equipped for handling the bus’ size. Through my window, separated by a huge canyon covered with water, trees, and moss, there are colossal rocky mountain ranges with valleys paved in between. Squinting, I notice that inside one of these valleys, someone has built a small hut, and people are walking around. From the immense distance, they look like dots, and yet, they’re somehow alive. I keep staring at this scene, getting pulled in closer and closer. But it starts raining abruptly, and my view is blurred by fog and dew. The droplets feel threatening as they fall straight to my face, but I am shielded by the thick glass window each time. It is almost as if God Himself is reminding me that I’m not in Punjab right now; I’m merely observing it.
The rain grows faster, covering up the windshield, and blocking the driver's view. Despite the wipers trying to make some sense of the surroundings, the road remains sheathed by the rain. When things clear for a split second, I notice that a huge truck has flipped over on the road. Our driver takes a sharp left, just barely saving us all, but I remain fixated on the flipped truck. I watch its driver, sitting on his truck next to its front tires, waving his legs around like a child, waiting for help. I remember that bike accident on the way back home from Sehwan.
I still don’t know what happened to the man on that bike. Nor will I ever find out what’s to come for this flipped truck that I’m so deeply entranced in. But I stare at the truck for what seems like an hour. To my left, mountains stand strong in their immensity, valleys in between adding warmth. To my right, a man unaware of his own fate sits on his flipped truck in the middle of nowhere. Watching droplets thrash onto my window, I burst out laughing.
“68 KM to Rawalpindi," says a green sign.
---
When we reach Rawalpindi, Dua and I wait at the bus station for our cousin, who, upon arrival, video calls Ammi. So the first thing I see here, in this new place, before our cousin’s house, before our aunt, before Faisal Masjid, is a pixelated version of Ammi saying "Assalamu'alaikum." On the way to our cousin's house, I think that Rawalpindi is really just a less extreme Karachi: some buildings painted red with paan spit, others, once colourful, fading away into dullness in a growing city. In the coming days, my hypothesis that Karachi and Rawalpindi being the same is proven even further by mountains of trash, bad traffic, and either immense dryness or entire floods of rain. During our stay, I also learn, through our cousin, that there’s apparently a difference between "Chammach" and "Chamcha." I still don't know what that difference is, just that it exists.
On the third day of our visit, we sit on the roof, when out of nowhere, it starts raining. I see how, unlike when I sat shielded by the window in the bus, the droplets leave behind polka dot stains onto the white-tiled surface. On our second-last day, once again on the roof, I stare into the night sky, waiting for the green tint from the bus-stop to reemerge, but instead, stars start to appear. Sure, it’s anticlimactic, but the stars light up the sky just as well all on their own. If nothing, I could make do with the cool blue hues overhead before Fajr. During my trip, much to my dismay, I find Rawalpindi doesn't have many stories to tell. Or maybe I just haven't found them yet. Maybe those colossal mountains hold stories. Maybe it’s the valleys in between those mountains. Maybe the story is the flipped truck. Regardless, I know one thing for sure: there's so much more Pakistan out there, waiting to be seen, to be heard, and to be felt.
---
On the day of our departure from Karachi, Dua and I dragged a heavy suitcase and a backpack into the bus station, received our ticket, sat down, and waited for our bus. I had mentally prepared myself for my first trip out of Karachi. By now, it had become a running joke in our family that I was going to cry again at the bus gate. ”What if the joke is closer to reality? What if you do start crying again? What if you’ve learned nothing from the train station, from Sehwan, or from growing up?” The panicky voice began. “Ten minutes till departure." came the familiar announcement. I had thought that by now, I was prepared for this trip, but just in that instance, my heartbeat grew faster. I told Dua that I was getting nervous. She told me to drink some water but it didn’t help. For a second, I was taken back to the train station when I was ten years old: Heart beating fast, vertigo, legs shaking, and Dua skimming through our suitcase as if to emphasize the similarity. I stood right in front of the bus gate with a line of people waiting behind me. I had to decide, though the decision was obvious. “Yes, I’m getting on the bus,” I thought, but it seemed easier said than done. The engine started; it promised all of Pakistan. And then, out of nowhere, the panicky voice turned into a reassuring one: “You can't be stuck in Karachi forever. You can't be stuck in Saddar forever. You can't be afraid of not seeing Ammi, not seeing Karachi, seeing something new, forever. At one point or another, you must leave.” So, with fear crumbling my bones to powder, as someone from the long line behind me gently nudged me forward, I took a huge silent breath, and I stepped onto the bus.