| |
COVER STORY: PAKISTAN
Travels In Veiled Reality
Of Islamic X-rays and Black Label blasphemy, Kargil
jingoism and the rising crescent. And most visibly in Musharraf country,
infectious despondency.
By Tavleen Singh
|
|
|
|
|
FUTURE TENSE: With reports of pre-poll violence
in Karachi, security was beefed up for the local government elections
held recently (Top); a shopping mall in Rawalpindi (below)
|
|
|
|
They use the word despondent a lot in Pakistan
these days. They say it in Urdu, mayoosi, which adds a deeper meaning
because it hints at defeat and a loss of hope. It comes up so many times
in so many conversations that, by the end of my second day in Lahore,
mayoosi seems unshakeably around me like sadness or a malignancy. People
use it to explain why they seem not to object to a military dictator,
why they sit silent as he gives himself powers that make him omnipotent,
why they shed no tears for lost democracy and why even the talks with
India evoke little excitement. I was last here to watch Atal Bihari Vajpayee
drive across the Wagah border in his bus and it was a very different Pakistan
or at least seemed to me a very different country than the one I visited
last week. There was, then, optimism, democracy and hubris in the air.
In the many times I have come to Pakistan in the past 20 years the characteristic
that has annoyed me most has been Pakistani hubris. Conversations with
even intelligent and educated people would produce comparisons with India
that went something like this-our cars are better, our roads are better,
our women are prettier, our men are taller ... You do not hear Pakistanis
saying this kind of thing any more.
Except perhaps from a group of Islamic fundamentalists
I ran at in a Lahore bazaar. They were drawn by my TV crew and seemed
to get immense pleasure in saying on camera that Pakistan won the Kargil
war and would have "rubbed India's nose in the dirt" if Nawaz
Sharif had not given up. In their case there seemed to be more religious
zeal than hubris. And, appropriately for a country that was created in
the name of religion, it is the overwhelming, insidious presence of religion
that distinguishes it most from India. I notice it more this time than
before from the moment my PIA flight ascends into the Delhi skies to the
sound of an Arabic prayer instead of the usual flight information. I have
flown PIA before but cannot remember it taking off with such a lengthy
invocation to Allah. The Pakistani voice that recites the prayer seems
to be trying desperately to get the Arabic accent right so the words are
spat out in individual bursts of guttural sound.
|
|
When
Vajpayee went to Pakistan, there was optimism, democracy and hubris
in the air. now there is only mayoosi.
|
Islam even affects the x-ray machine that my
bags go through at Lahore airport. The bottle of Black Label I bring for
friends is detected and I am ordered to open up and hand it over. In the
past I have been able to argue my way in with my whisky by pointing out
that I am neither Muslim nor Pakistani and cannot thereby be prevented
from consuming as much alcohol as I want. This time I am told firmly that
I cannot take my whisky with me but can collect it on my way out if I
give them 24 hour's notice. Forms are filled out and disapproving looks
exchanged as I surrender my whisky. The friend who has come to receive
me watches the whole drama from outside and tells me that we must remember
to get the whisky back or it ends up in the black market. "Sold to
us for Rs 5,000 a bottle." I feel bad that I did not make more of
an effort to bring it in with me and, of course, I forgot to give 24 hour's
notice of my departure so my Black Label is probably even at this moment
in the hands of some Lahori bootlegger.
 |
| FOR WANT OF MORE: A child beggar on
the streets of Islamabad (above). To most Pakistanis it hurts to see
India make economic progress when the decline is all too visible in
their own country. |
Islam has affected the availability of liquor
considerably. I still remember those parties where wine and whisky flowed
as much as it did in Delhi or Mumbai. This time, though, the only alcoholic
beverage I noticed at social gatherings was Cossack Vodka slipped into
Sprite and Seven Up. But it was not just the unavailability of liquor
that made Islam's presence felt, it was conversations I had with ordinary
people. In a village outside Lahore, I ran into a young woman veiled to
her eyeballs. When I asked why she had covered her face in such fashion
she explained, her voice muffled in the folds of her dupatta, that it
was a sin in Islam for women to show their faces. What happens to those
who do, I asked, and was told in my (unveiled) face that hell and damnation
awaited. Men in a nearby village explained that there was logic behind
the veiling. "Do you want men to look at your sisters and daughters
with bad intent?"
My most interesting lesson in Islam came at
the Mohammedi Nihari House in Lahore. The owner was a young man in his
early 20s, who was bearded but moustache-less in the Islamic way. We got
talking and I asked if he watched Hindi films. No, he said, and he did
not watch TV either because it was forbidden in Islam. How could it be
forbidden, I asked, since moving pictures were not even invented in the
Prophet's time? It just was, he said, annoyed that he should be questioned
on his beliefs. I persisted, though, and pointed out that even Saudi Arabia
allowed TV. It was not a proper Muslim country, he said firmly, and I
was not dressed in a decent way by Islamic standards. I wore salwar-kameez
but had forgotten the need to wear long sleeves. Why was there such a
strict dress code for women, I asked, and he said, "Well, if I see
you dressed like this it might make something happen to me-mujhe kucch
ho jaye to?" Since he was not much older than my son I took this
as a huge compliment and would have liked to tell him that I was flattered
but I do not think he would have understood.
|
|
METRO TODAY
Web
Exclusives
