As I go through the passport control, I can’t help but
notice the variety of head coverings in both men and women… Women anywhere from
traditional head scarf casually covering some of their hair to the loose shawl
over the head like Benazir Bhutto’s, to burka style exposing the face, to burka
style, exposing only the eyes on an on… The most interesting one is a woman
with burka on. She has a transparent veil over her face that comes down to her
lips. The part covering her lips is an opaque silver piece covering only her
mouth on her face:
This was not exactly what I saw, but the function was similar, to cover the mouth...
Many men with a white fez on their heads, the extremely jittery man standing in front of me has a white muslin large shawl covering his head over his white fez: Is he just late for his connecting flight as is the case with so m any people at the airports, probably the cause of negative energy surrounding all of us.. He even attempts to go before a modern young woman and her son with a sneaky attitude. My heart rejoices when she very adamantly tells him to go back to his spot on the line! Let’s see how often this, woman power setting boundaries for unleashed testosterone in this patriarchal society will happen during my visit…
Many men with a white fez on their heads, the extremely jittery man standing in front of me has a white muslin large shawl covering his head over his white fez: Is he just late for his connecting flight as is the case with so m any people at the airports, probably the cause of negative energy surrounding all of us.. He even attempts to go before a modern young woman and her son with a sneaky attitude. My heart rejoices when she very adamantly tells him to go back to his spot on the line! Let’s see how often this, woman power setting boundaries for unleashed testosterone in this patriarchal society will happen during my visit…
A group of Pakistanis at an airport from the internet
Going through customs is uneventful. As I get out through the baggage claim area, I am appalled with the number of people on both sides of the exit door: I know in eastern cultures there is no concept of personal space, but I have never seen this type of a crowd even in political demonstrations of hundreds of thousands of people that I had attended in my youth. There are two walls of human flesh with not even one inch in between bodies on both sides of an aisle the exiting travelers are forcing open to be able to proceed. Each wall of human bodies is at least 8-10 bodies wide, luckily a young man holding a sheet of paper with my name on it “Mr. Resmiye Oral” has found a spot for himself who knows how long ago in the very front.
I smile at him, both of us are visibly relieved. He leaves his spot and we both start walking toward the exit I through the two walls of people and he behind them. Occasionally he raises his hand above the crowd to let me know he is still there!. We finally meet on the sidewalk past the exit doors. I am not sure if I should shake hands with him, neither is he. We just say hi and he takes off with my luggage, with his long strong legs. Although I am a fast walker, I sense, I use all my force to keep up with him, I will soon understand why he is rushing: The hotel van, “Oh he is the hotel shuttle driver, not somebody from a travel agency or conference organization”, is parked about ¼ of a mile away. More importantly, traffic is a killer in Lahore when the airport is 25 kms away from where the hotel is located.
Traffic in Lahore was no different than in Karachi
It becomes clear that Naseer doesn’t speak much English, leaving our conversation opportunity very limited. I learn from him that thank you in Urdu is “Shukriyah”, not shukran as in Arabic. Easy to memorize since Shukriyah is very similar to a Turkish female name shukriyeh! As I have gotten into the habit of paying thanks to all the good in my life every night it is no surprise that the two first words in Urdu I learn and keep using are Shukriyah and Gee for yes. Yes to life, yes to openness, yes to embracing all that comes with my journeys to places as well as my journey through life.
As Naseer inches the van through the turtle-pace traffic, I have the opportunity to observe my surroundings, be it in the dark. We pass through a divided road lined up with a variety of stores, some very fancy inside, some not so much; anything from butcheries to vegetable stores, to shoe-stores, to women’s apparel, to pharmacies among others… He tells me that this is a very famous shopping place although the ambience looks very run down to me. This will continue hitting me over and over again in my 48 hours in Pakistan: In the west, the care to the environment in which stores, offices and residences are built starts with the onset of the construction of such places. Only in ghettos, one would see a run down environment.
This view I thought belonged to a poor neighborhood, turns out it is a middle class residential area
In Pakistan, I will see again and again, inner spaces that are impeccable are in neighborhoods that reflect very little of what is inside. I wonder if this is residual from the colonial times when British most likely were sealing themselves off from the rest of the society in their cocoons… We pass through many neighborhoods, highways, and finally make left to a two way street. I have been gasping on the divided ways with crazy motorcyclists dancing in between cars and buses with a couple of inches of margin.
I can’t help covering my face with my desperate hands when a biker passes us with a woman behind a man sitting sideways and… with an infant in between two bodies! The woman is holding the baby with one hand and holding onto the man’s body with the other. Not aware at this point that worse is yet to come: On the way to the university the next day I will see a bike with three adults on it and a baby between the man in the front and the woman in the middle. The two men’s bodies keep the woman in place since she is holding the baby with both hands! I start counting the number of people on each motor bike. The highest number I see is five adults on one bike, the last one kind of hanging down the back of the bike! My driver Mutasir tells me that motorbikes are a convenience in Pakistan since they can sneak through cars, (and, boy is that true!) and get to locations much faster than cars…
Four adults on one motorcycle!
Eventually, we come to a place where this Emporium Mall stands in conjunction with the Nashit Hotel that some of my fellow conference attendees have commented as being “amazing, absolutely stunning”. We have to take the elevator to the 4th floor to get to the lobby. Huge open space both vertically and horizontally with minimal furniture, lots of light, feels like a space ship with a huge carbon footprint to me rather than “amazing and stunning”. When I get to my room, I am flabbergasted with the space. It is probably a 1000 square feet suit, everything digitized, you can’t turn on one light only, any option turns on at least 5-6 lights at the same time.
It is clear that Pakistanis believe, extravagance is necessary to please westerners, or is it themselves? Or is it residual from colonial times when the colonizers had established standards way way above what was the norm for the natives? I won’t be able to find the answer to this question without risking being rude… I just feel good when I hear that my dear friend Figen is also stunned with the unnecessary extravagance. We discuss how the vicinity of the hotel is in unimaginable contrast with its surroundings. I will wake up in the morning to see that on one side of my corner suite across the street is a shanty town of some 50 shacks and tents. There are kids running around in between tents that tells me that families live in this community.
Our "must-be-seven-star" hotel and the luxury shopping mall adjacent to it are neighbors to this shanty-town, where people live in tents and tin shacks with their kids
Around the corner on the other hand is almost dry desert land extending toward the horizon with one to three story buildings. It is difficult to say whether this is a residential neighborhood or business section of town. In just a few blocks the buildings disappear under thickening smog anyway. This will explain the bizarre burning coal smell that I sense in the van from the airport to the hotel. In the days I spend in Lahore colleagues will tell me how this is nothing, and before the rains started, how difficult it was to breathe the air in town.
The explanation is the tradition in India adjacent to Pakistani border, which is only 20 kilometers to the east of Lahore. Apparently, once harvest is done in the fall, villagers in that region burn up all that remains on the fields, which lead to this seasonal severe atmospheric pollution. Black carbon that my friend Greg works on, testament to the fact that borders mean little in this day and age… Despite all, I will discover in my 48 hours that, Pakistani people are so pleasant, so friendly, and hospitable, they will grow on me. The "air" is totally different than it was in Oman. Even their traditional religious conservatism is so much more relaxed than what I observed in Oman. I think, I can come back to this land, I will come back to help them build child protection response systems... If this is all I can give to this sweet people and their children, I will do that delightedly...
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| The air pollution may veil even the sun in the middle of the day at times creating this surreal frame |
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