My years in Pakistan

A lot of people keep asking me about my experience in Pakistan – I spent nearly 4 years in Islamabad. So I decided to write about it here, even though the Pakistan I lived in was very different from the one we read about in the papers now. But anyway…

The first time I went to Pakistan was in March 1992. I took a train from Delhi till Amritsar and then a taxi till the Attari border. You have to cross the border on foot – but only foreigners or diplomats can do that. The average Indian or Pakistani tourist has to either take the train (Samjhauta) or get on a flight. It was a beautiful day – the sky was overcast and as people in Delhi know March is a beautiful month in that part of the country. If you drive down from Amritsar to Islamabad you do so on the GT Road (Grand Trunk Road, which Sher Shah Suri traveled on). The drive from Amritsar to Attari is through lush green fields – Guru Nank Dev University, one of the premier universities in India is the last major landmark on the way.
We crossed the border around 11 am and like I said, the sky was overcast. The border post is under huge trees and there is greenery all around. That day was also the first time in my life I saw No Man’s Land and the barbed wire fence along the border.
At Wagah (that’s the name of the Pakistani border post) we got into an old 70s Toyota automatic. At that time the Maruti revolution was sweeping India and the taxis here used to be battered Ambassadors that had seen a lot of action when militancy was at its peak in Punjab.
It’s a 50-minute drive from Wagah to Lahore and I spent the time trying to soak in as much as I could about Pakistan. There was a weekly market on the way. Vegetables were stacked neatly on racks but right in front were animal innards. I wondered how customers would buy their veggies when intestines were lying all over the place where they were supposed to stand. It was disgusting to say the least – Paskistanis eat a lot of red meat so I guess even the stink of rotting meat would be okay for them but I found it downright revolting.
The journey from Wagah to Lahore was uneventful. At Lahore, we got into an AC video coach and surprise, surprise! The bus was a Mercedes and they played Hindi movies throughout our journey from Lahore to Islamabad – some 300 km and 7 hours away.

A LITTLE BIT ABOUT ISLAMABAD
I used to live close to Faisal Masjid, built by King Faisal of Saudi Arabia, in Islamabad. The mosque is beautiful. The floor is so squeaky clean that you can see your face in it. There's a replica of the holy Mecca and Medina there. Nearly everybody who is anybody in Pakistan owns a bungalow near Faisal Masjid.
Then there is the Jinnah Super market -- the most upmarket in Islamabad. You can pick up the most exquisite -- and the most expensive -- watches, jewellery, apparel, shoes from here. This market turns into a major hangout at night after the shops shut down and is a hit with youngsters.
Super Market -- which houses the famous bookstore, Mr Books -- is about 5 km down the road from Jinnah Super. Mr Books is famous for two reasons -- it has the best collection of books in Islamabad and it was from this shop that Omar Sheikh, now on death row for his role in Daniel Pearl's killing, picked up a couple of books before he transformed into a "liberal" Muslim to lure Pearl into his trap (this is what Henri Levy says in his book, Who killed Daniel Pearl).
Then there is Aab Para, another marketplace, albeit a little downmarket. You can find Chinese good in hordes here. A little down Aab Para, there is a weekly market called Jumma market. As the name suggests, it comes up on Fridays on an open ground a little ahead of Aab Para. You can find pickles, carpets, spices, dry fruits, clothes -- both used and new, poultry, vegetables etc. from here. People generally go to this market to stock up for the week.
The Covered Market (called so because it is housed in a covered enclosure) has a lot of good things to offer too. It mostly has smuggled goods and whatever came from Afghanistan in those days.
All these markets fell in the order given above from my home to the Senate.
The biggest market was called Blue Area. It was a straight stretch for about 5 km or so. White goods and electronics items was the speciality of this market. It was also the commerical hub of Islamabad.
I am talking about nearly 14 years back, so things might have changed. If anyone of you has the latest update, please let me know.

WHAT THE PAKISTAN CONNECTION DID FOR ME
I was still in school when I first went to Islamabad. When I returned to Delhi, all my classmates -- kids I had known since Nursery -- had a different attitude towards me. Some became too polite, others hostile. One of my friends asked me whether I was a Muslim. I was taken aback -- did my name not sound Hindu enough, I asked.
"Then probably you are a Pakistani Hindu," he said.
I decided to leave it at that.
For the next months or so, I pretended that I was a Pakistani and used to abuse everyone in class, calling them Indians. Some got really angry but no one really protested -- they were probably scared of a "Pakistani" (a lot of you will probably stop reading this blog forever now, but let me get this straight. I was in High School then and you do silly things in High School, don't you?)
But what was more interesting was the kind of reaction I used to get from people in Pakistan ezpecially when there was a India-Pakistan cricket match.

(I have to stop again now. Please check this blog tomorrow)