In KP, we were able to read the sign, it said: “Yahan gaana bajana mana hai — ba-hukm-e-Administrator Oghi”.
NEW YORK: Searching for one’s roots is a natural impulse that hits most people at some stage in their lives. I got the urge, not too long ago, and decided to embark on the search up in the mountains of what is now Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. This was when ‘enlightened moderation’ was the fashion in Islamabad and the MMA was ruling the province.
The last six miles of the journey were a narrow dirt track up a very steep slope. Only one jeep plied up and down once every day. There were sharp turns, and the track could barely accommodate the four tyres of the jeep. On one side of the track was a mountain, with scattered mud houses dotting the slope and a few hungry goats grazing at some thorny bushes. To the other side, thousands of feet below, flowed the Indus.
The ancient jeep we rode was a bare-bone contraption. Other than a skeletal steering wheel and the gearshift stick, there were no visible gadgets or dials in the jeep. No seats for the passengers either. They had to stand in the back, with no rooftop and nothing to hang on to, five or six of them along with an odd goat or two.
The ride was more like a climb up a steep staircase, the vehicle lurching from one step to another. At every lurch, the passengers tumbled and clutched on to whatever they could lay their hands on — mostly each other and the goats — and recited a prayer or two.
After a particularly sharp turn, I noticed a large, ‘official-looking’ traffic sign ahead. From afar I couldn’t make out what it said, but guessed it must be a warning of another sharp turn ahead or some safety advice. I must say I was hugely impressed at the thoughtfulness of the administration for taking the pains to put up a nice traffic sign on such a desolate and inaccessible track with barely any traffic on it.
When we came closer, and were able to read the sign, it said: “Yahan gaana bajana mana hai — ba-hukm-e-Administrator Oghi” (‘Playing music is prohibited here — by the orders of Administrator Oghi’)! And there were two more signs like that on the way up.
Aziz Akhmad
Published in The Express Tribune, September 7th, 2011.
