Faiz Aman Mela

Tomorrow in Lahore there is to be a Faiz Aman Mela, to celebrate the 104th birth anniversary of the poet. We were told about it on our hasty trip around the city and we regretted the lost opportunity.

Here is a poster marking the event, caught in passing, as we caught everything else, from the window of a car.

Lahore: Faiz poster

Aur bhi gham hai zamane mein mohabbat ke siva.

Doha Diary: Layover

We had over eight hours in Doha and Qatar Airways were obliged to give us a room. It took an hour for the paper work and travel to, but we had plenty of rest and a shower and tea and felt somewhat human by the time we returned to the airport.

In the interval, we saw glimpses of Doha from the bus and from our respective room windows. I got construction.

Doha: View from my room

Kavery got a mosque and kids playing football. That's the luck of the draw. 

Doha: View from Kavery's room

(That aged look to the photos is merely badly washed window panes.)

On our way to the hotel, we found our driver speaking with a strong Malayali accent and - because that's how these things happen - I was speaking to someone in Tamil for the first time in ten days*. 

Oh, and the guy at Reception was Pakistani and I got to hear someone say, one more time, 'Koi maslaa nahin." The gap between experience and nostalgia gets shorter and shorter.

Before all that, however, there were timely reminders that it was time to return.

Lahore: Paradise takeaway

 If there is a Paradise...

__

*Excluding conversations with my mother, of course.

Lahore Diary: Goodbye Lahore

We came, we saw, we left.

This is the short version.

The long version is: police verification early, a hasty breakfast bolted down, workshop with some fantastic kids, a hasty lunch, shopping at Liberty and Beech Tree/Khadi, a grabbed dinner, an early night. Followed by a more leisurely morning, with a little walk, a day out in the old city and some strategic re-packing. 

Now, for dinner in a couple of hours, followed by another early night because of - you guessed it! - an early flight.

You will ask Neruda-like questions and perhaps I ought to give you Neruda-like answers but I will say it with photographs. They will tell you how I saw the city just as clearly as what it was I was able to see.

Now? Of course not. Once I'm back.

Lahore, hello-goodbye.

Lahore Diary: Late night, early morning

The flight attendant says it's 16C out at 11pm. I am sceptical butsomewhat reassured though I wonder what I'm doing with the coat in my lap.

The woman next to me on the flight is Air Blue crew and she's not on duty but obviously feels she has a calling because even from the middle seat next to me, she's directed people to their seats, told people how to stow their laptops correctly so there's place for everyone else, and has asked me if she could have my aisle seat - I refuse, naturally - but continues to officiously sidle out to speak to those actually on duty. At the baggage carousel, she raises her eyebrows at the baggage porter on duty, as if she could get him to conjure our luggage by doing so.

Outside, we're met and though it's dark, to me the air feels like early winter in Delhi and I am overcome with a wave of nostalgia. I conclude that it's the air, just that right amount of bite in it that's on this side of sharp.


In the parking lot, a scatter of broken windshield glass is another sign that after all, familiarity is unavoidable. Perhaps it's unnecessary to avoid it; it's enough to mark it when it happens.

We stop for bread, I borrow my friend's phone to text home though I'm fairly certain it won't go - no text messages have, so far. LUMS is not far and even in the night, it's easy to see that it's going to look like a posh version of JNU. All red brick, trees, clean lines of roads and students confident in their right to the place.

Skipping lightly over the bits where I can't sleep and still have to (have to) wake up early for police verification, I discover the early morning is gorgeous with the sunlight slanting over the peepul outside my picture window. We're on the ground floor and in this brief moment before the day begins properly, I can look out at this natural component of institutional beauty and admire it.

Karachi Diary: Goodbye Karachi, Hello Lahore

It's been six days since we got here. In an hour or so I will be at the police station for paperwork before I leave for Lahore. There will be other ends to tie up and then it's a new city and a new air.

I've made so many friends in these few days and if I stop to think about how wonderful people have been, I will want to behave in an extravagantly foolish manner to accurately express how I feel.  

I arrived in Karachi in the dark, on a night when the full moon had not yet set and was hanging over the airport like a paper cut out. Tonight we will see Lahore for the first time, also in the dark. 

It's apt - this slow revelation, this adjustment of the eyes and the senses to something new.

Goodbye, Karachi. Hello, Lahore.

Spaniard Goes West

A little more to the West as Calculus might have said.

I am off to Karachi for the Lit Fest and after that, to Lahore for two days. Of course, it's impossible to make the short hop from Bombay to Karachi in the civilised hour or so that it should take, so I will be jetlagged with a day-chewing couple of flights, but hey - I'm westward bound!

Unexpectedly, for me, I think I will blog as often as time permits. I won't be able to take my SLR because baggage rules about one bag are very strict and I really can't stuff a camera into my laptop bag. There will be another camera, though it's old and the images it produces are rather grainy but that can't be helped.

What has been interesting has been the reactions of people to the news in the last two days. 

"Why are you doing this?!" one person said. "You'll never get a visa to the US again." 

"Karachi? Oh! Oh!" said another friend. The second oh was both exclamatory and silent. I could tell.

Another misheard me and was puzzled. "What?" I asked, maybe a little aggressively. When she asked what I'd said and I repeated myself, she said, 'Oh, Karachi! I thought you said Karate."

One friend of my mother's has just been and back and she had much advice to give me. We've made a date to compare stories once I return. Another sounded wistful; she had tried so hard to visit her sister for a whole year and at one point it looked like the visa might come through. But then it didn't and her sister died.

Visas. Let's not talk about them.

Let's talk about PACKING!

(Actually, let's not. You lot know me and know it was and continues to be epic. One day, I will inaugurate a new genre of travel writing that is almost entirely told via the packing for it.)

Maybe let's talk about shopping instead? Or things I absolutely must do and see in both these cities?

Suggestions, please!