Meditating Over Kindness!

I leave that time untouched, unexplored for I fear my words would be insufficient in translating the ethereal beauty of nature that sits virginally in the valleys up north, in little towns of Skardu, Hunza, Hopar, Hisper hissing at the debilitating arms of modern civilization that had earlier preyed upon the green lush hills of Murree. This so called development that branched over to Muree and Naraan has over the course of years degenerated the hospitality of nature to that of restless man who gloats of being a better architect than the "Big Bang."

But this pride man has in his own creation is just an intentional divergence from the truth of his incompetence, of how his establishments though magnificent in their symmetry are not but the harbingers of doom wrought from the denial of the mastery of nature and the break from the laws set by it for itself. Now let’s part from this somber mood to glorify a place yet untampered by man’s genius.

Skardu remains the unaged architecture, unaged and unimprovised masterpiece of nature, its people too unencumbered by the morgification human race went through when everything from affection to humanity became commoditized. But it's not so at Skardu. Smiles are distributed without hope of return, at every passerby whether they be down at the Soak Lake or up at the Deosai Plain, or maybe it was our tour guide who had the "smiling and waving affliction" but in this case this disease must be viral, for every time his smile was returned, his hand wave was imitated and there transpired a silent recognition of shared locality or at least humanity.

But smile is not the only measure of man's kindness, at least not for those who are truly kind, for true kindness pervades not only towards fellow beings but to all creations. The people there were kind without being aware of this inherent kindness they possessed. Today when we gawk unfeelingly when fellow men walk around in tattered rags on cold windy days, these people had the foresight to robe even the barks of trees to protect them from the oncoming cold. To those who would say their sustenance depends on this greenery, can our survival be independent of these lush trees which form the bases of the trophic cycle?



People over there were equally concerned about the fate of their livestock and this I accept is because these animals have a large bearing on their life. However such care does breed in them the spirit of benevolence, a hospitality which is even extended to the animals during harsh winters when both humans and animals share the same small enclosure for months on end.

I think this change in our attitudes towards life and fellow man is because of our survival in a world which has been so mechanized and automated that we stop feeling the need for anybody's assistance to lead our daily lives that we ultimately forget that other people do not exist in our lives simply to help us in our chores but love and kindness is what makes this life meaningful. Alas, love and kindness cannot be taught in the kinds of lives we lead for this lifestyle only teaches us to attain material success ad it is not concerned with our emotional sustenance.

Tricked By Nature

Through the haze of time, a few memories stand stark bouncing across the canvass of pleasant experiences with the pitter patter of rain, rain as it slowly drizzles down in Karachi, when summers reach their peak, gradually developing into narrow streams that trickle down the scorching hot landscape as sweat down a body on a laborious day, cooling, in contrast to the licking flames of the Sun or the agony of stressful days. It was 21st September and we had left Hunza for Naraan, confidently anticipating a peaceful stay at Naraan by nightfall, or as confidently as a man can scheme without taking the whims of nature into account. Nature never disappoints, always flourishing the card of unexpectancy. It is like always possessing the triple ace in the game of teen patti, one we played constantly during our whole trip during which if someone boasted such a luck, he would automatically be dubbed a liar, which was never farther from the truth but nature would take offense if we called it a cheat. But a cheater it was for it tricked us into a nightstay at the foot of the fairy meadows when the rain slid down the road, making it steep, a perilous route if one decided to continue travel- a land sliding on the road to Naraan. Thus we withdrew in the Shangrila Hotel when the barricades were pulled down on the roads ahead.
                                       

Shangrila hotel unlike the one we stayed in previously at Skardu had just five rooms and we were lucky to have booked one initially, for later, there was a hub of people squabbling over the other four to spend the cold night.

There is a certain joy in sharing one bedroom among ten people, all of who have nowhere else to be and nothing else to do than enjoy each other’s company, sometimes at the cost of losing a few games of Chess or becoming a laughing stock when you act deplorably on the titles of Indian movies you have never watched. Maybe the joy lies solely in the fact that no matter how pathetically you act out inane titles, there is this person who will always guess it right, at the first go- just from your hanging face as you try to think of the least hilarious way to act out the task. And there is this off note music being played on guitar outside in the garden that drifts in with the wind, and blends in as a background to the laughter of little sprites, a scene out of a fairyland sketching a place of serenity unintruded by the claims of war from India as it promised to barge in Pakistani borders through Hunza, a small city just a little stretch from where we reclused.

Apples or a mythology

Our breakfasts were followed by the plucking of fresh apples. The Apple laden trees stood dropped, invitingly, with their ripened fruits a perfect fit for our palms and a perfect complement for our appetite. In Skardu they were golden, just like the first ray of Sun as it branches out from behind the mountains heralding the breezy mornings.

Apples at Skardu

In hunza, we feasted on blood red apples, tearing into its glossy skin with our teeth, letting the juice ooze down our hands and run down our lips. It is a luxury withheld from the residents of bustling cities where a green tree alone becomes a sight for sore eyes and where the fruits reach dry and dented.

Apples at Hunza

Beginning Of A Journey

Beginnings tend to be beautiful, nostalgic, for they mark a turn in your lifetime and unfurl the future into something new and unexpected. Wondrously, even an idyllic journey with an insignificant ouset, morphs into a transformative one, if we revisit it with a self-reflective eye.
This is clearly too dense an introduction for a blissful journey to North Pakistan with my maternal cousins. In fact, it reminds me of the poem "Woodspurge" by Daniel Rosetti as he insists that not everything in life needs to be dissected to reap wisdom:

"From perfect grief there need not be 

Wisdom or even memory"

so conclusively, for now I shall abandon the philosophical side of my nature and give rein to the connoisseur within. 
We began our excursion on the 3rd day of Eid-ul-Adha on 15th of September'16 by taking a flight with PIA from Karachi to Islamabad. If you do believe in omens, then maybe it's a good one that our plane flew exactly at the designated hour of 4 pm. For those who are unacquainted with the volatile performance of our domestic flights, let me enlighten you! PIA has gained great fame in recent years for cancelling flights, or delaying them for hours. So now you know how lucky we were! From there we went up to Skardu, Hunza, down to Naraan, and then straight from Islamabad to Karachi, a journey I will trace in the following posts.

A bird's eye view of Islamabad and the grandiose Faisal Mosque