Revision as of 13:16, 24 October 2013

Kaghan

Passing through Kaghan

By Noor Jehan Mecklai

Dawn

Kaghan

Trekking through the Kaghan Valley is a fine way to get to know the landscape and the people

YOU remember, of course, how the spider that Scottish King Robert Bruce observed while hiding in a cave, tried seven times to carry its thread of silk across the cave’s entrance before succeeding. However, sometimes one just has to change one’s tactics.

You see, my husband and I were walking with great elan in the Kaghan Valley in happier days, a few years before the earthquake, and the milestone at Chittakatta, about five kilometres from Naran, indicated that we were just 16 kilometres from the village called Kaghan.

So on we strode jauntily downhill towards it, admiring the river all the way. But mysteriously, whenever we asked the distance to Kaghan, it seemed further away. Only one young boy refused us information, throwing a stone at us instead, and shouting, “Jaci badmaash, goral”. Somehow my husband always suffers the gross indignity of being called a foreigner when out with me in the northern areas. Anyway, several kilometres from Kaghan we flagged down a very badly sprung jeep, eventually reaching our destination in this.

Kaghan

Two years later, we again had to cross the finish line somewhat ignominiously, this time balancing on the back of a pick-up truck, and laughing fit to kill, while desperately holding a wildly flapping plastic sheet over ourselves against the huge raindrops that threatened to dissolve us into a nothingness certainly not born of meditation! Furthermore, getting back to Naran in those days was no laughing matter, since all vehicles passing through were stuffed full of humankind and its accoutrements.

Kaghan

Another holiday found us in Khanian, about halfway between Shogran and Naran, having been forced to abandon our Shogran idyll by the advent of a large party from a drug manufacturing corporation. Hmph! So much for democracy and respect. But the hotel was situated tastefully against a backdrop of pines and a foreground of rushing river, with the promise of new nooks and crannies to explore in the neighbouring villages.

And we were now only six kilometres from the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow — from Kaghan. Since “hope springs eternal in the human breast”, we hit the road on foot again, passing firstly a rough bus shelter where a tribal family were packing up to continue trudging all the way back from Balakot, Abbottabad or wherever, to their eyrie further up the valley. They were doing it the hard way, but further along we were passed by more of these folk, crammed into the odd pick-up truck or jeep, along with most of their household goods, and maybe even with an exhausted cow, goat or sheep, or a dog that eyed us lazily. And well he might, as his owner had probably decided in love and charity to give him a lift after miles and miles of padding the hoof. Less fortunate was the handsome young man carrying a huge sack of atta on his shoulders. How far who could guess?

Then what a delight it was to gawp at those jerry-built village houses, blending so perfectly into their surroundings, with their earthen roofs, their sturdy wooden verandah rails, and their rustic doorposts where the occasional goat was tethered, baa-ing away in splendid isolation, while the householder and his family made the most of their few months back in the home fields.

Kaghan

Gawp and be gawped at. That was the idea. However, the friendly eyes of the locals were undisturbing, unlike the endless stares and silly questions from supposedly more sophisticated urban dwellers. But, “Have a heart,” my higher self told me. “How often do any of them see a white-skinned European in something similar to tribal dress?” Seeing me thus clad, some tribes folk even asked if we spoke their Enko dialect. Others, still far from home, asked us for goli to relieve their fatigue-born headaches, or for biscuits for grandparents or children ready to drop.

We hit Kaghan in good time, heartily welcomed back by villagers used to our summertime advent. Once more we feasted our eyes on the picturesque rusticity, the hustle bustle of the place, jumping out of the way of impatient jeeps and overloaded buses in the narrow thoroughfare. One surprise was a glass-fronted shop, displaying a colourful variety of high-heeled shoes, the large hole in its verandah gaping open ever and anon as if tempting the careless. After a visit to the terribly stinky toilet in the usual decrepit hotel, we ate their dal chawal with relish, washing it down with a soft drink, rather than imbibe their questionable tea, which sporting a couple of dead flies was certainly a brew that would neither cheer nor inebriate.

Finally, we about-faced towards Khanian, clocking up the rest of our 12-kilometre perambulation in the mellow afternoon sun that imparted such a lovely softness to the landscape. Sunset comes early to much of the Kaghan Valley, and resting after our day’s odyssey we heard the Azan, echoing loud and clear through Khanian and the neighbouring villages.