Wednesday, October 31, 2018

On the Karakorum: Taxila & Islamabad




There once was a town called Taxila,
That had all of the charm of Manila.
The showers'll scald you to death,
And avoid all deep breaths,
For the filth of the place is a killer.

Our hotel was an odd mix of clashing styles, as if the decor was bought at a rummage sale in the late '70s.  Still, it was a pleasure to have pizza for dinner after so many bowls of dal, and our room's placement reduced the ceaseless roar of the Grand Trunk Road to a dull throb. 

We joined its ranks in the morning.  Joining us in the long scurrying queues were bullocks and other livestock being transported to the morning market.  This culture of bringing meat to the table came piecemeal with the Muslim invasions that moved in on what had for centuries been a series of Buddhist kingdoms.  

The word "Gandhara" had always meant magic to me, signifying a conjoinder of Indic, Persian, and Greek civilizations. Years ago at the Tokyo National Museum I'd seen some of the beautiful standing Buddhas with their flowing Greek robes.  It was fitting to start once again from that perspective, to meander the broken bodies of the statuary in the small museum rising from a tidily manicured patch of shaded lawn.  Nearly every piece was damaged somehow, but at least they were here at all, saved somehow from destruction that accompanied the invading newcomers to the Valley.  As ever, it was the hands of the Buddhas that most impressed me, a commonality seen throughout Asian.  

Many of these artworks had been saved by being forgotten for centuries underground. We walked these next, moving along the narrow passage that had been Sirkap's main street.  Little remained but for symmetrical squares of brick that had once been the foundation of Bactrian houses.  A couple of ruined stupas allowed for some variety in the geometry. It was easy to find a parallel with Pompeii, which I'd visited earlier this summer, but here the damage proved that even when compared with nature, the devastation wrought by man can be much more thorough.    

There was a little bit more remaining at nearby Dharmarajika, namely a tall stupa rising from the grass.  Two pairs of feet stood shaded by ruined brick halls, but the towering figures they'd supported were long gone.  I relied on my own feet to wander beyond, climbing up a small rampart to look over the dusty plains and lows hills beyond.  It was little wonder the Buddhists felt comfort here, in a landscape familiar from their homeland of Bihar over a thousand kilometers west.      

    
Islamabad was much closer than that, and our first stop was at an outdoor food market for lunch.  The women in our party were the only to be seen here, but there was more variety in the costume of the local men dining around us, here in the nation's capital.  Afterward we were given some free time, so I wandered in search of some books I'd been looking for:  Human Records on Karakorum Highway, John Marshall's classic Buddhist Art of Gandhara, and the 2006 edition of Lonely Planet's Pakistan, the last one dedicated to this country and one growing increasingly rare, secondhand copies now going for $200 in the States.  Saeed Book Bank proved to be a treasure trove, many of its titles concerned with recently history in the region.  But the real find was Mr. Old Books, a second hand bookshop I found a block over, with literal stacks of travel narratives dating back to the earliest days of British involvement in the region.       

On the walk back to the hotel we dropped into Junaid Jamshed to buy some traditional duds for the evening.  Our guide seemed stunned to see us dressed so, and later, each and every one of the local men in the Lok Virsa Heritage Museum stopped me to take a photo together.  The museum itself was incredible, dedicated not only to Pakistan but to all the 'Stans, and the dozens of peoples that had shaped them over the centuries.  Being a former anthropology Master's student, I relished the detail and the wealth of what was presented.  Most of all, I began to envision a future visit to meets the Tajiks and Kyrgyzs.  Out in front of museum, a quartet was playing through a series of qawwali songs, sung with an intense passion and beauty by a large man whose dexterous dance moves betrayed his size.  

The sun was setting as we climbed the steps to the Shah Faisal Mosque, named for the former Saudi king who'd donated the funding.  The four towering minarettes framed the massive courtyard and worship space, all bustling on this Friday eve.  Compared to most mosques in Central Asia, the look was very modern, as if Escher had constructed a university in California, but there was peace to be found in its beauty.  I wandered off from my group, seeking anonymity in my shalwar kameez, and stood awhile watching some boys, similarly clad, played cricket on the lawn below.  

The peace of this night continued, as we dined on divans before the partially restored ruins of a Hindu temple.  This village on the outskirts of the city was attempting to reclaim its older heritage, and its most overt expression was in the amazing meal we had here, the light continuing to fade, the music wafting up.  It was most pleasant meal of the entire trip.  Islamabad is a planned city, and a very modern one, dating only to the 1960s.  It looked like Colombo, like Delhi, a South Asian capital city with broad tree lined avenues and spacious homes for the wealthy.  Yet some of this money had been earmarked for cultural preservation, and as such, I found it very attractive indeed.  I'd love to spend a longer period here, exploring the riches of such an intriguing part of the world.


On the turntable: Grateful Dead, "1974-03-23 Cow Palace"
On the nighttable:  George Orwell, "My Country Right or Left"

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