What Tourism?

JULY 2004 - The Punjab Minister for Tourism, whose name I have immediately forgotten, has declared this week that Pakistan is a heaven for tourists. I assume he means that when tourists die here, they go to heaven. I have no recollection of where he made these stirring remarks but it is more than likely that it was one of those paper-reads where everyone tells everyone else all the things they don’t want to know. Going to heaven or hell may or may not be true but tourism having been quite dead for quite sometime is as true as Shaukat Aziz winning both at Attock and Tharparkar.

While one admires the Minister for his flight of fancy he might as well have also in the same breath declared Pakistan to be the best tourist destination in the world, travel advice notwithstanding. This year a handful of brave men have arrived in Pakistan, attended the compulsory seminars et al in Islamabad and some have actually managed to escape from the bureaucratic clutches of the various ministries that lie strewn in Islamabad, much like long-forgotten Mughal period tiles, and ended up in the northern areas. Just a few of course. We are celebrating the Year of the Mountain or Mountains – it really doesn’t matter and if you haven’t noticed the revelry across the land, you are obviously related to Rip Van Winkle. The only worthwhile thing that has happened, as far as the distant mountains are concerned is that some goras thought it was time they cleaned up some of the mess they have left on each mountain they engaged. So tons of cans, plastic and other environmentally-friendly garbage has been painstakingly collected and transported down where it has been compressed and buried like they do with people in Africa or Afghanistan or Iraq or wherever men live. Other than that, nothing earthshaking has taken place in this ‘heaven’ as the Minister alluded to – and the good thing is, nothing will. We are not only one of the most dangerous countries to visit, but even if we weren’t, we don’t even have the basics that can remotely lead to a thriving tourist trade. We have no infrastructure, we have no security, we have no organization and we have no desire to actually harness the wealth that other countries gather from tourism.

Even countries that really have nothing much to offer beat us hollow. The only ‘tourists’ who end up here are those who have business to attend to, those who have blood relatives, those who are forced to because of family commitments – deaths, marriages, births and those who are simply passing through. The only genuine tourist we have had is Richard Armitage who is a regular and likes the country. The few foreigners we still have, are forced to be here in the line of duty. Most of what can be called blue-blooded foreigners are holed up in Wana, fighting for freedom, truth and money though not necessarily in that order.

Last week, walking around in the frontier city of Peshawar, I thought I saw many tourists, till I realized that it was the midday sun. I stood by the railway line that links the city with Landikotal in the Khyber Pass and hit myself on the head for the umpteenth time in sheer frustration. Only we, with the legendary Khyber Pass in our pocket, could have missed out so beautifully. Any other country – and don’t quote Rwanda to me – I have it on very good authority that things there are infinitely better than they are here, would have milked the Khyber Pass. There is no tourist train to the Khyber Pass anymore. Priced atrociously at about US$ 60 if I recall correctly, it carried a handful of hardy and slightly foolish ‘tourists’ up the Pass and back. After a few runs, things all around were so bad that they called the whole thing off. Now, all we have is a rusting track and all the potential you can pack in a sack. In Peshawar’s University Town, an entire road – a public property, has been barricaded with cement blocks that could stop an army of tanks. These huge blocks have caused many accidents as Peshoris have happily rammed into them at night not spotting them till their radiator is sitting in their lap. The blocks are erected to ‘guard’ the American Club, where the few struggling ‘foreigners’ can hole up and have a drink. The sight of the road is enough to drive the stake of despair in your heart and out the other end. As for recreation, our six-year-old nephew is refused permission to swim with his four year old sister and other siblings, since he is a ‘man’. This is Peshawar Club where once, in the time of the infidels, live music played as chilled stuff was served by courteous and swift bearers. Women dived into the blue waters, sunned themselves on reclining chairs, read books, ate fish and chips and lived the good life. That was another age. The six year old is baffled and tearful. Who can explain this perversion to him? The MMA?

Further into the city, there are pickets galore with gun toting soldiers peering anxiously from behind sandbags. Barricades and uniformed sentries are a dime a dozen. The main road that runs right through the Saddar area is no longer functional because the American Embassy or whatever it is that they have there these days, has to be kept way off limits for the locals. All those desiring to commute here have to take a route so circuitous that chances of getting lost are just as bright as Ch. Shujaat Hussain saying a sentence without trailing off into space. Every now and then, in spite of all these ‘precautions’ and ‘security measures’ as we euphemistically like to call them, half a dozen rockets land right into the middle of the city. Some explode, some don’t. Everyone runs for cover and soon thereafter, things stumble back to normal. Overhead, Pakistan Air Force jets scream all day long till it’s time for the fighter pilots to have lunch and retire for an afternoon siesta. There is a ‘Kissa Khani’ Bazar of the Traveller’s Tales fame, but all you get here are traffic jams, pollution, disorder and gobs of spit. Tourism? Sure.

The night train from Peshawar to Lahore, ostensibly the kind of transport tourists might take were they ever to make it into Peshawar and out, is still called The Khyber Mail or 2Down as railway folk put it. The station is dug up and the floors are being re-laid or else it got hit by a Nek Muhammad missile. There are clouds of dust but the train leaves. The 1st Class Sleeper is straight out of the last century. It is rudimentary and as the train gathers speed, the noises of the night take over. The compartment pitches so violently that it seems we are precariously placed in a small boat in a large, angry and stormy ocean. Need for seatbelts is acute. Somehow, while it lurches drunkenly from side to side and upwards and downwards, I stare back at two men who have beards that reach their slippers and who finger a rosary while scratching various parts of their anatomy. I am reading a story on Osama Bin Laden, just the kind of thing to read on a night train journey with the Taliban, but it is in a foreign language, so that’s alright. Ten minutes out of Peshawar, they purposefully get up, bolt the door and put out the lights. We roll in the dark till we hit a donkey in Gujranwala and stay marooned on the track for two hours. As the light grows and my companions snore on, we pass the great plains of Punjab – tons and tons of garbage lies rotting, mile after mile. Not a drain in sight, but cesspools to choke your spirit are everywhere. Buffaloes wallow in black, filthy water and all around, shantytowns spring up like ugly warts. Filth, filth everywhere. No sign of any Nazims at work here. Obviously these people haven’t met Gen. Naqvi.

No, tourism is not for us. We have all the potential for great tourism, but no tourism. And that’s the way it will be always till the men from Mars take over.