Flying in the valley
Basant retains its true spirit even as far away as the Silicon Valley
By Shahzada Irfan Ahmed
Just when basant is becoming history, and something increasingly forbidden in Pakistan, this colourful event is gaining popularity abroad day by day. Pakistani diaspora settled all over the world arranges this festival on a regular basis -- basically to strengthen its bonds with its culture back home. A bunch of friends, students or families get together at a common place and have fun flying kites and relishing traditional Pakistani cuisine.

Young Ashfaq Ali Tabassam is a railway man. And he seems to like his job. For the past many months he had been threatening to take my friend Shahid Nadeem and me on a railway journey from Attock to Basal. Now this is the line that branches off from the main line and carries on south to Mianwali. Ashfaq said the line wends its way through some lovely scenery, over dramatic bridges spanning some little and some not so little hill torrents and negotiates several tunnels.

For nearly 15 years I had wanted to make just such a trip. But I wanted to go south all the way past the lovely riverside town of Makhad to the point where the Soan River dumps into the Sindhu. There, so my old friend and ex-railway man Mian Mumtaz Ahmed had said was that truly impressive span across the Soan. It was not just a minor engineering feat, he had said, but also a right scenic piece of architecture. When Mian was still in the service we together made so many plans to do it, but like all the best laid plans of mice and men this too came to naught.

If you went clattering over it in a passenger train, you did not see the bridge. The only way to appreciate it was, as railway men would say, 'do trolley' across it. When young Ashfaq offered us the ride, I insisted on going all the way to the Soan bridge. But in the end he prevailed and we opted for the 24 km ride from Kanjur, seven kilometres south of Attock, to Basal. In the event, this turned out to be just as well.

Having left Islamabad in pre-dawn darkness, the five of us (Ashfaq had two friends along) arrived at Kanjur just as it began to light up. The motor trolley was already their having been brought out from the Attock city railway station. Ashfaq said the city was skirted because the line passes through some densely built-up areas. When I asked how that made any difference, he was almost circumspect and I found myself wondering if local children pelted passing trolleys with stones, or worse -- the worse being that sub-continental railway lines are the world's longest toilet. Could it therefore be that Ashfaq did not wish to disturb the male population of Attock town taking their morning dump in the middle of the track?

Kanjur is a post-partition railway station. And I judge that from the eucalyptus planted on the premises. When Raj engineers built their railway stations, they planted only indigenous trees and Golra station, to name only one; (now a must-see railway museum) is a fine example of this wisdom. Massive peepul and banyan trees shade the platform where millions of mynas roost every evening, their raucous end-of-the-day arguments all but rending the sky above. Kanjur only had eucalyptus, one dead shisham and some poplars.

A few kilometres out of Kanjur we paused to admire the bridge over the Nandna stream. Resting on three oblong brick piers with the line sitting about 15 metres above the streambed, this was an impressive structure. Although this line was commissioned in the last decade of the 19th century, it finds no mention in the two bibles for railway enthusiasts in Pakistan. Neither Berridge's 'Couplings to the Khyber' nor Malik's '100 years of Pakistan Railways' have anything to say on its construction.

As lines go, this branch, despite its spectacular bridges and tunnels, may not have figured very highly in the scheme of North Western Railway, as it was once known to have missed notice in the two books. But squirreled away in the archives of the Punjab secretariat there are diaries recording the laying of this line. There they are jealously guarded by idiot bureaucrats, fossils from some bygone age, who tell you the 200-year-old documents are 'top secret' and therefore not for public consumption.

This first stretch to the Nandna bridge was short and the Potohar cold, for the early March had not yet found its way through my tweed jacket. But we rolled on and entered a long section laid in a cutting between two high rock walls. That was when I began to feel the chill and went into what we Punjabis know as the kukkar (rooster) position: mouth clamped shut, shoulders scrunched up, head trying to disappear into the torso and arms tight across the chest. The wretchedness writ large across the face goes without saying. Strangely, no one else seemed to mind the cold as I did. But then, at 57 I was the oldest in the group and I now know that as you grow older you feel the cold more and more.

Shahid thought it was hilarious and as we trundled along he held his little camera at arm's length taking pictures of me in my discomfiture. I was so miserable I could not tell him to desist and he must have taken at least a couple of dozen shots of a very miserable subject. These images he has several times threatened to send me.

Thankfully we drew up to our first tunnel, No. 11. The trolley was stopped and we dismounted; I happily, ostensibly to inspect but in reality to get the blood going in my frigid veins again. The pediment at the top of the portal held a plaque inscribed '1898', the year of completion of this tunnel.

This was a short tunnel and just beyond was the impressive two-pier span across the Shakardara stream. The steel work was identical to the Nandna bridge, but the oblong piers and the abutments were constructed of limestone blocks as against the brickwork of the other one. The placid water was about eight metres below the bridge because, said Ashfaq, the river had been dammed to form a lake. It was a right picturesque setting: the rocky gorge already covered with the bright green of sanatha, the blue waters below and above a sky to match. The red girders of the bridge and the grey of its piers provided the counter-balance while unseen birds sang in the thickets. As we pottered about, the picture was completed when a northbound passenger train went trundling across the bridge, the roll of its wheels on rail echoing thickly off the surface of the water and filling up the narrow gorge.

We passed three more tunnels from No. 10 through No. 8. While No. 10 was completed in 1897, No. 9 in 1896 and the last again in 1897. Since work on this line progressed from the south to the north (as shown by the numbering), I thought this was an anomaly until I realised that No. 8 being 541 metres long, several times longer than the others, would naturally have taken more time to build than the shorter No. 9.

As I stood outside No. 9, Shahid went strolling in. Shortly thereafter I heard a train's whistle and saw him running hell for leather back. Behind him the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel really was a train. But on this line that has not been upgraded in a century even express trains go at a crawl and Shahid made it out in good time. This comedy matched my kukkar circus, but would not have shown as well on still images. To get even with Shahid, I would have needed a video camera.

Jhalar railway station on the far side of No. 8 was probably built around the beginning of the 20th century -- yet it had, besides several denuded shisham trees, one eucalyptus also. This latter from the years when we thought 'tree' meant only and only eucalyptus. Sitting in an oxbow formed by a small stream, the station is noted for having one of the shortest platforms and siding in the country. As well as that, the oxbow warrants a bridge on either side. Though I cannot be certain, but these must be the only two railway bridges in Pakistan that span the same river within the space of a hundred metres. If there is another similar arrangement that would surely be on the now defunct Khyber Pass line.

West of the platform there stands a ruinous building. Made of dressed stone and brick, this is the old rest house where railway officers on tour once stayed overnight. It fell into disuse years ago and is now decrepit because of a lack of maintenance. In those days there would surely have been that ancient cook who turned up excellent chicken curry, rice and caramel crème that he insisted on calling egg 'puteen' (pudding) -- de rigueur in all railway rest houses. But the glory days of Pakistan Railways are behind us. We today operate a mere ghost of what we inherited at the time of our so-called independence and the old tradition of the rest houses has largely been lost.

No tears have been shed on the loss of this building in the back of beyond and one day when it crumbles to a heap of dressed stone it will quickly pass out of human memory. Even in recent times there have been some outstanding railwaymen who have worked wonders without getting the sluggish machinery of the accursed PC-1 moving. The case of the Golra Railway Museum established by two good men, Ishfaq Khattak and Hameed Razi, shines. Will there be another like them who will know that the railway system in its entirety is one vast open-air museum?

We rolled on into Basal -- the end of the line for us -- making this my shortest railway journey. The Soan bridge that I had so wanted to see was yet a 100 kilometres away. On our trolley it would have taken us the better part of the morning to reach. Perhaps, one day when young Ashfaq Ali Tabassam goes touring this line again, his saloon hitched to a freight train, I might get a ride with him. Then he might arrange for the train to be stopped for a while for me to see the bridge that Mian Mumtaz says is one of the grandest.

P.S. Across the platform from the station at Basal a brick building sits amid the fields. Built in the style of a dharamsala or a caravanserai, its high walls enclose a broad enceinte. We went exploring. A tri-lingual (English, Urdu and Hindi) marble plaque above the main door tells all comers that Vishen Devi raised this dharampura in memory of her husband Bhagat Narain Dass Bhasin of the nearby village of Thatta. It also tells us that when he was about to pass on from this life, the good man had instructed his wife to utilise from his 'honest earning' monies for its construction and that as long as she lived to serve the institution. This was a superior example of the spirit of public service that we could certainly do with but are now sadly missing.

The tall front gate was padlocked so the man from the station led us around to the back where we gained entry through a broken window. Around the wide banyan-shaded courtyard there were rooms where travellers, regardless of religion, were provided board and lodge. The cost, our guide said, was an anna or two per night. The building was raised in the Samvat year 1980 corresponding to 1922 of the Common Era and we do not know how long thereafter Vishen Devi survived to keep the caravanserai going.

After partition and the migration of the Hindus and Sikhs, this building, so we were told, was turned into a hostel for boys coming from distant villages to attend the school at Basal. At some point it was abandoned but our guide did not know the reason for that. Very likely the building needed repair. Rather than spend some little money to keep it serviceable, we who do not care for what we have abandoned the old dharampura.

The spirit of Bhagat Narain Dass Bhasin and his wife Vishen Devi lived on after partition when young students resided in their dharampura. It is yet alive in the legend on the white marble plaque above the gateway. But for how long? That we do not know.

Just when basant is becoming history, and something increasingly forbidden in Pakistan, this colourful event is gaining popularity abroad day by day. Pakistani diaspora settled all over the world arranges this festival on a regular basis -- basically to strengthen its bonds with its culture back home. A bunch of friends, students or families get together at a common place and have fun flying kites and relishing traditional Pakistani cuisine.

This year, this event was celebrated by the residents of the Silicon Valley, California, in a big way on May 24, 2009. The venue was a community center in Sunnyvale, and the organisers were the management of Pakistani American Cultural Center (PACC). The participants belonged mainly to the IT sector. Their families wanted the event to be as close as possible to the authentic Pakistani basant. For this purpose, around 400 kites and string was specially brought in by a kite vendor from Karachi. The stuff was sold to some excited people who were dying to have a feel of sharp string on their bare fingers. The vendor brought in the kites in a special wooden crate. He damaged some of them but most made it through in one piece.

There were many participants who flew a Pakistani kite after a long time. They normally make do with those available in the US, primarily for people from countries like Japan, who also celebrate kites-flying festival. Such locally made plastic kites were available at this event but only for the children who would easily rip paper kites apart.

So, manja-coated thread and paper kites were precious commodities and available only to the elders. These privileged elders yelled at high pitch as if totally oblivious of the fact they were not on the rooftop of a multi-storey house in the Walled City of Lahore but in a setting where silence is a norm and where high-tech IT gurus communicate with each other through gadgets.

Farrukh Khan, PACC Founding President, says the event will grow bigger next year as they are planning to invite Indian, Afghan and Sikh community members to join them. He told participants that Silicon Valley has the largest Afghan community in the US and the author of the famous book 'Kite Runner' also lives here.

The idea of holding basant in a purely desi way was pioneered by Suhail Sardar and Uzma Sardar, the husband-wife duo, hailing from Faisalabad. They took the challenge of organising basant at a grand scale -- and in the true Punjabi way. They wanted to have desi food in the colours of basant, dhol, huqqa, lassi, and many more desi things.

Next year PACC plans to place flyers at local libraries since kite festivals are very popular among Americans, who don't even miss the Japanese spring cherry blossom festival which they celebrate with plastic kites.

Two singers Almas and Manohar entertained the participants with their songs. Both belong to a local band -- Almas is from Pakistan and Manohar from India. They sang duets and popular Pakistani songs, many of which were in Punjabi. There were food points and 12 vendor stalls where jewellery, clothes, mehndi (henna) and other products were on sale.

Like always the venue was also used for networking among professionals, businessmen and community members. For example, informational booths had been set up by Muslims Seniors Network (MSN), Organisation of Pakistani Entrepreneurs of North America (OPEN) and Development in Literacy (DiL), an organisation that is focusing on building schools in Pakistan.