Flora and wildlife
The island’s flora and fauna has evolved in salt-laden moist winds, merciless sun and little rainfall. Devoid of trees, tamarisk, acacia and sea-blite shrubbery mostly cover the island. Seagulls, plovers and terns are a common sight. Endemic snake sub-species, the saw-scaled viper is unique to the island. The threatened Green turtles and Hawksbill turtles have been spotted in sandy shoals in the egg-laying season. Sea snakes are said to infest the waters around the island, but there have been a few intrepid scuba enthusiasts visiting from Karachi who seem unruffled by these dangerous slithering creatures in their midst.

China’s flying colours
Some enthralling recollections of the nine-hours visit to the
Expo 2010 in Shanghai
By Rumana Husain
The Expo in Shanghai opened on May 1 and ended on October 31, 2010. The theme adopted was "Better City, Better Life", and I had the good fortune to visit it during its last fortnight in October -- and see for myself what the hype was all about.

I have tried asking several of my friends if they know about Astola. The replies have been diverse: "It is the name of a movie," one said. "An ancient king’s name," guessed another. The closest somebody came to was, "It’s the name of a city".

Well, you can’t blame them -- no school geography book mentions it as our forsaken largest island, nor do the superannuated tourism mandarins care to enthuse the countrymen with anything more than Shalamar Bagh and Jehangir’s tomb.

I first got to see the splendid Astola island a couple of decades ago, while skimming the waves at over 500mph. Looming like a gargantuan aircraft carrier, the island became a must-visit waypoint for updating our Mirages’ inertial navigation systems while on coastal strike missions: that was official. The unofficial purpose was to explore the prospects of a squadron outing, some day. The idea of wallowing in its enchanting creeks and coves and, dipping in the sparkling blue-green waters, kept turning into a collective obsession.

The first of my several visits was three decades ago -- a jaunty ride by boat hired from Pasni. No pleasure craft that boat, as only fishing vessels plied the seas for the most part, as they still do. In the 1980s, a deal for a round trip to Astola worth a few hundred rupees would bring immense joy to the poor folk; now the rates have shot up ten-fold but they seem unsatisfied -- clearly a sign of these cheerless times. A puttering outboard motor spilling oils and sorts of lubricants into the sea was the standard propulsion gear then. No change, whatsoever, has taken place since. No GPS (Global Positioning System), no two-way radios, no life jackets. Neither have the fortunes of fishermen changed much, as their tattered, clothes clearly substantiated.

The second time, in the mid-1990s, I got a chance to hitch a ride on a Navy helicopter during an exercise. I, along with a few colleagues, was quite literally dropped on the island -- from a hover at five feet -- as landing at Astola would have been considered an ‘outstation’ trip, hence unauthorised! On the island, we sauntered in the scrub and dipped in the sea; cruelly tanned, hungry and with nothing better to do, we scribbled graffiti on the rocks. It is a wonder those 15 years later, a sweetly etched K+S still survives, as I discovered to my delight in the latest trip by boat.

Drowning the noise of the motor, a sudden miserable lyric, almost a wail, went off that we took a while to comprehend. "Saat pehar Satadip mein; athwan pehar Hinglaj….," it went. The boatman, seemingly well-versed in local lore, explained like a teacher, that in terms of cosmic time, Satadip deserves a stay of seven parts while Hinglaj the eighth -- the former being the name of Astola in Hindi and the latter being a venerated mountain in Makran Coastal Range, that houses the famous ‘nani ka mandir’ where Hindu pilgrims from afar visit regularly.

Astola Island is located 25 miles southeast of Pasni, being part of the administrative sub-division of the same name. Satellite pictures clearly show the contours of a submerged hill that is capped by an outcrop of rock shaped like a grotesque crocodile. Its shape and layout is not too different from the ‘hammerheads’ at Ormara and Gwadar. Astola is 2.5 miles long and half a mile wide. The highest point on the gently sloping, but largely flat, island is 240 feet above sea level.

Our boatman explained that the island serves as a way station for fishermen during the fishing season, as they can extend their range with an overnight stay there, rather than having to return to Pasni every evening. The ice cabins in boats can preserve the catch in the hottest of seasons for up to 36 hours. The fishermen carry their own water rations in the absence of fresh water supply on the island.

Going by the drought-like conditions prevalent on the island, any suggestion of a tourists’ permanent dwelling, seems a non-starter. Daylong tours staged through Pasni, with self-supplied rations, portable shelters and some entertainment wherewithal, are the only option for the time being. A floatplane service from Karachi to Astola and other coastal cities of Makran comes to one’s mind, but with the cost of living going right off the charts, there may not be many takers of this proposition.

Of the only two structures on the island, one is a pir’s ‘mazaar’ near the northwestern shallows, said to house the mortal remains of the legendary patron saint of sailors. Our boatman told us that every sailor who disembarks at Astola first visits the pir’s mazaar. "The prayer helps us with a bountiful fish catch and also keeps us from harm at sea," he maintained. The remains of what was possibly a Hindu temple, with some swastika signs still visible, are located not far from the mazaar.

The other structure is actually a compound that houses a solar powered lighthouse installed in 1987 to replace an earlier, gas powered one, rusting nearby. This point is also the highest elevation benchmark of the island. The powerful revolving beacon is reported to have a visibility range of 16 miles -- when serviceable, it must be added!

No account of travel in Pakistan is complete without Alexander the Great doing a round and Astola is no exception. In Arrian’s ‘Indica’, which describes the westward journey of Alexander’s fleet after the Indus Valley campaign (325 BC), Admiral Nearchus is quoted as having anchored by an island named ‘Carnine’. Some scholars have assumed Carnine to be Astola Island, without considering the extreme aridity and lack of fresh water which renders the place inhospitable. In all likelihood, Carnine was the name of a mud flat isle in the inland sea, presently known as Khor Kalmat. This latter conjecture supports Nearchus’ coast-hugging voyage (which would have kept him well away from Astola), a compulsion meant to provision Alexander’s army that was supposed to have marched along a coastal route; in the event, the forlorn army found itself astray in the hills and vales of the interior, before finally getting out of a treacherous Gedrosia (Makran).

Astola Island is the one of the last frontiers of Pakistan that retain their primeval charm, though litterbugs have done their bit to remind us of the influences of modernity by leaving a trail of juice packets, disposable bottles and the ubiquitous ‘shopper’ plastic bags.

It would be a sad day, I thought to myself, when the first commercial hoarding gets erected in this still-pristine island. The Balochistan Government would do well to immediately declare the island as Astola Nature Park. This would be the right step towards conservation of the island’s endemic flora and fauna, as well as resetting the ecological balance that is clearly in doldrums. It would also pre-empt any efforts by various vested parties to gobble up real estate for crass commercial gains.

The island’s flora and fauna has evolved in salt-laden moist winds, merciless sun and little rainfall. Devoid of trees, tamarisk, acacia and sea-blite shrubbery mostly cover the island. Seagulls, plovers and terns are a common sight. Endemic snake sub-species, the saw-scaled viper is unique to the island. The threatened Green turtles and Hawksbill turtles have been spotted in sandy shoals in the egg-laying season. Sea snakes are said to infest the waters around the island, but there have been a few intrepid scuba enthusiasts visiting from Karachi who seem unruffled by these dangerous slithering creatures in their midst.

A big nuisance on the island is the feral cat. Introduced by the fishermen as ordinary domestic cats to get rid of huge-sized rats that stalk their camps, the felines have multiplied and, have assumed menacing habits while living in the wild. They are the biggest threat to eggs of sea birds which nest on the ground and, need to be thoroughly culled under supervision of wildlife experts. There is also a need to make the fishermen aware of the consequences of upsetting the island’s eco-system through a concerted campaign. Unfortunately, an overall lack of education in Makran towns makes matters difficult for the environmentalists.

-- KT

The Expo in Shanghai opened on May 1 and ended on October 31, 2010. The theme adopted was "Better City, Better Life", and I had the good fortune to visit it during its last fortnight in October -- and see for myself what the hype was all about.

It truly was an eye-opener as even on its last leg, the Expo was living up to the expectations of those who were visiting it for the first time. There were hundreds of Chinese people waiting patiently in long queues outside some very popular pavilions. The notices hung there conveyed the number of hours/minutes it would take one to enter the pavilion. The most popular pavilions had queuing periods ranging between two to four hours! This, I learned, despite a number of efforts by the organisers to reduce the waiting time.

However, it was interesting to see, all over the Expo site, families which usually comprised three generations: four doting grandparents, a young couple and a single child, very typical in China. Channelising more than 70 million visitors, safely and comfortably, through this extravagant fair during its six-month period was no small task.

The following are a few observations, which, in my opinion, were instrumental in the successful running of this popular Expo:

The sale of Expo entrance tickets was decentralised, and tickets could be purchased from a number of different places in Shanghai. We got ours from a grocery store. There were of course additional ticket windows at the Expo entrances and in the subway stations closest to the site.

No private vehicles were allowed anywhere close to the site of the fair (which was spread on 3.28 km≈, excluding the Huangpu River flowing through its middle). A comprehensive public transport network combining the subway, buses and marine services provided convenient access to the Expo grounds.

There were a number of buses plying inside the grounds, and one could use these freely between the pavilions or eating places without a charge.

With so much time spent on the site by most visitors, it was essential to take care of their hunger pangs. Therefore, some 40 restaurant and bistro buildings -- no more than a few minutes’ walk apart -- ensured that visitors could choose from a rich array of thousands of Chinese and other dishes from around the world on a daily basis.

I was at the Expo for over nine hours that day, and could see perhaps no more than 25 per cent of it. A couple of visits to the toilets left me awestruck, not only by the quality and newness of the accessories and materials used, but also the cleanliness of those facilities. It is hard to imagine that kind of high-standard cleanliness even at some of our costly outfits.

With an eye on China’s immense market of 1.3 billion people, 250 foreign countries and companies invested an estimated $1.5 billion in the Expo (figures ref. China Daily). It was obvious that they were competing with each other in terms of showcasing their best products, but what was truly significant was the innovative approach adopted in the design of the various country-pavilions. This show of one-upmanship was in keeping with the ‘Better City, Better Life’ theme.

It was impossible to visit each and every pavilion from the inside. A few, which were accessible more easily, with a few minutes of waiting time, were visited, while the others were viewed from the outside. The UK Pavilion was the most iconic of them all. With its theme ‘Building on the Past, Shaping Our Future’, its highlight was a ‘Seed Cathedral’ -- an object formed from 60,000-plus transparent acrylic rods containing seeds, which drew on daylight to illuminate the interior of the pavilion. The seeds demonstrated the concept of sustainability, diversity of nature and the potential of life. At night, light sources embedded in each rod made the entire structure glow. It was therefore no wonder that a mass of humanity waited patiently to get inside this incredible pavilion, which I only saw from the outside.

However, a visit to the C-shaped Canada Pavilion was delightful as it lived up to its theme ‘The Living City: Inclusive, Sustainable, Creative’, dispelling the expectation of the visitors to witness Canada’s vast wilderness, it provided a very creative audio-visual treat through entire walls of enchanting special effects.

The South Korea Pavilion was another extremely creative structure composed of 20 basic letters of the Korean alphabet. This colourful ‘inside-out’ pavilion, made up with thousands of square-tiles, showcased blueprints of future cities along with the country’s most advanced technology as well as its traditional culture.

The Chile Pavilion was also a treat. Its focus was on Chilean understanding of the city, including how to build a better city and how to improve the standard of living. The innovative use of wood and glass for its interiors, as well as the creative displays, was superb.

The Mexico Pavilion featured a Kite Forest combining hundreds of colourful kites and green grass. This was Mexico’s idea of representing the future of urban life.

African countries together had an African Union Pavilion which offered an insight into the continent’s primitive history through its sculptures. Development of some of these countries vis-a-vis urban transformation, trade and industry was also represented. Standing between the past and the future of Africa was an interesting experience: one could clearly see how the oppressive and corrupt governments of some countries have made them lag far behind in terms of economic development and prosperity for their people, also in terms of environmental protection and the use of clean energy, while others are fast moving forward. It was also interesting to note the behaviour of the Chinese visitors as they lined up to have themselves photographed with the ethnic Africans.

All the country-pavilions that we either saw from the inside or from the outside provided their own citizens special entry, bypassing the long queues. Our very own Pakistan Pavilion, however, did just the opposite. Much to our frustration and chagrin, the Pakistani ‘guard’ of the Lahore-fort-like pavilion refused to allow us special entry past the sizable queue. There were no other Pakistanis in sight for miles around, but in a typically bureaucratic style, he managed to keep us out. We chose to just move on.

The Expo 2010 has left several intangible legacies for the Chinese people, including a keen spirit of volunteerism, personal and group discipline, caring for the environment and an exposure to best practices in innovation from around the world. Shanghai has now announced plans to build a World Expo Museum with the intention of exhibiting Expo exhibits and popularising World Expo history. Being the second Asian country, after Japan (Expo 2005 in Aichi), to stage a world exhibition in the 21st century, China has indeed come out with flying colours!