Immorality, impotence and other afflictions of the mind
By Salman Rashid
A JUI MNA has recently taken over as the Minister for Tourism. And if anyone sees any irony in that, they had better get their heads inspected by an expert leather worker. At the very outset he in tandem with his parliamentary secretary (who else but a mufti) has pledged to ban alcohol and immoral activities from all Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) motels. In view of this avalanche of immorality that covers these places of evil, I declare all PTDC establishments should henceforth be known by their correct name: Vice Dens.

With the mention of Afghanistan the first images that come to mind are war, terrorism, and savage people. However, the truth is that Afghanistan can be as beautiful as the rest of the world and its people as human as we thing we are As William E. Gladstone had put it his speech once:

"Remember the rights of the savage, as we call him. Remember that the happiness of his humble home, remember that the sanctity of life in the hill villages of Afghanistan, among the winter snows, is as inviolable in the eye of Almighty God, as can be your own."

The first pleasant surprise is the beautiful road between Torkham and Jalalabd. It is a gift from Pakistan to their Afghan brethren. The road winds through beautiful landscapes, olive groves and streams. The sheep, in distance, with their gray wool seem like cotton flowers against the dark metallic terrain. The adobe villages with children running and laughing on cowpaths among green fields are serene images of hope.

The images of decades of war can still be seen on the bullet torn ruins still left at a few places, the occasional Humvees patrolling the roads for security, and Black Hawks in the skies. But all that aside, the streets and bazaars of Jalalabd are bustling. The boys in Jalalabad call it Jbad, no pun, just affection.

As we are accustomed to the Afghan dress and to their lifestyle somewhat, for us the cultural shock arrived in edible form -- in the bowl of fruit shake, which was supposed to be eaten with spoon, as it was too thick and was beyond the capacity of any straw. The Afghani cheese is saltier than Feta, and is not aged that much. It comes in flying saucer shape, instead of square cake, as it is traditionally matured in baskets. It is savoured with honey and those big Afghan naans for breakfast, and of course the green tea.

The youth in Jalalabad is much interested in acquiring various sorts of education offered to them by public and private sector institutes -- from sciences to information technology and humanities. But the most common craze is for learning English language. It not only makes them good candidates for employment, it opens their boundaries of communication.

On the invitation of the driver working for an NGO, we went to his village in Hisarak, southeast of Kabul, but in Nangarhar province. The four hours drive on the dirt road was an adventure in its own right, testing the limits of the SUV and its tires. The region is mostly barren with vast plains and snow-capped mountains on the horizon. There are very few small villages on that route, with some of the houses built like mud-castles. The vernacular architecture in that setting paint unforgettable images on one's mind.

Finally after covering long stretches of the dirt road and climbing many mountains, we descended into a small valley, preserved like an oasis in those vast stretches of the uninhabited lands. The climate was much cooler and the ambience filled the senses with limitless tranquillity. It was a permutation of spring and summertime, and really hard to believe, like love at first sight. There is a freshwater stream coming from the leftover snow of the last winter. On either side of the stream there are terraces of different crops, dotted with fruit trees and some stone-wood houses. The total population is barely over a hundred.

After stretching our legs at the humble terrace in front of the guestroom -- which is a few minutes climb from the stream -- and having sweet milk-chai (that was especially prepared for us, as it's not very common among Afghans) we decided to stroll down to the stream. It is like some dream world, where most of the wild growth and herbs are edible, and each one has a distinct pleasant aroma. The first reference that came to mind was Marquez's Macondo, as "The world was so recent that many things lacked names [for us at least], and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point." Our guide was pointing at each species, uttering its local name, and then persuading us to try them, while describing their qualities.

Our excitement hit the peaks when the hosts stopped under a mulberry tree, one climbed up, and two held a chadder below. In a few seconds the chadder was filled with juicy berries, which were very different in their colour and taste from its variant found in the plains of Pakistan. We thought it was party time, but the hosts had another plan. A small dam was built in the ice-cold stream and the berries were poured into it. It is really hard to describe that experience in words.

Since we were covered with enough dust from the travel, we inquired about the possibility of taking shower. Then realised it was not decent to ask for shower, instead we should have asked for bathing. But I guess the host did not understand the difference anyway and asked us to follow him while instructing a young fellow to grab towels for us. We walked along the stream downwards and then took a track along a water channel, exchanging greetings with the local farmers busy tilling their vegetables. We reached a point where the channel was going through a hollowed-out tree trunk over a small ravine. The host stopped and we all gave each other those inquisitive looks. Then he walked into the log and removed a stopper and the water started splashing on the stones ten feet below. Lo and behold, finally we had arrived at the world's most beautiful shower! Just imagine visuals like some Amazon tribe dancing and singing in the rain.

After a good night's sleep, we were ready to climb to the Chilgoza Pine jungle the next morning. Though it was not the nut-harvesting season, the view of the trees and the valleys beyond them was breathtaking. Sitting on the mountain top, the elder brother of our driver was telling us stories of his jihad times and that how the Soviets had come from the land and the sky to their village eliminating everyone that was present including the animals. The wind blowing through the pine needles was producing the background music to his memories, as if giving voice to all those who had passed away without knowing their crimes.

A JUI MNA has recently taken over as the Minister for Tourism. And if anyone sees any irony in that, they had better get their heads inspected by an expert leather worker. At the very outset he in tandem with his parliamentary secretary (who else but a mufti) has pledged to ban alcohol and immoral activities from all Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation (PTDC) motels. In view of this avalanche of immorality that covers these places of evil, I declare all PTDC establishments should henceforth be known by their correct name: Vice Dens.

Wow! Being one of those lesser mortals as compared to the worthy maulanas and not particularly averse to enjoying immoral activities, I am ashamed of my own ignorance. Why, over the past quarter century of masquerading as a travel writer, I have availed of the board and lodge at PTDC Vice Dens from Astore (Rama Lake, actually) to Ziarat and the fun and games have somehow always eluded me.

While even pious maulanas were in the know of the shady carryings-on behind the closed doors of PTDC Vice Dens (God forbid! The mullahs were of course never part of the iniquity), I foolishly spent my free hours in my room twiddling my thumbs. Because of the excellent soundproofing that all Vice Den rooms obviously have, I never heard those squeals of delight emanating from neighbouring rooms. And so, in my utter naiveté I failed to be part of the revelry.

The most fun I ever had was in autumn some years ago in Khaplu when I was the sole occupant of the Vice Den. There I sat on the steps outside my room reading and occasionally gathering up the ripe walnuts as they plonked about all around me, cracking them with a stone and eating the delicious, milky kernels.

Had I not been such a blockhead and only looked around me, I might have discerned movement behind the drapes where all those lovelies were waiting for boring old me to join them in some drunken Bacchanalian revel. But oh woe! I did not know what fun waited to be had. Any smarter and I would have, as the sole occupant of the Vice Den, been a very Raja Inder of legend surrounded by a battalion of beauties.

I suppose the Vice Dens operated under a very strict code of secrecy. Only members initiated to the Cabal of Carnality had access to the proceedings. Since PTDC is a government set-up, I suspect agencies like IB, ISI and FIA stepped in to screen prospective members thereby keeping yahoos like yours truly at arms length. And since Hussain Haqqani has shown in his book on Pakistan that these agencies (as well as the military) and the clergy are actually two sides of the same coin, we know how the maulana and his parliamentary secretary are aware of the super-secret proceedings.

We do not read, even in this age of easy internet access, of such resolve of any other country to rid its tourism industry of lechery. A libertine living outside Pakistan and reading the coverage of our good maulana's determination to purge PTDC of immorality would therefore not be wrong in believing Pakistan was the ultimate bordello in the world; the bonking-shop to put an end to all others.

In their mind's eye they would see a land of drunken people lurching from carnality to the most lurid and exhibitionist carnality without let or hindrance. To them Pakistan would be the supreme dream come true of the debauch. That's how perceptions are formed. In reality, here we are dying for a piece of the action and not getting any.

Nearly three decades ago I lived and worked in Karachi when Pakistan really was another country where foreigners never felt threatened. The firm I worked for routinely got young engineering interns from Germany to come out for their hands-on training at their facility. I became friend with one, a rather insightful young man, who should really have been a writer and not an engineer. Guenther wanted to know everything about Pakistan.

His favourite was wall chalkings. As we drove around Karachi, he made me translate these slogans and carefully noted their meaning in a meticulously kept diary. Then one day we together travelled to Lahore by train. I do not recall what most of the slogans were in Karachi, but I distinctly remember that once we crossed into my native Punjab every other sign screamed about mardana kumzori --impotence.

Now those were days when jihad was still confined to Afghanistan and even south Punjab did not have all those slogans (as it does today) exhorting Muslims to do in the infidels wherever they came upon them. No surprise then that our only national concern in those days was of a priapic nature. From Rahim Yar Khan until we reached Lahore, Guenther had collected the addresses of some three-dozen 'clinics' that restored virility. He had also learned an equal number of names of precursors to Viagra -- many of which claimed to contain a liberal dose of gold.

What surprised him was that 'clinics' from Jhelum, Lala Musa and Gujranwala were advertising their wares in the deep south of Punjab. To Guenther this meant that people were prepared to go long ways to cure their impotence. Similarly, in Lahore not only did he come upon an over-abundance of what Lahoris in those days called 'sex clinics', but also ads from Dera Ghazi Khan and Rahim Yar Khan.

Not believing what I had translated, Guenther got me to take him to once such clinic in Multan Road near the orphanage. The shifty 'doctor' who did not speak English gave us non-answers for all Guenther's questions. What we did learn was that most of his clientele were not oldies but young soon-to-be-married men.

Guenther felt that Pakistan's biggest problem was not poor economy or rampant population growth or lack of education or corruption in government departments or a total absence of work ethic or even a military dictatorship rotten to the core. It was a lack of virility. Pakistan, so my friend concluded, was a nation of impotent men. But what baffled him was how such a nation could have uncontrolled population growth. This, I told him, was one of the inscrutable Lord's greatest miracles.

The impotence-curing slogans persist to this day. In fact, they have grown in number and the variety of preparations they offer. And now we learn that Pakistan is also beset with the problem of uncontrolled debauchery that the good Minister for Tourism will put an end to. If there was ever a paradox, it is this: the government-owned PTDC operates vice dens for a nation of impotent men.