Reflections on the Road: Conversations on a Pakistani Bus (II)

TO BEGIN AT PART ONE, CLICK HERE 

Mian said goodbye and the bus continued on toward Peshawar.  It was completely dark outside now.  I began to think more about Peshawar and recalled the things I had read about it, among them this passage from Karl Meyer's The Dust of Empire: "Peshawar is the hub of a thriving black market in drugs and weapons, its slums and refugee camps the recruiting ground for jihadists who would happily kill every infidel anywhere."  I thought of Osama bin Laden, who most observers believed was hiding somewhere in this border region of Pakistan.  There was something mystical about a place where the world's most wanted man could disappear, and something mysterious about the people who could hide him so.

Another man had taken Mian's seat, and for some minutes I could see his mind churning.  I waited for what it would finally spin out.  He asked where I was from and I told him "America."  His mind began to churn some more.  I awaited a political statement--some sort of condemnation or challenge--but I waited in vain.  After a minute of small talk--his name was Munir Khan and he lived in a village outside of Peshawar--he cut to the crux of the matter, "Do you watch many sex videos in America?"  He had said nothing about Bush, terrorism, or religion, and I don't think that bin Laden was mentioned even once before we said goodbye.  But he could barely hide his urge to talk about sex.  He was smiling and hunched over so that others might not overhear.

We spoke about pornography, morality, and family values.  Munir was shocked to hear that some people in the West actually do wait until they are married to have sex.  "This is good news!" he said.  Yet I wasn't convinced he really thought so.  He was anxious to hear stories of perversion, as if he needed to live vicariously through them.

I asked if he had ever had sex before he was married--no.  I asked if he would ever have sex with someone other than his wife--no.  And why not?  "I am a good Muslim," he told me.

We talked about veiling women.  Sometimes his wife wears the veil, sometimes not.  He asked what I thought. "I respect many of our differences," I said, "but I would not want to live in a place where the women are covered.  The face of a woman is beautiful.  It is like veiling a mountain, a sunrise, or a singing bird.  It is suppressing beauty made by Allah.  Who are we to do this?"

His reply was unexpected: "Ah, but you are an educated writer.  Most men cannot see the way you do."  He was implying that I was mature, that veiling is for weak men.  Perhaps he was sincere.  At the least, he was artfully diplomatic.

The bus swung south of the highway to run through the center of Nowshera, a town on the Kabul River.  We dropped off several passengers in front of a string of gun shops that bristled with automatic weaponry.  I felt far from home, but happily so.

Looking at the guns glaring under fluorescent light, I thought back to history.  One of the most fascinating non-violent movements of the twentieth century originated here in the North-West Frontier Province.  Beginning in the 1920s, the most popular Pashtun leader in the struggle against British rule was Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a pacifist.  His non-violent principles were derived from his concept of jihad and it stirred the imagination of other Pashtuns.  In this land of rugged mountaineers so wedded to their guns, Ghaffar Khan raised a nonviolent army of 100,000 men that excelled in acts of civil disobedience.

As the bus again picked up the main road and began the final stretch to Peshawar, the land around me, hidden by the night, once again seemed mystical.  Here was a region so famous for its fighting, yet hidden in its furrowed hills and faces was this historical fact of Gandhi-like social activism.  This was not something the media referred to at all when it tried to explain this region to Western viewers after the September 11 attacks.  But I saw the people differently knowing that pacifism, and not just violence, was a part of their history, something they were capable of.

My pupils were still dilated from the sight of gun shops and my mind still imagining the great Pashtun pacifist when Munir began to moan about my safety.  "Joel, this is not good.  Not good at all.  You are alone.  You have no mama, no wife, no friend.  What if you are alone at night and get fever?  Who will heal you?  Oh, Joel, this is not good at all.  You can ill, then what will be?"

Munir spoke as if he were on the verge of tears.  The curiosity about sex videos when we first met had firmly given way to a concern for my well-being now that we were preparing to say goodbye.  I assured him I would be back in America in ten weeks where I would be well fed and looked after.  He moaned some more that this was an unnatural state of affairs.  I liked that he did not seem worried about al-Qaeda or the Taliban, only about that simpler and more ubiquitous threat called fever.

We arrived in Peshawar and together stepped off the bus into the dirt lot and chaos of the province's largest bus station.  I had the sensation of being born again.  It was as if the bus had released me from its womb and Peshawar now held me in her arms.  They were not the smoothest or safest of arms, but there was no doubt that they held me, that it felt right to be here.  The horns and exhaust, the beards and burkas, the movement of people upon solid ground--how wonderful it was to be alive and walk in such a world.  We weren't meant to be only in the womb.

I retrieved my backpack from the cargo hold.  Munir, anxious to catch a connecting bus to his home, came up beside me, his eyes filled with compassion.  "Brother," he said, and then silently pointed through the crowd, showing me the way I should go.

The Grand Trunk Road

 
The day after arriving in Peshawar, I was invited by the Headmaster of Edwards College (the city's most prestigious school) to join him and a visiting delegation from England on a tour of the Khyber Pass.  Being with the leader of one of Pakistan's best known schools had its benefits:  the commanding officer of the Khyber Rifles saw to it that our group was given first-class treatment, which included an incredible lunch in the officer's mess followed by a performance by several groups such as the one pictured here.  Each of us were also presented with a mug, which for the next three months I would carefully carry in my backpack through Pakistan, China, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey.  The mug now sits, somehow still intact, in my sister's garage in Florida, waiting for the day I get a place of my own.

		Joel Carillet, Gather Travel Correspondent
	Joel's column, "Reflections on the Road," is published every other Thursday to Gather Essentials: Travel. His articles, based on extensive travels in Asia and the Middle East, seek to shed light on humanity, both our own and that of others.   They aim not merely to entertain and inform but also to develop a sense of connection between the reader and the world. Joel's writing and photography have appeared in several publications, including the Kansas City Star, Christian Science Monitor, and The Best Travel Writing 2008.   Currently his agent is seeking a publisher for a book manuscript entitled Sixty-One Weeks: A Journey across Asia. If interesting in purchasing photographic prints, check out jcarillet.imagekind.com. When not on the road, he happily calls Tennessee home. Keep up with Joel's article series by joining his network, or subscribing to his content.