This book is a travelogue of a couple who travel from United Kingdom whom visit Hunza in the spring of 1956. Peter Mons, the author’s husband is accompanying her on this exciting journey. The couple had written to the ruler of Hunza in 1955 about their desire to visit Hunza. The ruler Muhammad Jamal Khan said that if we could get permission from the Government of Pakistan to enter Azad Kashmir, he would be delighted to welcome us in his territory. The couple started from London in a Land-Rover. They passed through Turkey, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and then entered Pakistan. Almost half of the book is about the journey from London to Pakistan. During this section of the journey the author describes the various cities they passed through. On 4th of April 1956, exactly four weeks after leaving Istanbul, the couple reached Lahore where they were hosted by their friend Manzar Bashir.
On 10th April 1956
the couple arrived in Rawalpindi. The author says that ‘To reach Hunza you must
fly from Rawalpindi to Gilgit; there is no other way, except the jeep-track
over the Babusar Pass that is open only for a short time in the height of
summer.’ Meanwhile the couple was waiting for their permit from Karachi, they
went to Peshawar and over the Khyber Pass to the Afghan frontier and back
again. After telegrams were exchanged with the Mir of Hunza, the permit arrived.
Now the only wait was for good weather. After ‘several unnerving false starts’
the couple finally landed in Gilgit on May 2nd. The time spent
waiting was instead invested in two trips. One to Swat and one to India for a week
via the Grand Trunk Road.
The author had got special
permission from the Director of Civil Aviation in Karachi to photograph Nanga
Parbat. They were in a Dakota plane. Humayun Beg, the Secretary of the
Political Agent General Kiani received the guests at Gilgit airstrip. They were
driven to the Agency house. The guests brought a letter of introduction from
General Shahid Hamid, Master-General of the Ordnance in Rawalpindi. They were
driven to Kargah Nullah where Colonel Cobb, the then British Political Agent
had planted trout in 1918. The author discovered Gilgit under the wing of
Rhabar Hassan. The General lent his jeep to the guests along with a driver.
Rhabar Hassan was also accompanying them, sitting on the top of their rucksacks.
The jeep drive started from Gilgit and ended in Sikanderabad.
After waving goodbye to the
jeep they set on foot. Mayun, the village opposite Nilt was the halting-place
for the night. The guests reached the Mir’s rest house at five. After supper
the Mir talked with the guests on the telephone. The next morning at six, the
travel party was again on track. The author describes the twenty miles between
Mayun and Baltit as ‘torturous track’. The author gives reference to previous
writers on the area. This includes Knight, Durand and Lorimer- all having
military backgrounds.
Mons says that the ruler of
Hunza wore European clothes and his eldest son Ghazanfar also wore a tweed
suit. The author says that the guest-house was built in 1925 by the present
ruler’s father, Muhammad Nazim Khan. Before dinner there was ‘Black and White
Whisky and a cut-glass decanter of Hunza pani.’ The photographs in the ruler’s
house included that of Aga Khan, Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the Shah of Persia’s
brother. The schoolmaster Sultan Ali was introduced by Jamal Khan to the
guests. He ‘spoke some English and was to be our friend and guide and constant
companion.’ Chapter twelve ‘Looking back’
reflects on the past of Hunza through the lens of foreign writers. This
includes E.F. Knight, Younghusband and Colonel Durand. The battle of Nilt is
also covered.
The author is of the view that
in the comparatively new settlement of Aliabad, where the cultivable shelf is
much wider and less steep than elsewhere, there are many quite large flat
sites, and here most of the houses are of the new, so-called Wakhi, pattern.
Sixteen to twenty poplar tress go to the making of a house, says the author. In
addition, she says that a Hunza house rivals any Swiss home for order and
cleanliness; there is a total absence of unpleasant smells. The author mentions:
“Hunza has been aptly called nicknamed ‘The Land of the Just-Enough’. They have
just enough for their own essential needs, but not enough to make anybody else
want to take it away from them.” The author quotes Muhammad Nazim Khan. Nazim
states: ‘Marriage is not allowed between near relations, and whenever possible
people marry into a clan different from their own.’ The author adds that child
marriages do not take place now and unhappy marriages are said to be rare.
Small girls and boys have the center of their heads shaved. In addition to that,
the author views the Hunzakuts as ‘empiricist’.
Mons continues that Hunza has
one doctor named Safdar Mahmood, a Pakistani. The little hospital in Aliabad is
maintained by the Pakistan Army Medical Corps in Aliabad. The author adds that
the mysterious immunity to disease in Hunza is not true. Dr. Safdar Mahmmod
sent the authors husband analysis of all the cases of illness during the past
year. It contained 348 cases of dysentery, 1 of typhoid, 734 of intestinal disease,
290 of malaria, 113 of rheumatic fever, 426 of goitre.
The chapter on ‘Custom, Faith
and Language’ revolves around the ruling family. According to the author Jamal
Khan’s milk father was Inayatullah Beg, the present Wazir of Hunza. Mentioning
the ruling family, the author views it as forming a ‘class or tribal division
by itself, called the Thamo, sub-divided into the Kareli, the royally-born on
both sides, and the Arghundaro, of common origin on the female side.’ Mons
observed that the school in Baltit had three other masters besides Sultan Ali.
This included Haji Qudrat Ullag Beg, Thara Beg and Sangi Khan. The school in
Baltit had 60 pupils under four masters. Urdu, Persian and English were taught
there.
On Festival, the author says
that only the ‘royal family’ kept the fast. Wazir Inayatullah Beg’s age was
given to the author as ninety-four. The author disagrees and says: ‘with his
virile looks it seemed impossible that he could be over seventy.’ Ayub was
Ghazanfar’s milk-father. He played in the team of the ruling family whereas Ayash
Khan kept the score during a polo match.
Every man possesses enough
land to grow the necessary grain for himself and his family, says the author.Moreover
she adds that this land is ‘generally owned outright, passing from generation
to generation, but can be on lease from the Mir, in which case a small rent is
paid in kind once the ground is producing.’ The author of this book states that
there is no police or soldiers in the state. And persistent evil-doer can be
banished for a few years to higher less hospitable valley. Jamal Khan goes on hunting
trips to the north of his state following his grandfather’s footsteps. In Hunza
fuel is so scare that fuel in winter is a serious problem, stresses the author.
Furthermore, not many animals can be spared for meat, so the regime is mainly
vegetarian. Fresh butter is unknown. The author seems to have based his claim
by observing things in Central Hunza and did not visit the upper parts of the
state where the situation was quite different. Barbara Mons writes that ‘the
Mir of Hunza gets fairly clear drinking water for his guests, but he himself,
like everyone else in Hunza, drinks pale-grey silty water with no ill effect,
and in fact prefers it.’
Master Sultan Ali was also the
Postmaster. He guided the couple to Altit fort. The author says that the fort
is said to have been in existence for seven hundred years. The Mir comes into
residence at Altit every February for the initiation of the spring festival
ceremony. In the chapter on Hunza crafts, the author discusses the Bericho
people of Hunza. These are the people who are blacksmiths and musicians. The
Mir Jamal Khan told the guests that ‘he had recently had to put a stop to the
Bericho sending their boys to the school, not from snobbery or race bar, but
because it had been observed that when they started being ‘educated’ they
ceased to want to be blacksmiths and musicians: and upon the first of these two
professions the very life of the community depends.’ There are around half a
dozen flour-mills around Baltit.
On her stay in Hunza the
author remembers the deputations from villages who brought presents in honour
of the forthcoming marriage of Princess Durri Shahwar to the Prince of Yasin.
The Mir invited the author to sit next to him. The gifts included coffee-pots,
sheep, ponies, hats, plates, rolls of materials, teapots, goats, rifles, tiny
bags of gold-dust from the river, and hundreds of rupee notes which were
counted by one of the retainers helped by the Crown Prince, while Ayash Khan,
Court Scribe, worked very hard entering it all in a large red book. Mons says
further in the book that there is a refreshing absence of superstition in
Hunza, which I do believe is a doubtful claim. Mons says that Gilgit Scouts was
enlisted in 1913 to replace the inadequate and half-trained fighting levies
that existed up to that time. The new plan was suggested to the Mir of Hunza
Muhammad Nazim Khan by Major Macpherson, the Political Agent back then. This
was formally sanctioned by the Government of India.
At the farewell party for the
guests many presents were exchanged between the guests and the hosts. The couple
set out at dawn to ride the easy four-mile stage to Sikanderabad to meet the
jeep. The jeep was not there. It arrived after three and a half hours. The
couple reached Gilgit agency house. There they met another guest- an American
the advance guard of a team who were contemplating a Cinerama film of Hunza, to
be entitled In Search of Paradise. The
book ends with the grand reception and dinner given by United States Military
Assistance Advisory Group to the traveling couple at the Officers’ Mess at
Chaklala.
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