My first time in UK!

I landed at London Heathrow Airport on Sunday 25th September 2011, on an Emirates flight with a short stopover in Dubai International Airport from Islamabad.

In Islamabad International Airport, boarding and getting through the immigration desk wasn’t a problem unlike the agony anecdotes I had heard of passengers being grilled hard by cold immigration and custom officials.

So all the officer asked me was my Passport and NOC (Non-Objection Certificate) from Government of Pakistan about my travelling to UK which was quite understandable. In hindsight, I think the best practice is to keep your all original documents side by side with a photo copy of them for all practical purposes. 

Nearly a dozen airliners operate from Pakistan to UK. September is the busiest in terms of passenger traffic as most of the UK universities start their sessions and receive a deluge of international students. All the airliners have at least one stopover before landing at Heathrow except Pakistani International Airlines. The latter airlines’ flight goes directly from major cities Islamabad and Karachi to Manchester and Heathrow taking roughly six hours.

All said and done, I think Emirates' (especially its Business Class) is the best travel experience unlike my Economy-Class travel which was so-so.

Over Europe, the cold was palpable and a small Emirates’ blanket helped. Though hard-pressed in the narrow seat, I managed to put together a bad sleep while headphones on! I had been expecting a view of the outside world from plane windows but couldn’t either from Islamabad to Dubai and then onwards to Heathrow. This gave me enough time to fiddle and figure the in-flight touch-screen entertainment system.

Finally we touched down at Heathrow. The pilot told us in advance about a delayed landing, for Heathrow is world’s third busiest airport after Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport in US and Beijing Capital International Airport in China. Further on to terminal 3 (My university had sent instructions and I had booked a free coach from Heathrow to Sussex). The welcoming staff had been actually waiting for a long time due to my flight delay. But I chose to go with my friend who was there to receive me after, of course, informing the varsity officials.

Next I was shown around London by my friend who is a UK national.  We drove to Brighton and it took almost an hour from London. Thanks to all the perfect email correspondence I had all the documents  ready. Once on campus , it was pretty easy to visit the "porter" office and being shown the room in East Slope of Students’ residence area. It’s my third day here in the UK and the experience is amazing. I hope to meet students from around the world and enrich my horizons of thought and perception besides seeing some of the historical places in this flamboyant country.

I will be back next week with a description of on-campus residence and how I am grappling with everything from cooking to knowing coins in the UK.

(First published on the British High Commission Islamabad's website  

Pakistan and India in Sussex!

It’s been a pleasant experience meeting Indian students here in Sussex . So far as many Indians as I have met they have been warm, affable,approachable and down-to-earth. Obviously , this is a far-cry from what we were taught in the state text books about the ethos of our Eastern neighbor. The bonhomie takes no time to take root thanks to the common vein of sub continental ways. The first common denominator is language. You can say so many things using so few words with them while it takes an awful lot of energy to connect to students from other countries. I don't mean one shouldn't reach out to nationals from other countries but the chemistry is unmatched with it comes to meeting Indians.

I have been particularly unsuccessful in geling with students from Arab countries partly because of my preconceived notions about them being rash, boorish and unruly in their day-to-day behavior and partly because of their disregard for Pakistanis despite the reverence we harbor for them. There are always exceptions ,of course! So this might seem quite a sweeping statement for many , but this is what my experience (and hence the overriding impression of them) has been so far after my interactions with Arab students in the university for more than four years in Pakistan.

About the people from my own country , they reflect various shades of thinking just like in Pakistan. Many are liberals and seem concerned about recent bad image of Pakistan in the UK and the rest of the world. There are those who prefer English (that too with fake British accent) than talking in Urdu. You ask something in Urdu and the reply comes in OL RIGHT! , Oke , etc . I personally prefer Urdu while meeting Pakistanis so this feigned English puts me off. This is not to say that they are wrong in their preference of English over Urdu ( or i don't love them as my fellow country men just because they don't speak Urdu with me here) , it is just that I don’t feel comfortable talking in English to a country fellow.May be , many of them do. Looked from this perspective some Indian students have their English airs around though and wouldn't talk to you in Urdu/Hindi. But the majority will give you the kind of atmosphere you might be missing because of being away from your country : the banter , sharing weird Pathan/Sardar jokes that regularly made way to my/their inbox in the home countries , talking about food or just about anything makes you feel at home.

Like all the previous years, Indian students account for one of the largest country groups to study at the University of Sussex this year. In Institute of Development Studies(IDS) alone, there are 34 students (plus two tutors)compared to only 04 from Pakistan with a PHD fellow having started teaching recently. Two Indian Civil Servants couldn't make it this year because of some last-minute issues. This is a small reflection of a booming educational system in our neighboring country while we are yet to introduce basic education reforms back in the homeland.

In the South Asia Student Society’s maiden meeting this evening,I found Indian students more forthcoming about my idea for setting up an India-Pakistan friendship society than fellow Pakistanis. About planning celebrations of upcoming festivals like Eid and Diwali there was a clear division between students hailing from Sindh ,Gilgit Baltistan , KPK and Punjab. The president and vice president of the society hailing from Punjab wanted to bring in the Islamic Society when Eid Celebrations were discussed while the rest of us wanted it to be only an India-Pakistan affair. This was no survey of students from Punjab being against friendship initiatives with India but to find them in unison and the president and his VP clearly taking umbrage to my idea of keeping the Islamic Society out of the Eid Celebrations was strange. I wonder what they wanted to achieve by lumping Pakistan with Arab-dominated Islamic Society here. One reason could be the illusional concept of Muslim Ummah all the while forgetting that we owe more allegiance to our neighbors than to distant Arabs who love to hate us for all the wrong reasons!!

Living on the edge:Life in a border village in Kharmang

(Wrote it in the village , so you will find it in the present tense.)
I have come to a very remote part of Kharmang valley, my current place of posting. The village, Biralgo, is at a distance of about 150 Km from Tolti, the headquarters of Kharmang sub division. As is the practice all over, the "army" name of the village is "Musa camp”. From any point in the village one could see the snow-capped peak which marks the Pakistan boundary with India. Stories are myriad about how the army vacated many villages, including this one, as the 1999 Kargil conflict with India was soldiered on by Pak army and "volunteers". Twelve years on, many villages are still waiting for some sort of restitution of their land and houses taken over by the army. The killing of one and capturing of another Indian Airforce pilot during the Kargil battle is fresh in every one’s memory. With perceptible pain, the death of a man and woman due to artillery shelling was described by many. Dozens were injured during the low-intensity conflict. Asked about injuries , the person sitting next to me pulled up his sleeves and showed a scar on the left arm and chest.

Those who had served in Kharmang told me before I joined there that as long as the situation along the LOC remains peaceful (that essentially means no lobbing of artillery shells across the border ) , the administration of the area is quite easy.   So far I seem to have a good time. But intermittent army camps dotted along the road are enough signs of warning about an uncertain future.

The camps of various army units , check posts and garrisons punctuate the whole area. As part of good well gestures, the army has launched many projects intended to uplifting the living standards of the impoverished people living in the villages. Schools, hospitals and other Govt facilities have been drastically changed in terms of up-keeping and quality of paraphernalia therein.
Today we have come here to disburse the compensation money of a road scheme in the village. As the staff was preparing pay checks for the villagers' whose land had been used in the road , I walked up to a nearby army camp to seek permission to visit the mausoleum of a saint located further on a village called Borolmo juxtaposed by an army camp which calls the village "Shama sector ". People had legends attributed to the saint buried in the mausoleum. “He would throw a fistful of dust towards the Indian border and it'd catch fire; while fish would come out of the water on his intention “, told me a soldier from Shikarpur , Sindh in “Musa Camp “ with whom I seemed to had sounded a right chord by dint of my functional Sindhi, his mother tongue. The adjutant, the commanding officer and the ilk were busy in a conference in Olding , the nearby army base. Despite several attempts we couldn't get through to them which meant we won't see the mausoleum this time around. I was turned off by this. Though the top Govt official here, I couldn't move sans army's permission. These are peaceful times, I said to myself but you can’t breach a “security alert “in a border area!
Back with the villagers, we were served a lunch of mutton. Perhaps Mr Raza , a supervisor of road workers (Qullis as they are known generally )  had slaughtered a goat to honor me and the staff. In between the bank check distribution and my time alone in a room overlooking Kargil road, I switched between writing this blog and reading a PDF version about the controversial philanthropist Greg Mortenson's "Three cups of tea" whose Central Asia Institute school buildings could be seen along the road. Surprisingly , his agents in Gilgit Baltistan had chosen the office of Assistant Commissioner Kharmang to register the charity organization.

 I realized one could do wonderful things, like reading, far from the maddening world of modern communication!

 This small interaction with the army made me reflect as to what a horrific state the people could be in times of conflict much less the army itself

By now we got the confirmation that due to security alert (an Indian soldier had been shot dead the other day after crossing the limits towards a Pakistani check post. Mr Tariq, the Olding CO (Commanding Officer ), had informed us on an earlier visit).

 Overall, the villagers' lived a medieval life: rugged road, next-to-nothing phone communication , the poorest of medical facilities (a teenage boy calling himself "nurse" was all once could see)and wooden cabins people so proudly calling shops. Part of the reason for this dismal state of development is the mass migration of the villagers to Skardu , the main city of Baltistan division, for business and education. In the village ,even the soldier from Sindh had to talk to his family in Shikarpu only once in three days despite the fact that every one thought army's communication was seamless as compared to any other state institution in the area including your truly's office.
Although not that somber, this reminded me of how Mr Mortenson , the mountaineer cum controversial humanitarian worker i earlier referred  to ,   felt while stranded from his group on the Boltoro glacier near the mighty K2 Mountain. “There can be no other place in the world where man feels himself so alone, so isolated, so completely ignored by Nature, so incapable of entering into communion with her" , he writes in the once-bestseller "Three Cups of Tea".
Only a dozen landowners were remaining for payment of compensation now. It was time. I thought of capturing a shot or two of the " Khamosh " waterfall on return to my place in Tolti , so I did. While making it to Tolti again , i secretly prayed there was no war between India and Pakistan , at least not on this part of the border!

Of Postings and Political maneuvers

Postings are not news in my profession. They happen and happen frequently. In fact one of the attractions this profession offers is that a person gets to go places more often than not. One gets a chance to see new areas and improve social contacts. Into four years of my service, I have been posted six times, twice a year. Lets admit some places are favorites of officers and others are not so. The deciding factor being that the attendant facilities in terms of residence, official vehicle and office staff are far better in some stations as compared to others. In some areas you get a chance to make good contacts while at the same time make an entry into the good books of powers-that-be, very important for getting good future postings and/or retaining the good ones. I always despised the idea of taking help from influential persons (read politicians) in getting postings. Simplistically, I thought I would go anywhere I was asked to. But now it all seems odd to me. The kith and kin of “powers-that-be” being awarded for relationships and those with no political affiliation are given a backseat. Until recently, one used to worry about “blue-eyed boys” from the (in) famous group who would grab all the good postings. Then we thought we belonged to less prestigious and limited group thereby disqualified for postings in good places unless off course the “king’s group” had left a station or two unfulfilled. The workout: develop good terms with “powers-that-be” so that you are not thrown to Antarctica for accommodating someone else!
This essentially means that you’ve got to curry favor with politicians so that you get good postings or you are not evicted from the good ones you already have. By rule, a person is to serve in an area for three years! I am not kidding. But who goes by the rules in these times! You have got to be a political worker besides an officer of sorts!! Am I already?