khudkush kuttay (kamikaze doggies)

The stray dogs on the highways between Mianwali and Bhakkar seem to have acquired a new pastime. It’s not in good taste though.

They bark vociferously upon seeing a car, trucks they don’t mess with probably because they make too much noise. As soon as the car is near enough, they lunge. They lunge and, more often that naught, find the bumper or the tyre to be fairly competent adversaries since more often than naught, they find themselves dead, cracked skull and all, making a bloody mess on the road. They find the shocked passengers staring out at them from rear windows, heads shaking and mouths contorted in pity.

The method in this madness is lost on me. I cannot for the life of me figure out why an otherwise upstanding, independent, able bodied dog would want to act like a moth and go kamikaze on its own ass, but alas, this is what they do. The blood of the last dog that my car’s bumper offed is still wet as I write this. I have gotten in the habit of saying a prayer for the departed, the count now stands at 4. This may sound cruel but bear in mind that I very nearly killed a camel in trying to save the dog, the look of sheer terror in the eyes of the camel cart driver has me convinced that it is much more prudent to comply to the dogs wishes because, firstly, it pretty much ensures that no other unwilling creature will be harmed and secondly that the dog is gonna die anyway for it will surely try the next oncoming car on for size even if I have managed to refuse its dying wish of death. I’m assuming that by complying apologetically, if not willingly, I will earn the dog’s prayers and its gratitude and may be find my way into doggie heaven by virtue of my kindness to an obviously demented animal if my cruelty to mostly demented human beings leads me towards hell. 70 bitches and bone castles are a better option, I think, than pissed off ants for skin and puss filled sores for lunch.

Bhakkar is a very interesting district. Its an oasis, basically, in the middle of a weird desert that has shit loads of vegetation in it. But it’s a desert anyway. My mind had always equated deserts with sand… loads and loads of sand… and wind… fast gusty winds blowing the sand all over an almost naked Brooke Shields from the movie Sahara… Sahara the movie, pretty much defined my perception of deserts until I ended up giving an impromptu speech on women’s rights (hah! My sisters think I’m lying too) in Nurpur Thal. Then I realized that the sand and the wind and the sticking to bodies part was true, but there’s no naked Brooke or a naked anyone for that matter. There is instead a horde of burka clad women and heavily moustached men who kill them women in the burkas if they take the burkas off and talk to strange men in funky jackets who are giving impromptu speeches about women’s rights. That sorta changed a lot more than just my perception of the desert but this tripe is supposed to be about bhakkar and its strangeness in the desert department. It’s not really a desert in my book cuz its like, lush, you know? It’s nearly carpeted with channa fields (chickpeas), and its only underneath that the sand is like that of a desert. And there are desert storms and such too so technically it is a desert and that is why, I’m assuming, it gets so fucking cold there at night. I was sleeping in a jacket and a sweater and I hate sweaters, they suffocate me. But the freak desert was freakishly cold, it was like being inside a freezer that has no power switch. But the afternoons were gorgeous and the mornings sublime. It’s a pretty decent district come to think of it, so much so that I don’t even really mind almost being kidnapped there.

Apparently, the MO for dacoits now is a lot more blasé than you would suppose. They linger around police checkposts, and get into action as soon as you zoom past. This gives them the longest stretch of empty, un patrolled road between check posts to trap you.

Any one who’s ever heard Nusrat’s Halka Halka suroor knows that the suroor (intoxication) is in the song it self and not the drink or any allegory thereof. So suroorified (intoxicated) as we were with the speakers literally bursting at the seams with the extraterrestrial modulations of Nusrat’s voice a car zoomed on to the road from out of nowhere behind us. You know the feeling when the hair on the back of your neck stands on end like when the AC air first hits you after a walk outside in July?… I felt that. Nusrat does cause goose bumps, but this was different. I felt fear. Looking back I could make out the shape of a car trailing a few meters behind, visible only in silhouette because of the clear, starry night.

The driver dude noticed it around the same time too. I gulped and prayed to give anything at all for a gun. But we don’t carry weapons although it has become apparent that we should, so the only recourse was to floor it. That is what I told the driver, and with a grunt from the engine our car lurched into action. The road, we only discovered 2 days later on our way back, was a fucking rally track. Replete with hard rights and hairpin lefts, it was a bloody roller coaster in broad day light. But that night, with possibly the meanest, nastiest, sadistic gay (its right next to Mianwali, you see, getting raped was a very well justified fear) murderers, we didn’t see the road and we didn’t hear Nusrat, we only saw a single shot at surviving and we took it. Kudos to the driver dude, he scorched the rubber off the tyres but got us safely from abadi to abadi until the dacoits gave up. We were airborne at practically every jump in the road and drifting through every turn. Even oncoming traffic doesn’t deter these fuckers, only police check posts and towns do. That 20 mile stretch though had contained neither and we’d have surely been dacoit dinner if it hadn’t been for some killer driving. Moral of the story: stay off the fucking highways at night. Even the motorway isn’t safe anymore because a conked out car got looted the other night.

Kalabagh is gorgeous. The village itself is puny, with roads flanked on both sides by tiny shops selling everything from Nestle bottled water to hand made shawls to chicken achari tikkas off a cart. The bridge across the river sindh is as rickety as they come, it literally groans as you crawl over it. Two cars cannot pass each other without folding in their side mirrors, it’s quite quaint really.

If you ever find yourself in Minawali, on the way to Kalabagh, look out for a small village along the road called Moch, right past it is one of those truck hotels that serve the best damn food you can hope to find and the best damn tea ever brewed. Its called Sakhi Darbar (generous shrine or maybe the shrine of generosity…. Whatever) and it has the most amazing mutton korma you’ll ever taste. The service is pretty good too and they have this pet dog who is huge just from the scraps it gets from the patrons, maybe its named the way it is because the food puts anyone who eats it in a generous mood. We actually bough a beaf shank for the dog, that has never happened before.

Interesting iron there, I just noticed, this started with the mention of demented but independent dogs, and Its ending with a sane but spineless, leftover eating one. Which life style is better is anybody’s guess, but common sense heralds living like a lion for a day over living for decades like a dog… hmm.

My sis thinks I went on this ‘dangerous’ expedition because the ex is back in town, but she’s wrong. That was not the only reason. I did however have quite a detailed conversation with myself during the bitterly cold nights which has led to a strange kind of a clarity about a bunch of things that had previously been a source of great confusion and often depression, including, but not limited to, the ex, and had the best damn morning in several years today. Happiness is a bit of a dichotomous concept now though so maybe for the first time in a while I felt normal. I danced without really having anything to dance about, and continued to dance even after I realized how ridiculous it must look… I haven’t done that since 1996.

I want to resolve all the issues that I have with myself and the people I have known. I want to feel free of all regrets and obligations. I want to be set free…

Okay that’s enough.

Da pheex.