Celebrating the end of the year… Pakistani style!

The hotel was packed and rocking for New Years as travellers gathered from all over the world eager to put away their smelly boots for a few days and enjoy some good company. Quite a few us arrived before Christmas and stayed right through till early Jan, horse riding in the morning and playing football in the afternoon. On New Years night all was ready on the Regale Internet Inn rooftop we’d obtained a special license to buy alcohol, made the punch and made a bit of feast. Sain Mohammed Ali and his group of Punjabi folk musicians kept us dancing all night to an exotic mix of sufi music (sufi music is non-religious music… “if you seek the answers to the problems of your life then look inside your heart and you will find them”). Sain Mohammed Ali led the band playing a long thin pair of ‘clippers’ called a chimta. His hands danced to the tabla beats (dhol) and the music of the harmonium next to him as the rest of us danced away and got rather pissed to cries of ‘Ju-Lay-lal’, or roughly translated, ‘make trance like a sufi’.

At the stroke of midnight (which was 11.50pm on my watch) the hotel owner Mallick set off what seemed like the only fireworks in Lahore and being the hardened Party animals we were, we didn’t go to bed till at least 5pm.

Regale Internet Inn sits down a narrow side street off the Mall (Lahore’s main artery road). There is a cinema behind, a busy little tea shop downstairs and a supermarket 10m away. The problem with this place is that it feels so much like home, you never want to leave. In fact this was Mallick’s home and business five years ago, then as word spread, he gradually turned it into a hotel. Groups like the one we had on New Year’s Eve are a regular feature on the rooftop.

Since I’ve arrived back in Lahore I don’t seem to have stopped being busy with learning Urdu researching my coming trip, meeting people, planning logistics etc… Most mornings I’ve been riding out around Brooke’s clinic 2 in Shahdara where there is a large equine population. Most horses are submitted via referrals from a mobile team or emergency cases are brought in. Most serious cases seem to be from a cart load falling on top of the horse in traffic accidents or from leg injuries due to the poor condition of Lahore’s roads.

I often went down to the clinic with a friend or two from the Regale. It has given more foreigners a good experience and an insight into Brooke. So on Christmas day I set off with an Australian guy called Mark down to the clinic and the fractious horses waiting to ride. Christmas day was quite misty and the streets were empty so early in the morning. After flagging down a rickshaw we zipped by the now familiar landmark of the Badshahi mosque, (Pakistan’s largest mosque), learing out of the gloom. The Brooke staff gave us the familiar friendly greeting of Asalaam Walaykum (which roughly means ‘may god save you from any problems’) and we were soon mounted and trotting off across the wasteland to explore the local area. Around the neat horse clipped grass of the clinic is a large wasteland inhabited on the whole by gypsy families in their brightly coloured tents. The gypsies move every three or four days and make a living recycling rubbish and managing herds of buffalo. We rode past their villages and up the road by the Ravi river where the gypsies tend their herds. Mark was a good rider often used to crashing through the great Aussie bush chasing kangarooes and the like. When we neared the old Ravi bridge kites (cheel) dive bombed the ground to snatch the bags of meat that are thrown off. Its a local belief (not related to Islam), that if you circle the bag of beef round your head and throw it overboard, then all your problems will disappear and your day will be a good one.

Lahore is a mixed bag of people jumbled together en masse. Swish cars rev beside an old man and cart. Rickshaws dodge each other by a hair’s breadth as a shepherd herds his sheep along the roadside. This is the real Lahore I’m talking about, not the built up commercial centre that has existed since British times.

Eventually Mark and I approached Jahangir’s tomb. Shahdara once lay on the road from Lahore to Kabul and its known for the sculptured gardens that the Mugals built 400 years ago. When the great emperor Jahangir died in 1625, his son Shah Jahan built this memorial to him. The tomb is typically large and square with four soaring minarets at each corner. Mark was riding bareback (without a saddle since I only have one), and was now feeling it, so we swapped horses. Although as yet un-named both horses are well trained - as well as having a few bad habits. Both were previously used to smuggle everything from Kalashnikovs to refrigerators across the mountainous terrain of the Pak/Afgani border. One is slightly taller than the other and a touch more spirited. The taller horse is around 13hh and the smaller about 12.5hh. Both bicker like small children at feeding time, since the taller one has taken to stealing the smaller one’s food at feeding time he has earned himself several nips for the trouble - they have now been separated. However, both have also passed the expert examination of many of Brooke’s vets who’ve been really keen to visit. Both are strong and true and have the spirit to survive the coming journey into the mountains. Yet the most important thing is that they get on with me.

As the new year begins I’d say I was happy to be in Pakistan. My horses are settled and I feel settled in a country with as many similarities as differences with India. Religion aside, both countries countrymen share many basic characterisics. Lets face it, there is only 60km of distance between Lahore and Amritsar in India. Both people have the same deep sense of family values, hospitality and sense of humour. Pakistan seems less hectic than India. People here are probably a bit more open and genuine (something I also noticed in Bangladesh) and as ethnically mixed as their Indian counterparts. Lahore is the ‘cultural capital’ of Pakistan and although women can walk about here with a reasonable degree of freedom, it may not be the same in Peshawar, where the majority of women are expected to cover up. Both countries have their national pride but I wonder if the enmity with India is the common man’s concern or that of the politicians and media.