We were quite certain that the monument before us was not the mausoleum of Zeb-un-Nisa – the rebel Sufi poetess, daughter of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb – even though there was a board put up here, seemingly by the Archaeology Department, stating otherwise.

There is much historical evidence to suggest that Zeb-un-Nisa died in the Salimgarh Fort in Delhi, part of the Red Fort complex in India’s capital city, where it is said she had been imprisoned for more than two decades.

According to various accounts, her mausoleum was constructed outside the Kabuli Gate in Delhi, in what was known as the Garden of Thirty Thousand Trees. But in 1885, when the British were laying the railway tracks in Delhi, the mausoleum complex was razed while her remains were shifted to Akbar’s tomb in Sikandra, Agra.

Though history suggests otherwise, the mausoleum in Nawa Kot on the Multan Road in Lahore is widely regarded as the tomb of the Mughal princess. To further strengthen this argument, there are several stories narrating the presence of the princess at this place.

Just behind the mausoleum are the remnants of a grand gateway that led into this vast enclosure of which the mausoleum is a part. Not only is it believed that Zeb-un-Nisa constructed the garden, along with the neighbouring Chuhburji garden, she is also said to have spent a large part of her life here, using it as her self-imposed prison. In the garden complex, she ran a public kitchen, where beggars, dervish, malang, monks and jogis were fed everyday.

So keen was Zeb-un-Nisa to fulfil the needs of these people that she would ask them to write what they wanted to eat on a piece of paper and then have that food prepared for them. This is how she is believed to have reconnected with her alleged lover Akil Khan, the former governor of Lahore, who, consumed by love for the Mughal princess, had abandoned his position, wealth and property and had started living as a mendicant.

Like Zeb-un-Nisa, Khan too was a poet and it said that their love for poetry is what brought them together. Once, when Khan was riding around the walls of the palace in Lahore, he caught a glimpse of the princess and exclaimed, “A vision in red appears on the roof of the palace.” When the words reached the ears of the princess, dressed in red, she responded, “Supplications nor force nor gold can win her.” Thus began their love story, through an exchange of poetry.

There are several stories that recount the rendezvous of the purported lovers. For instance, they are often said to have met at the garden where today her supposed tomb exists.

Zeb-un-Nisa was in many ways unique. While most of the Mughal queens and princesses receded into history, Zeb-un-Nisa is one of the few princesses who was able to preserve her name. Her poetry is still in publication and read widely. Differing from her puritanical father, she was also inclined towards Sufism, much like her uncle and Emperor Shah Jahan’s oldest son, Crown Prince Dara Shikoh.

Zeb-un-Nisa is said to have been rather close to her uncle, who was executed by her father, Aurangzeb, so that he could ascend to the throne after Shah Jahan. She had been betrothed to Suleiman Shikoh, the eldest son of Dara Shikoh, at Emperor Shah Jahan’s directions. Aurangzeb is believed to have also killed Suleiman Shikoh in Gwalior, after taking charge of the Mughal Empire.

A theory goes that Emperor Aurangzeb could never forgive his daughter for her sympathies towards her uncle and fiancé, both of whom were eventually executed. Others assert that he was intolerant of her Sufistic interpretation of religion, which contrasted with his Puritanism.

Perhaps it is out of spite for this that Aurangzeb did not allow Khan to marry his daughter, or perhaps he did not want a subsequent rival to the Mughal throne.

Other versions of the story that suggest that it was in fact Khan who turned down the marriage after Aurangzeb summoned him to Delhi, ostensibly to discuss the proposal, afraid that it was a hoax to kill him.

Lahore’s princess

Dejected that she could not marry Akil Khan, the Mughal princess is believed to have given up her royal accommodation and turned to this secluded garden, where her only goal was to fulfill the culinary desires of the needy who would show up at her threshold.

Khan, who had by then given up his position and wealth and was living in poverty. It is in this condition that he reached the garden at Nawa Kot to his beloved and revealed his identity to her through another couplet.

Together again, away from emperor’s gaze the lovers spent days in each other’s arms at this garden. But they could not escape Aurangzeb for too long and through a network of spies, news reached Delhi that Khan and Zeb-un-Nisa had been reunited in Lahore.

According to one version of the story, Aurangzeb had Khan boiled in a cauldron in front of the eyes of his beloved and he then imprisoned the princess in her own garden, where she eventually died in 1702 and was buried.

These are of course all apocryphal stories and there is no proof of their historical legitimacy. But they do contain an essence of reality. It is no surprise that the tale of Princess Zeb-un-Nisa’s distraught relationship started doing rounds in the city of Lahore.

Lahore was the beloved city of Dara Shikoh, where he was serving as governor before he engaged in a civil war with Aurangzeb to claim the throne. With Dara Shikoh came imperial funds for the beautification of the city, which had stopped after Emperor Shah Jahan had shifted the Mughal capital from Lahore to Shahajahanabad.

Dara Shikoh’s association with the Sufi saint Mian Mir, whom he regarded as a spiritual guide, also earned the Mughal prince a special place in the city of Lahore. Mian Mir was from Lahore and through him, Dara Shikoh too had become one of their own.

Just before he went to war with Aurangzeb, Dara Shikoh had planned to construct a long pathway from the fort to shrine of Mian Mir, several kilometres away.

The Mughal prince, with his emphasis on religious syncretism, had captured the heart of the residents of the city and there is no doubt that the people of Lahore would have liked to see him ascend the Mughal throne.

But that was not to be and nothing could be said or done about it. There was no concept of political dissent at the time and in such an environment, rumours became the only way to hint at disagreement. Lahore needed a symbol to express political dissent and got it in the form of Zeb-un-Nisa – a Mughal princess, daughter of the Emperor himself, who was closer to her uncle than her father, a princess who, like Dara Shikoh was inclined towards Sufism and poetry, a princess whose first fiancé was assassinated by the emperor and subsequent lover burned in a cauldron.

And so, for many, Lahore is indeed home to the mausoleum of the city’s tragic princess, no matter what history suggests.

This article was first published on Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.

The June afternoon was hot and sunny when my wife called to excitedly announce that the summer mountaineering expedition we had been planning the past few months was finally materialising.

She was so loud and elated that I had to hold my phone away from my ear, lest my eardrums give in even before we reach our desired altitude. I don’t blame her. The trekking trip to Snow Lake, a high-altitude glacial basin in the Karakoram mountain range in Gilgit-Baltistan, had always been a dream for the both of us.

Our party would consist of friends and fellow trekkers. The planned trek was to start from Askole (a small town in the most remote region of the Karakoram mountains), cross Snow Lake and Hispar La (a mountain pass through the Karakoram Range), and finally descend to Hispar village. At last, an escape from the hot and sticky weather had presented itself (through no small amount of planning).

But first, a bit of history. My love affair with mountains and trekking started in 2010, when I visited Fairy Meadows for the first time. Since then, I have been returning year after year, attached to these plains as a parched man in the Sahara would be to an oasis. I spoke of this escape so fondly that my affinity infected my better half, whose excitement reached a fever pitch for her first venture into the Karakoram range.

Snow Lake is a glacial basin located at an altitude of 4,800m above sea level, with a width of approximately 16km. The basin lies at the head of the Biafo and Hispar glaciers and spreading down the Hispar Pass in opposite directions, forms a 100km long continuous glacier system, among the world's longest.

Martin Conway, the first foreign visitor and the one who named it Snow Lake, described it as: “Beyond all comparison the finest view of mountains it has ever been my lot to behold, nor do I believe the world can hold finer.” I defer to Mr Conway. Such wonders were made to be beheld.

But like all (relatively) untouched marvels of nature, Snow Lake is very difficult to access. Fewer than 200 people manage to reach it in a year.

Islamabad to Skardu

We started off from Islamabad on a hot July day. It seemed that the heat would follow us north. I wondered if the Balrog’s fiery lash might hamper our ascent to Snow Lake. But I was as determined as Tolkien’s Fellowship. We shall pass!

It was time to make final preparations. We double-checked to ensure that we had all the required equipment and supplies, since Snow Lake is considered to be one of the toughest treks.

The following day the excruciating journey from Islamabad to Skardu began. One of our fellow trekkers was to join us for the road trip from Karachi, while the rest of the team had already reached Skardu.

Once we picked him up from the airport, we were off. Traveling on Karakoram Highway always made me happy, especially after crossing Thakot Bridge. The narrow steep ascents and snaking descent of roads present some breathtaking views of the Indus River with majestic mountains making for a stunning backdrop. As one crosses through the region, the valley opens up leaving the traveller speechless.

The journey had, however, become a nightmare because of a landslide near Jaglot. Was the Balrog breaking free from the mountains? Our scheduled 24-hour road trip ended up being a 32-hour drive to Skardu. Hotel Mashabrum felt like heaven after nearly two days of non-stop travelling.

A day in Skardu

The morning after, it was time to meet the team for breakfast. A banker from Lahore, an engineer from Karachi, a software developer from Hyderabad, a rice trader from Gujranwala, and the two of us — a photographer and fine artist — from the UAE. People from different walks of life and different cities were brought together by a passion to explore the icy mountain wilderness. A group of regular folk, not unlike Frodo and his cohorts.

After getting to know one another, it was time to meet our guide Mr Ali Khan Machlu, who had much to discuss with us. He gave us a detailed description about the state of Hispar Glacier, the condition of the trek, and Hispar La.

There were unconfirmed reports that Hispar Pass was closed due to a huge crevasse that had opened up on the other side of the pass. It was decided that we would trek till Hispar base camp and if we couldn’t cross through Hispar Pass, we would come back from the same route.

After the meeting, the rest of the day was spent shopping for a few remaining things in Skardu. The evening was spent with a hot cup of tea at Lower Kachura Lake, photographing the lake with the beautiful architecture of Shangrila Resort in the background. As the night fell, it was time to sleep. We were closer than ever to our dream. Or so we thought.

Skardu to Askole (3,300 m, 10,800 ft)

The day started early with a quick breakfast after which it was time to load all the supplies on the jeeps. The journey from Skardu to Askole was very rewarding. Shortly after the jeeps left Skardu, we were on Shigar Road, passing through the beautiful Shigar Valley with its sprawling fruit farms and wheat fields, fresh fruit available at short distances all along the road.

From Shigar Valley we turned right into Braldu Valley, stopping for lunch at Apoligon, a small settlement with a few houses and a small restaurant.

Forty-five minutes after a quick lunch, we moved on until we passed by the awe-inspiring Braldu Gorge. The thundering sound of the water violently gushing through it was loud enough to make us shudder as we continued towards Askole.

When we entered the village, it was as beautiful as I remembered it from my last visit six years ago. It was all there: lush green fields of wheat, mud houses lined with walkways and simple, hard-working people could be seen everywhere. The snow-covered mountaintops were ablaze with the last light of the day.

After reaching the campground, a 12-member porter team was finalised to accompany us for the Snow Lake expedition. By sunset, tents were set up in the camping ground and it finally was time for a much needed slumber.

Askole To Namla (3,650 m 11,800ft)

The trek started from Askole in the early hours of the day. It was hot and sunny. Our destination for the day was Namla campsite, situated in a small meadow by the Biafo Glacier. The trek’s beginning was fairly straight alongside the roaring Braldu river. As we passed the Kiser Polo Ground, there was a steep ascent through the pass named Snum La, or Sky Pass, in Balti language.

For me this climb was really tough and I was totally out of breath by the time I reached the top. As I looked on the other side, I caught the first glimpse of the mighty Biafo Glacier.

The snout of Biafo had many crevasses and was full of boulders, scree, and glacial pools, stretching as far as the eye could see. Biafo is paradoxical in the way that its beauty inspires both fear and wonder at the same time.

After descending from Snum La, we stopped for lunch. When we started trekking on the snout of the Biafo Glacier, it became became more difficult — this part of Biafo is a barren wasteland of rock, scree and debris making it extremely challenging to trek.

We had to take a longer route to reach Namla as the straight approach was not possible because of the numerous crevasses marking the glacier. We reached Namla around evening time, where a grassy green patch overlooking Biafo was our campsite for the night. After a quick dinner it was time to sleep. We slept so soundly we didn’t even dream.

Namla to Mongo (3,700 m, 12,130 ft)

The next morning we awoke to a delicious breakfast made by Ali Hassan, the expedition’s cook. When we returned to trekking, we were greeted by yet another bright and sunny day.

The day’s destination was Mongo, a campsite situated at 3,700m. Initially, the trek was tough due to crevasses, scree and boulders, but it got fairly easy once we reached the middle of the glacier.

We then walked on Biafo’s moraines. The trek was comparatively easy along this path, perhaps the beautiful glacier stream and mountains on both sides made it seem easier.

We reached Mongo around afternoon time. The campsite was on a grassy patch, making it feel like an oasis in the middle of all the dry rock and barren ice.

The views of Biafo from high up were breathtaking. Reaching Mongo with enough time to enjoy the daylight was totally worth the effort.

Mongo to Shafong (4,000 m 13,120 ft)

The next campsite was Shafong. The sky was leaden, sprinkling us with a bit of drizzle, a marked contrast from the consecutively sunny days we faced when we set out. A few hours after we started trekking, the Biafo Glacier started to peek out over the horizon, and soon after it showed its visage, we were on the icy-white glacier.

The sound of ice crunching under my feet, and white clouds overhead made the trek languid and joyful. As we continued on Biafo highway, we started seeing crevasses. The further we advanced, the greater was the number of crevasses we encountered.

With each day, our destination was getting closer and our dream of finally trekking over Snow Lake was slowly becoming manifest. However, our destination was still far. Getting off of Biafo Glacier to reach the Shafong campsite was tough. We had to get across the glacier’s many crevasses and climb on its steep side, laden with unstable boulders and scree. As we got off the glacier, a steep, almost vertical cliff awaited us, on the other side of which was Shafong.

After scaling this steep ascent, we reached an absolutely heavenly campsite in an ablation valley, with lush green meadows and streams of ice-cold water running across it. We stopped for tea and admired the scenery. After a caffeine infusion, we continued trekking for another hour before we camped on an emerald patch of grass at Shafong.

It felt like we had found paradise on earth, with the beautiful Sokha Lumbu (5,650m) and Tongo (5,900m) right in front of us and beautiful grassy slopes spread behind, as if two stone titans were sleeping on a turquoise rug, forever oblivious of their own splendour.

Shafong to Baintha (4,000 m 13,120 ft)

The beauty quickly gave way to the night’s extreme cold, followed by an equally freezing morning. But there was respite: the next day was bright and sunny. We continued our trek toward the nearby Baintha campsite, where we passed through yet another stunning ablation valley, crossing small waterbodies through lush electric-green meadows.

We managed to reach the Baintha campsite, situated on yet another green meadow with an amazing view of the Latok group of mountains.

The day’s expedition was relatively short, and the rest of the day was spent recuperating under the sun. Here, our expedition’s cook decided to treat us with delicious aaloo kay parathay (potato-filled flatbread), with a little help from a female team member. The parathay more than made headways in helping our battered and fatigued legs recover.

Day gave way to night, the sky was clear with no clouds in sight. As if on a maestro’s cue, the stars came out dancing, waltzing into place, transforming the night sky into a celestial orchestra.

Encountering danger from Baintha to Marphogoro (4,400m, 14,430 ft)

Getting to the middle of the glacier was the hardest part of the day. Once we got on it, the walk was pretty straightforward. From there onward, there was no grass to be found, just snow, ice and rocks for the rest of the way. It felt like we had forayed north of The Wall.

On Biafo highway, the glacier was lashed with many deep crevasses, so we had to walk around in order to find a suitable place to cross or jump over the cracks in the glacier’s surface.

We stopped for tea, which powered our trek to avoid the crevasses. The average time it takes from Baintha to Marphogoro is around six to seven hours. At about 5pm, we had been trekking for 10 hours.

The guide started to panic — we were seemingly lost on the vast Biafo Glacier, as the sun started to set behind the mountains and the temperature on the glacier started to drop rapidly.

At this point, the team unanimously decided to go back in the general direction of the Baintha campsite, hoping, nay, praying that any of the porters would see the lights of our headlamps and find us.

After trekking back for about two hours, it was completely dark. We were jumping over the crevasses with only the light of our headlamps to aid our visibility in the vast white nothingness.

Trekking in dark like this is extremely dangerous. It was a life and death situation — one wrong step could have killed any one of us. Our cook, Ali Hassan, nearly fell into a gaping crevasse. By then, we thought all was lost.

Our guide had missed the intended campsite so we continued trekking towards Karfogoro. But we were rescued by the porters at around 8pm. They came looking for us when we did not reach the campsite till sunset. We marched for another two hours to finally reach Marphogoro. It was a tough day but in the end, everyone made it safely to the campsite.

Marphogoro to Karfogoro (4,600 m, 15,090 ft)

Being extremely exhausted from the previous death-defying day, our late start was warranted. The trek on the glacier from Marphogoro to Karfogoro was relatively easy. We were trekking on ice with hardly any rocks visible, but avoiding crevasses is the main challenge on this portion of the trek.

After spending the better part of the morning avoiding the large crevasses in this part of the glacier, we had become fairly accustomed to hopping over them. Looking towards the end of the glacier, one could catch a glimpse of Snow Lake. But we had to reach Karfogoro first.

Karfogoro is a difficult-to-reach campsite. The approach to the campsite is imperiled with many deep fissures. Unstable rocks and scree litter the path, and to top it off, there are plenty of steep ascents and descents to conquer before one reaches the site.

Karfogoro campsite is on the edge of a mountain. Freezing gale from Snow Lake strikes the campsite with furious aplomb, leaving nothing but rocks and very narrow spaces between boulders to inhospitably set up camp in.

But for me, it was an amazing place because I could see the edge of the Snow Lake as it bended around a curve. Our excitement was palpable, as the next day the opportunity to trek on Snow Lake had finally arrived.

Karfogoro to Snowlake/Hispar La Basecamp (5,128m, 16,824ft)


 The view of the landscape from Karfogoro at sunrise took our breath away. The azure sky, a mighty vanguard of mountains protecting the glacier, with a sliver of Snow Lake visible in the distance. The high vantage point made it even more mesmerising, as God’s canvas was on full display from this height.

Getting off from the Karfogoro campsite was a nightmare. Crossing through the labyrinthine crevasses and boulders made it an ordeal to get back to Biafo Glacier. As we reached the snow-covered part of the glacier, it was time for both teams to rope up.

Because of the high altitude, snow falls all year round at Snow Lake and crevasses get hidden under the soft layer of snow. There is always a danger of falling into any of these hidden chasms which, needless to say, would be fatal.

All the team members put on their harnesses and fastened themselves to a single rope so if any person falls into a fissure, the rest of the team could pull that person back up.

Ali Khan Machlu, our guide, led our team through the soft snow. Machlu would carefully inspect the ground with his stick before taking a step on the snow and each of us had to take care to place our steps exactly in the same place as our guide.

The day was bright and clear, but it could not expose the danger hidden beneath the soft sheet of snow. This uncertainty gave me a cold sweat and my heart kept pounding while the team continued to trek on.

After a few hours of stressful trekking, we made our way into the centre of the snowy wonderland. It felt like we were in the throne room of the mountain gods. Whenever we stopped for a break, we all looked up and tried to absorb as much of the place as we could.

It looked like a place straight out a fairy tale. The feeling of being on Snow Lake was beyond any description. This place had the finest view, bar none, of mountains everywhere we looked.

The textured rock, visible through the glassy ice, complemented the bright blue sky, while the shimmering snow spanning the horizon was nothing short of a Monet painting.

After six hours of trekking on this beautiful paradise, we reached the Hispar Base Camp. The campsite was a Haruki Murakami novel come to life: white snow all around and located right at the base of Hispar La.

Now that we had reached our scenic wonder, it was time to celebrate. Ali Hassan, our cook, picturesquely served us Rooh Afza, standing at the base of Hispar La with the ice-shored Snow Lake behind him.

The afternoon was spent flying kites and sitting outside the tents, enjoying the almost divine view of the surrounding mountains, standing tall at an altitude of 5,100m.

The evening sun cast its magical glow onto the mountain tops. Snow Lake is far more beautiful than what I could have imagined. Words simply cannot do justice to its beauty and majesty. The sky was clear as the sun went behind the mountains and gave way to a magical night sky dotted with stars.

In the early hours of the morning the clouds rolled in and the whole sky was painted gray. As I got out of my tent, crystalline flakes of snow began to fall. The visibility was severely limited, to just a few metres ahead.

We spent the rest of the day huddling close inside the kitchen tent, sipping hot tea and swapping adventure stories, all the while hoping and praying that the weather will clear.

However, Mother Nature grew angry and the weather conditions took a turn for the worse. The snowfall did not stop its merciless descent and in the evening the decision to start trekking back in the morning was made, no matter the situation at the time.

We all lay down to sleep, fearful of what the next day would bring. The snowfall stopped in the middle of the night and suddenly there was an eerie silence. I decided to take a look outside but could hardly see anything. It was a pitch dark, silent night, and nary a sound could be heard except for the scuffling of snow under my boots as I walked a few paces away from the tent to explore.

It was so cold I thought I would freeze right there and they’d find a snowman of me the next day. So I thought it best not to venture too far in the dead of night and made a quick return. I barely slept all the while praying for a safe descent the following day.

There and back again

The next morning it had stopped snowing but a thick layer of clouds was still covering the sky. We started our journey home very early, but tread cautiously as more snow would have piled on top of the already thick blanket of ice that hid the gaping chasms.

But no amount of caution can fully safeguard one from the perils of deceptive snow, as my leg broke through what felt like a sheet of ice into a hidden stream of water. I was lucky to maintain my balance and quickly pulled on the rope,managing to drag myself out of the hole.

My entire leg had been submerged in the sub-zero water, but luckily my protective clothing held up to the test and I did not get wet. However, there was no shortage of fear on my part.

But we picked up the pace, because our team wanted to cover as much ground as possible. The thick clouds weren’t going anywhere, floating in the sky like the stationary but foreboding alien ships in Wells’ War of the Worlds.

We had to consider the significant drop in visibility if the snowfall were to start once more. Both teams were trekking swiftly, navigating through the large cracks in the glaciers – keeping an eye out for the hidden ones under the snow.

The visibility wasn’t the only thing to be mindful of. Thin air and, consequently, the low level of oxygen at this altitude made it difficult to breathe. But we soldiered on, for three more hours until we reached the edge of Snow Lake.

Here, the snow started to fall again, but thankfully we had already crossed a large part of the lake.

When we descended to Karfogoro, the snowfall had turned into rain. We stopped at Karfogoro’s campsite for a quick cup of tea under a plastic sheet sheltering us from the needle-sharp icy rain.

After we were sufficiently warm, we continued marching in the rain towards Marphogoro. On our way to the campsite there, the clouds cleared up, and we welcomed the gentle sun’s smiling warmth on our cold, weathered bodies.

We reached Marphogoro by evening utterly exhausted from the trek. Sleep came and snatched me of my consciousness, the way the Pied Piper stole the children of Hamelin. Like the children who followed him, I too, willingly embraced the gentle music of slumber.

The following day we had lunch at Baintha and camped at Shafong. There our team decided to skip two campsites to reach Kiser Polo Ground the very next day.

The following day, we had reached the snout of Biafo Glacier, puzzling through the maze of crevasses, glacier rock and scree which was anything but easy. But we managed.

As I was sitting outside my tent at Kiser Polo Ground, right beside the gushing Braldu river, all I could think of was the wonder of the hypnotic Snow Lake.

The next morning we reached Askole and stopped there for breakfast and hopped on a jeep back to Skardu. On the ride back, I was haunted by memories of the joy I had felt at Snow Lake and Biafo, and of the feeling of accomplishment that we had conquered an almost insurmountable obstacle.

The words of my guide kept echoing in my ears, “Biafo bachon ka khail nahin hay piyare! (Biafo is not child's play, my friends!)” Now we were amongst the handful of people who have witnessed the magnificence and fury of Biafo and Snow Lake.

The Karakoram mountain range has its own unique beauty. Having done other treks in the region, Biafo Glacier is in equal measure far more dangerous and far more rewarding. The harsh glacier terrain gives way to beautiful ablation valleys, breathtaking Baintha and Shafong, and the towering Karfogoro.

All the campsites are a unique experience in their own right, making it a memorable piecemeal adventure, like square pieces of fabric, stitched together by hand to make a lovely quilt. The peril we encountered along the journey taught us the depths of our limits and the heights of our determination.

In a way, I am thankful that the path to Snow Lake was so dangerous, as it serves to preserve and safeguard the natural wonder of Biafo, keeping it untouched for only the most adventurous of spirits.

I am glad it is over. I refer to talaq-e-bidat, the practice of Muslim men uttering talaq, talaq, talaq in a single setting to instantly divorce their wives, which rightfully belonged in a trash can, but also to the television nation’s delirious excitement at having “saved Muslim women”.

Rarely, in recent times, has any government or party, from the prime minister down, been so visibly stirred at the impending empowerment of a vulnerable minority.

The Bharatiya Janata Party Twitter cell is twittering delight at the end of “this evil practice… thanks to the persistent and firm stand taken by PM Modi”. Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Adityanath has hailed the “historic move”. The prime minister himself tweeted that the judgement “grants equality to Muslim women…a powerful measure for women empowerment”.

Well, congratulations gentlemen, but your task begins now. Because we are where we need to be – within the framework of the Constitution. This chiefly is what Muslim women’s rights groups are celebrating. As they should.

If gender empowerment is what the nation was truly seeking, then the judgement is less historic than the hype. The question is how one frames gender equality, gender equity and gender justice – three phrases invoked repeatedly in the Supreme Court’s verdict on Tuesday.

The media-led and politics-driven narrative of Muslim women’s rights in India has long ceased to be framed by the Constitution. The dominant frame has been personal law and conservative clergy.

It is through the personal tragedies of a series of Muslim women – Gudiya, Imrana and their more famous predecessor Shah Bano, that an entire community has been constructed in the national imagination. Shayara Bano, admittedly brave in her personal battle, now joins this list.

In 1985, 62-year-old Shah Bano, was granted maintenance by the Supreme Court under Section 125 of the Criminal Procedure Code, but Justice Chandrachud decided to also wax eloquent on the need for a Uniform Civil Code, and opened up a hornet’s nest.

The Muslim Right saw it as an attack on its identity, the Hindu Right made common cause with the “oppressed Muslim women”. And in 1986, the Rajiv Gandhi government played its own cynical politics, ignored progressive women’s rights groups, and brought in The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Divorce) Act, effectively reversing Shah Bano’s small secular gain.

Then, in 2005, Gudiya’s personal dilemma was subjected to the worst kind of public scrutiny – led entirely by the media. She made a great “oppressed Muslim woman” story. This heavily pregnant Muslim woman was dragged to television studios, where anchors had lined up a prime-time selection of bearded conservative clergy to make predictably regressive pronouncements – about whether she should continue to live with her second husband Taufiq (whose child she would bear), or with the first one, Arif, a prisoner of war who had suddenly returned after having gone missing.

Imrana’s case

The same year, we witnessed Imrana in Muzaffarnagar, raped by her father-in-law but subjected to a so-called fatwa stating that she was now haram for her husband and should marry the rapist. Imrana’s fatwa (apparently) stirred the conscience of the nation and made for another media best-seller. Small irony that the fatwa was issued at the behest of a local reporter (from a Noida-based Urdu paper, the Rashtriya Sahara) and not at the urging of Imrana’s family.

Even though the learned men from Deoband clearly fell short on wisdom, the media lost sight of the issue. Imrana’s story, began at the same place as numerous stories do in India – in the village. In that patriarchal institution called the jati-panchayat.

Across large swathes of western Uttar Pradesh, a bunch of men routinely pronounce judgments on women – cut off her nose, parade her naked, stone her, excommunicate her – if she breaks their arbitrary rules. The majority of these cases involve Hindus. Call it jati-panchayat, call it fatwa – it was the same cultural practice taking different institutional forms. The problem was the practice. The media became obsessed with the form; happy yet again to make “Muslim” out of the issue.

Muslim women in India are somehow seen (or constructed) as more in the thrall of religious practices than women of any other community; more debilitated by their religion and more in need of rescue than women of any other community. Lila Abu-Lughod’s book, Do Muslim Women Need Saving? -- a critique of the Western political impulse to swoop down and rescue the homogenously constructed Muslim woman from her (diverse) cultures, is instructive.

Defined by religion

The deprivation experienced by Indian Muslims was acknowledged in the Sachar Report of 2006. But much as the poor are blamed for their own poverty (they are illiterate and have too many children), Muslims in classic perversion were apparently victims largely of their own making; victimised by an archaic religion.

Question: Why do Muslims have low literacy? Answer: Islam, shariat, medieval mindsets. So Muslims have cavorted around in a national burlesque, bearing familiar, evil tropes (mullahs, burqas, beards, fatwas) and yes, the tragedy tropes – the lives of Muslim women.

To the exclusion of every other aspect of life such as income, jobs, education, caloric intake, sense of security, and freedom from the lynch mob, the Indian Muslim’s empowerment horizon seems to start and end at the rules of marriage and right to divorce. Never mind that Muslim women too need the right to life, security, jobs, education and sufficient caloric intake, in addition to liberation from talaq-e-bidat.

Access to justice when faced with violence, and equal rights to development such as education, housing, employment and expansion of choices – both visibly absent today – affect Muslim women’s lives in terrible ways. The existence of one (violence) and failure of state redress, severely compromises their ability to access the other (development, personal freedom).

And it is the collapsing promise of the Indian state, and its rapidly shrinking role in the life of the Muslim citizen that bears large blame for the expansion of a patriarchal clergy in community spaces.

Long road ahead

So, is personal law a valid site for intervention towards gender justice for Muslim women? Yes. But neither is it the sole nor most important one. Just a step on a road.

The celebrations in the air seem to disingenuously suggest that oppressive personal laws are the only thing standing between Muslim women and happy lives. Rubbish. 61 years of a reformed and codified Hindu personal law has not exactly made Hindu women the poster girls of empowerment.

Though the intent is noble, the nation cannot swoop in to save the Muslim woman, while Muslim communities are simultaneously being brought to their knees. The Constitution is not a playbook from which you cherry-pick. That is what we really need to be tweeting about today.

This article was first published on Scroll and has been reproduced with permission.

“If I were a bird… my wings would be very large. So I can fly very very far. Then I will be friends with all the planets, even Jupiter. I will fly and visit them every day. I play with them … and dance sometimes…”

I had given Aafiya the prompt “If I were a bird…” for her five-minute English speech assessment as per the school midterm requirement. I smiled as I read the ideas she was coming up with in her draft. There are few things as special as being allowed inside the imagination of a child.

Until Aafiya’s presentation on Thursday, I boasted to my colleagues, my family and my friends about my brilliant 6th grader in an NGO school in Karachi where I taught. I would emphasise how she was far behind her grade level in English but was nonetheless trying to express herself and just how cute Aafiya’s speech was going to be.

On that Thursday, Aafiya began: “If I were a bird I would be a parrot. I would be green colour. I would fly. I would have two feet. I would have one beak. My name would be Polly. I would eat chili and guava. I would copy and talk like people…”

Aafiya had changed her speech. It wasn’t a bad speech, but it wasn’t the speech where she would cheerfully glide through the solar system. I felt let down but encouraged and praised her nonetheless. When I asked her after school—out of a nagging disappointment and curiosity—what made her change the content of her speech, she stared at me blankly.

Perhaps, she didn’t know the answer. Perhaps, my tone gave away my disappointment despite my conscious efforts to hide it. Perhaps, my questioning confused her because she thought she was giving a safe speech, one that I would like better.

Safe. That’s how most of my students were being taught to play life. It was when I started teaching class nine that this observation hit me hardest. We read a chapter on Mohenjo-daro from a book that hasn’t changed in 60 years. My students answered comprehension questions that my parents had answered when they were in class nine. My students copied those answers from a guide book that they purchased from a second-hand book store, because the guide book answers, unlike their own answers, were guaranteed safe.

I was to learn that Aafiya changed the content of her speech on her private tutor’s insistence who had told her that her original ideas and grammar weren’t “sahih”. In fact, she had written all of Aafiya’s speech. She had told Aafiya that her ideas about flying to and visiting planets had nothing to do with being a bird and a speech about birds should be about the bird itself.

The technicalities and mechanics of speaking, thinking, and birds—that’s what Aafiya learnt through this exercise. But she also learnt a few more unfortunate lessons:

Compliance.
That it is always better to conform.
That her thoughts are immature at best and unimportant at worst.
That as a younger person she didn’t know. And had to be told.
That it is best to be a standard green parrot who mimics the speech of others.

I wish I had sat down with Aafiya to validate her original ideas and work with her to develop her initial speech. I wish I had worked with her so that she could know what it looks like to see one’s own thoughts in writing— what it feels like to name one’s imaginings.

I grew up—in extreme privilege—reading and writing English stories with non-Pakistani characters and non-Pakistani issues: about girl scouts and camping and eating brownies. When I didn’t want to write about Rachels or Erics in California—because everybody else was writing about them—I wrote about ambiguous Chizari (a combination of China, Zara, and Riyadh—a country I wanted to visit, my name, and my place of birth respectively) who lived in Kurami (a mysterious sounding non-sense word that just popped in my head at the time).

And then one day I wrote a story completely about myself. I wrote about dealing with my grandmother’s death. I wrote my father’s life stories. The time I was saddest and happiest, and most scared. Sometimes my protagonist was fictional but I made her see what I saw. Hear what I heard. Writing offered me comfort, therapy, a sense of shedding a heavy weight, and the opportunity to create something. It allowed me to respect and love my identity.

And if there is one thing I hope my students took from me it is that they and everything about their identity matters. Their likes and dislikes, their imagination, their humour, their fears, their exhilarations, their love, and their mistakes… all matter. Tremendously.

A just society not only requires the marginalised to know and be vocal about their oppressions as well their rights, but it is even more important that the privileged form alliances to work with disadvantaged groups in their struggles for justice. It is my faith in this idea that makes me emphasise the need for us to appreciate every students’ experiences and intuitions.

My third-generation Bengali refugee students.
My Punjabi Christian students.
My high achieving seventh grader who had to drop out of school to earn for his family.
Rabia, who had watched her father be murdered.
Saleema, who had watched her father murder.
Mahrukh, who never wore a clean uniform.
Fahim, who saw a dead body on his way to school one day and was told never to talk about it again.

These students and many more must tell their stories over and over again, spamming the world with their voice. And those of us in positions of relative power must not only guard those voices from being silenced but make space for those voices to be amplified and honoured.

I would get so caught up in telling my students what they need to know for their exams that I would neglect to tell them that what they already know in life through their experiences is just as significant, if not more. If they don’t write their stories, then who will? And if we don’t teach them to write those stories… who will?

As teachers we should never doubt both the subtle and overt privilege, power and ability we hold for facilitating social change. We have to learn to listen to our students’ stories—and their silence.

Whether it is English, Urdu, or any other subject, we need to find ways to teach our students to start gathering knowledge from within themselves first. It will help them to stay in touch with and value the human that they are and through that, the human that everyone else is.

Their ethnicities, their faiths, their traditions, their gender, their languages… all matter. Immensely. Their hunger. Their lack of sleep. Their forced migrations. Their shrimp-peeling nails. Their glass-dust inhaling lungs. The acrid contaminated gund-factory* air that lives on their skin. It all matters. Severely.

*Gund-factories process dead animals and animal by-products to produce low grade oil and fodder for livestock, creating and spreading a nauseating stench that engulfs large areas of its surrounding neighbourhoods. This included my school.

All names have been changed for privacy.

Do you work in the education sector or have contributed to social change in any other way? Write to us at blog@dawn.com

There are times, and places, when you walk around with brain fog. It is so thick that the PhD you’ve recently finished on young Pakistanis becomes the thing you want most to burn. The amazing boy you’ve been waiting for all your life is the one from whom you querulously run away, only to find yourself breathing less easily. The family you come home to is the one you ignore by sleeping early at night and avoiding all of the next day. The days are marked not by the presence of real humans, but your oldest friend – Doubt.

Karachi, Pakistan’s largest metropolis, received another spell of monsoon rains toward the end of last month. More than 20 people died, majority of them from electrocution.

Different parts of the city such as North Karachi, North Nazimabad, Drigh Road, NIPA, Orangi, Malir, Northern Bypass, and colonies located on either side of one of the city's longest drains, the Gujjar Nala, were inundated with rainwater. Many underpasses were inaccessible as they were completely submerged.

The severe rains caused a breach in Thado Dam, located in the Kirthar mountains, that initially flooded the Super Highway, country's busiest artery that connects Karachi with the rest of Pakistan. Gusty waters then entered into Gadap town and inundated Amir Bux and Usman Khaskheli goths, and later flooded Saadi Town.

This is not the first time Karachi has witnessed urban flooding. Since 2000, it has happened five times, in 2006, 2011, 2012, 2013 and now this year.

The areas most prone to flooding include Sharifabad and Gareeabad in Liaquatabad Town, Nagan, Ghulshan-e-Mayamar, Azizabad, Safoora Goth, Burns Road, Tower, Kharadar, Khada Market and Machar Colony in Lyari, parts of Saddar, Shahrah-e-Faisal, airport, Gulshan-e-Hadeed, Malir, and Shah Faisal Town.

Karachi faces the threat of urban flooding mainly due to unrestrained housing, encroachments on natural waterways, and dumping of solid waste into stormwater drains.

Dr Qamar-uz-Zaman, former director general of the Meteorological Department of Pakistan, tells me if we let people build homes wherever they want without any planning, then we should expect severe urban flooding each time it rains.

According to Dr Zaman, many of the incoming migrants to Karachi are actually climate refugees. Due to lack of rains or other changes in the weather pattern, they are uprooted from their homes in different parts of the country and have no choice but to move to Karachi to find a source of income. Karachi, in fact, hosts the highest number of such migrants compared to any other city in Pakistan.

At the same time, Karachi is not equipped to provide for these incomers. The influx of climate migrants actually ends up worsening the conditions that lead to bigger climate-related problems.

The migrants live in slums that are mostly built on waterways or drains. Data collected by the Sindh Katchi Abadi Authority reveals that there are 5,639 slums in Karachi and majority of them are built alongside drains.

According to the Orangi Pilot Project, Karachi has 41 major drains – most of them stormwater drains – scattered across the city. These drains would normally bring rainwater from across the city to either the Lyari or Malir rivers, which would then drain the water into the Arabian Sea.

As the settlements keep swelling, the drains are encroached and narrowed, blocking the natural water paths. Drains are also choked since they have become sites for solid waste dumping. This is the main cause of urban flooding in Karachi.

Areas of Karachi most vulnerable to flooding

Climate change is only going to amplify the danger. Dr Zaman also tells me that the variability in weather patterns has put Karachi on the hit list. The city is now receiving average rain of four months just in one day. We are simply not prepared for the change in climate.

Given the city’s lack of planning, major urban design flaws and weak regulation, Karachi is simply not prepared for the changing climate. Urban flooding is most likely to become a more serious issue, affecting tens of thousands and millions more indirectly.

Dr Noman Ahmed, head of the Department of Architecture and Planning at the NED University of Engineering and Technology, qualifies urban flooding as failure of urban planning. He points out that there actually hasn’t been a government body over the past five or six years to clean the drains.

He informs me that after the 2012 floods in Karachi, a study was conducted that pointed out all the causes, but the government didn’t pay any attention. He also suggests that every year before the monsoon, at least the drains should be cleaned to mitigate the floods to some extent.

The urban sprawl has also led to a depleted forest cover and green spaces in Karachi. Concrete doesn’t allow for water to be absorbed into the ground and the fast-disappearing mangrove forests and swamplands mean that there is very little that holds water naturally in the city.

While it may take some years for us to know if monsoon patterns have changed for good, what is for sure is that Karachi’s long-standing problem of almost-absent urban planning is the biggest reason for the mini-disaster we saw last month. If Karachi is left abandoned and the climate continues to take a turn for the worst, the disasters will only get bigger.

Karachi isn’t just a city. It’s an experience. Anyone who’s lived in Karachi knows that there isn’t a city that offers better biryani. The chai dhabas here are unparalleled. We have our own lord and saviour, guarding us against the mighty ocean, whose brother protects the nearby island of Manora. Simply, once you go to K-town, the other towns let you down. Not always though. And certainly not for people living with disabilities.

I recently came back from the US after having spent a semester there, during which I also had the privilege to travel across the country and visit many cities. I have actually seen more of the US than Pakistan, where I spent 23 years of my life before going anywhere abroad. This is because the US has better accessibility for people such as myself who need a wheelchair to move around.

Wheelchair accessibility, I’ve learned, is not usually part of our nation’s social consciousness. This becomes apparent when one visits another part of the world where enabling the disabled is very much part of that society.

When I was in the US, my mentor showed me how the buses worked there. I knew how they worked in theory, so experiencing a bus ride was not experiencing something I was entirely unaware of. Yet, to say that I did not feel elated when I rode the bus, would be a lie.

The fact that I could take a bus on my own was liberating. I once missed my flight to Austin and had to take a bus back home alone. And I was able to do it all by myself.

I was living on campus, at a public university, where my apartment was especially made for wheelchair accessibility. Not only was I living on my own for the first time, I was also responsible for taking care of the house and doing every chore myself. Obviously, I met some amazing people who helped me whenever I needed, but the point is, I was able to live on my own.

I visited two other public universities in different states. Their covered area was comparable to University of Karachi; the only difference was that I was able to make it to one end of the campus from another without assistance.

This is something I cannot do in Karachi. Being in the US—or rather, coming back—made me realise that disability is not a medical problem. It is a design problem.

That much was obvious when I recently visited the University of Karachi for the first time. Seeing the place made me sad.

It is I think the largest university in Karachi in terms of area with 1,279 acres of campus space, but also the most poorly designed. It seems as if the French modernist Michel Ecochard, the original architect of the university, missed a crucial lesson on inclusivity.

A student there told me that “for a wheelchair user, not only is it really difficult but sometimes impossible to manage in KU.” Such a student is rendered incapable of moving around independently because there are no ramps, or for that matter, sidewalks.

He went on to say, “In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences building [where my classes are held], barriers are erected at regular intervals to stop motorbikes, hence wheelchair mobility is difficult. I have no choice but to get off the wheelchair [in order to cross the barrier]. I usually have a friend with me but it’s difficult for one person alone to help me out.”

Since his classes and restrooms are on the ground floor, at least he doesn't have to climb stairs. However, he also mentioned that “there are some departments that have their classes on the second and/or the third floor. Now how will a person, who cannot climb stairs, go to class every day?”

Also read: Living colours: Strength not bound to a wheelchair

I learned that the university plans to construct the Department of Visual Studies at KU. It is imperative that accessibility be kept in mind. It would also be wise to make all of KU wheelchair accessible as it will go a long way in making life easier for many of the students, faculty, and staff.

I wish my own university in Karachi had done so when I was a student. Back in my first year, we had to put up a bookshelf in a nearby park as an urban intervention for one of our courses. Of all the six people in our group, only I chose to not be physically present at the park because of poor accessibility.

This was some years ago and not much has changed in this time. Most parks still remain inaccessible. Even when parks are revitalised, accessibility is not prioritised. Privately-run water parks, which are built from the ground up with millions of rupees, oftentimes have zero accessibility.

That is not to say that Karachi does not have wheelchair friendly places at all. However, the spaces that are (partially) accessible, like T2F, happen to be in a part of the city where not everyone can reach. There is a need to replicate models like T2F in other areas and prioritise accessibility while doing so.

It would have been welcoming, and a sign of meaningful allyship, for example, had the people behind the Pakistan Chowk Community Centre and TDF Ghar incorporated accessibility in the renovation design as much as logistically possible. However, these would do well to address the issue at a micro level only. There needs to be state intervention for real impact.

Tragically, the Karachi Strategic Development Plan 2020, formulated in 2007, with the vision of “Transforming Karachi into a world class city and attractive economic centre with a decent life for Karachiites,” has no mention of improving accessibility for people with disabilities. Apparently, Karachiites with disabilities, like the poor, do not deserve strategic development and a decent life.

We have also been forgotten by the Karachi Metrobus project. The BRT network currently under construction aims to provide ‘mobility’ to as many Karachiites as possible. But there is little or no mention of improving accessibility, and mobility, for wheelchair users.

Billions of rupees are being spent on this endeavour. Therefore, the argument that accessibility is expensive is rendered naught. If in this project, accessibility for wheelchair users is not taken into account, then it means that those in power are deliberately or unknowingly ignoring the needs of wheelchair users.

Related: When will the state enable our differently-abled?

Such is the extent of the lack of inclusivity, even for a deeply religious society such as Pakistan, that one will hardly find mosques that welcome their disabled brethren.

In our part of the world, it is common practice to ask people with disabilities to pray for others. People meet me everyday, asking me to pray for them.

They do not mean to mock me, and I realise that. But there is one small matter: people who ask people with disabilities to pray for them do not realise that almost all mosques in the city are inaccessible.

Furthermore, there are many instances where I am deprived of the basic right to partake in Karachi’s favourite past-time: eating out. Karachi has some amazing food streets like Hussainabad, Burns Road, Boat Basin, and Mohammad Ali Society to name a few. With incredible food, however, comes incredible inaccessibility. Very few places, if any at all, are accessible for wheelchair-users.

There are places which, despite having resources, do not think about inclusivity. Banks, for example, have, for the most part, chosen to ignore State Bank’s orders for improving accessibility.

According to estimates published last year, people with disabilities comprise around 5 per cent of the population of Pakistan, more than half of which live in urban areas.

However, for all the attractions urban areas have to offer, we have not managed to make even one Pakistani city fully accessible, even though we have policies like the 2002 National Policy for Persons with Disabilities whose number one aim is to “Provide access to facilities which may lead to [people with disabilities’] integration and mainstreaming in all spheres of life,” and to “ensure that they are able to enjoy their rights and opportunities as other citizens do.”

Building a ramp is not expensive. A ramp is not just a ramp. It is also a political statement. It is a way of telling wheelchair users that they are welcome. By the same measure, not providing accessible sends out the message that the place belongs to the able-bodied only.

Have you ever felt marginalised by society owing to your disabilities? Share your experiences with us at blog@dawn.com

This article was originally published on October 7, 2015.

As a TV anchor, I'll readily admit that our electronic media neglects covering Pak-Afghan relations. Why? Because it will not bring in ratings.

This is also part of the reason why Pakistan’s biggest TV channels have few to no correspondents in Kabul or other cities in Afghanistan.

In fact, it is not even considered ‘newsworthy’ to report on our neighbour unless either of the two states (always better when both) indulge in a blame game on the security front.

I decided I would address this gap by visiting Kabul myself. I wanted to learn more about the perceptions of Afghan people. I also wanted to meet with politicians and social workers to understand the trust deficit between our two countries.

Landing

First impression: the Kabul International Airport looked like a US air base. I was immediately approached by a member of the airport staff who started conversing in Urdu; this put me instantly at ease. Unfortunately, this welcome was short-lived as I reached the security checkpoint.

I said I was Pakistani. They said I should remove my shoes. My luggage was carefully scrutinised. And there was a very, very long list of questions. This was repeated at all subsequent security checks.

And this was just the start. I stayed in Afghanistan for eight days. My time there consisted mostly of short interviews, off record and on record interactions, and some rather alarming exchanges with sources who requested anonymity, of course.

Each call that I made to coordinate my scheduled interviews carried an often hostile undertone.

‘…I am a Pakistani journalist.

No, I am not an ISI agent.

I am in Afghanistan for work.

I am a journalist…’

A specific hatred

The current mood in Kabul is quite anti-Pakistan, or to be more precise, anti-ISI. Most Afghans do not hate Pakistan per se, but the ISI, they staunchly believe, supports the Afghan Taliban and has vested interests in destabilising their country. While the ISI was berated by many, whenever I asked for specifics, I only got half-stories, hearsay and no evidence.

Examine: ISI officer involved in Kabul parliament attack, claims Afghan intelligence

The National Directorate of Security (NDS) and the government of Afghanistan blame Pakistan for almost every security dilemma.

Indian intelligence, on the other hand, has close relations with Afghan intelligence. I learn that being on good terms with the Indian embassy in Kabul can really help you gain the trust of the Afghan interior ministry.

On the condition of anonymity, a senior politician (a jihadi in the past) told me that the national unity government in Afghanistan did not understand the importance of 'good relations' with the ISI. He stressed that Afghanistan needed to prioritise its relations in the region, which just wasn't happening.

In his view, Pakistan was not handling the matter of talks very well either. What they are doing under the table must be stopped, he said cryptically, before adding that the NDS and the government did not trust him and that he openly admitted to being pro-Pakistan.

This politician told me about his private meetings with Afghan President Ashraf Ghani. He said, “Ghani panics a lot,” and that the president could not bear pressure. He further said that the MOU between Afghan and Pakistani intelligence was not impacting the trust deficit between the ISI and the NDS. For him, the solution lay in the policies and decision-making power of the Afghan government; the frequent change in diplomatic and political inclinations was damaging to foreign policy.

The Afghan journalist

I met a few Afghan journalists who wanted to work in Islamabad, but security clearance procedures were proving too troublesome.

A journalist is considered an agent in both states.

Afghan TV channels do not have any bureaus in Islamabad, and proposals for their establishment are lying in the dust. Officials from the Afghan foreign ministry told me that they had thrice requested Pakistan’s Minister for Information, Pervaiz Rasheed that they wanted to work with Pakistan's state TV on positive image-building (an effort which could be extended to private channels), but they have yet to receive a response.

The journalist community in Kabul is of the view that the two countries should build better relations with each other. In their view, miscreants in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are actively working to prevent this.

I was told that whenever journalists from Pakistan come to work here, they are harassed by the NDS. I believe Afghan journalists must face the same problem in Pakistan.

Explore: At UN, Afghan leader calls on Pakistan to crack down on terror outfits

Security and military reasons aside, I discovered another dimension of Afghanistan's tilt towards India when I learned that over 150 Indian journalists are currently working in Afghanistan. You will hardly find any Pakistani journalists working on important stories.

With this kind of people-to-people contact, no wonder Afghans trust Indians. For my own security, I was suggested not to reveal my nationality while interacting with the local public, though I did not follow that advice.

The Afghan social worker

I also met Afghan women social activists, who wanted bold decisions from their government. They did not believe in enforced brotherhoods and wanted a globalised, progressive and modern Afghanistan. They did however think that a pro-Pakistan attitude was never useful to them and that Pakistan had actually used them.

Fatana Gilani is a famous social activist who has been working for women empowerment for 30 years. She runs more than 50 vocational institutes for women; empowering Afghan women through education.

She said, "I love the women of Pakistan. We share the same culture. We live so close. But what about the role of the Pakistani government? Why does Pakistan support Taliban? Who created the Taliban? My efforts for women will not stop, but at the same time, I cannot ignore the factors which hinder our progress. Pakistan should not support the Taliban."

I even got access to the Afghan Taliban, though it wasn't easy, as they avoid talking to women. The aged man spoke of the Islamic State, the threat it posed, and how Pakistan may resultantly lose its influence on strategic policy in the region.

When I spoke to Afghan government officials, they avoided the camera, and the reason was straightforward: “It won't be right to give an interview to a Pakistani journalist right now.” I got diplomatic (empty) answers to most of my questions.

For the Afghan government, a porous border is not the bone of contention; it is the alleged sanctuaries of Afghan Taliban in Pakistan which are unacceptable. My observation is that they have no solution for border management, and it’s not even a major issue for them.

Dr Rangin Dadfar Spanta, former foreign minister and national security adviser to former Afghan President Hamid Karzai, shared the same sentiments.

“Pakistan is interfering in the internal matters of Afghanistan,” he said, citing a serious concern regarding Afghan Taliban crossing over from Pakistan. The ex-foreign minister further said that he was aware of the operation being carried out by the armed forces of Pakistan, but he believed it was not against the terrorists who attack them.

I asked him if Pakistan was indeed stabbing Afghanistan in the back, how would he explain the millions of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan? To this, he responded with surprising gratitude, thanking the Pakistani nation and the government for keeping and facilitating the refugees.

Take a look: Afghan refugees ‘all praise’ for Pakistan

Meanwhile, responding to Afghan allegations like the above, Pakistani ambassador in Kabul Ibrar Hussain was of the view that Pakistan cannot open so many fronts at the same time, as the country is already busy fighting the internal threat of terrorism in Pakistan.

Pakistan is committed for peace and prosperity in Afghanistan, he said, which is why various landmark projects funded by the Pakistan government, like a hospital (US$60 million) and a boys hostel/school (US$ 10 million), are underway.

Pakistan and Afghanistan are losing valuable time and energy in their altercations against each other. Ufortunately, all this is happening at a policy-making level, and the effect is trickling down to innocent citizens, which in turn fuels widespread suspicion and hatred.

To sum up my sojourn, I would say that the ties between Pakistan and Afghanistan are complex, but can be overcome with rationale rather than emotional responses based on the past. Those in Kabul, and those in Islamabad need to step outside of the bubbles they have decided to live in.

Pakistan has been deprived of international cricket for so long that its youth no longer remembers the taste of a home victory. Stadiums are seldom lit up anymore and stands that once brimmed with fans and flags now remain empty. Our players have to travel to foreign lands all year, longing for that cheerful noise of a home crowd.

From time to time, news of a possible home series floats around but doesn't materialise. Now, after eight long years, Pakistan is set to host the Independence Cup 2017 – a series that may well mark the homecoming of international cricket.

Pakistan will face the ICC World XI for a series of three T20 internationals. The matches will be staged at Gaddafi Stadium, Lahore on 12th, 13th and 15th September, 2017.

First came the Zimbabweans to Lahore and got cheered like they were playing in Harare. Then came Darren Sammy and celebrated near Liberty Chowk like he was from Peshawar, and had conquered Quetta (he had).

Now an ICC World XI is set to play at the Gaddafi Stadium under towering lights against Pakistan’s best XI in a series that holds international status.

Pakistan’s long and hard roadmap to international cricket has been paved in the same city where the terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan national team and turned the clock back on Pakistan cricket by a decade.

But the vision and persistence of the PCB administration under Najam Sethi has made its biggest headway yet in bringing international cricket back to Pakistan, to his hometown, Lahore.

The UBL Independence Cup 2017 is a heart-warming display of world solidarity with Pakistan cricket. Players from seven nations with a combined total of six World T20 titles under their belt and a cumulative experience of 510 international T20 games will hold centre stage in front of a cricket-mad Pakistani audience.

This is the first time an ICC World XI will play an official T20 international game against a member nation. In the only other international instance, an ICC World XI was put up against a formidable Australian outfit in 2005. Australia won the solitary Test by 201 runs and clean swept the ODI series 3-0 Down Under. It was a team at the peak of its powers, in a time it ruled in, against a generation it bullied.

Yet, it is still difficult for a combined star-studded team to play against a regular national team that has played and practiced together for a longer period. However, in cricket’s shortest format, impact players can change the course of the game in a matter of a few overs, if not balls. And the ICC World XI sent to Pakistan has plenty of them.

The UBL Independence Cup 2017 is a heart-warming display of world solidarity with Pakistan cricket.

The World XI is a formidable batting line up that consists the likes of South African run machine Hashim Amla, Australian George Bailey, Paul Collinwood of England, Tamim Iqbal from Bangladesh, and West Indian star Darren Sammy. Five ex-national captains (and currently active cricketers) of five different countries will be led by current South African Captain Faf du Plessis.

The PCB through a mix package of incentives has reeled in these players. Not only are they aiding the noble cause of reviving international cricket in Pakistan, each squad member is expected to receive in the vicinity of $100,000 for their services.

While Grant Elliott, who is poised to become the first New Zealand cricketer to play an international match in Pakistan for more than 13 years, said "I'm also excited about some opportunities which might open up with the Lahore owners. They've just bought the Durban Qalanders franchise in South Africa, and I will be their assistant coach in November-December [for the inaugural Global League].”

Imran Tahir, who will go in the game as the leading wicket taker with 55 international T20 scalps, will also go through a different kind of emotion. He was born in Lahore, grew up here and is the son of this soil. He too will play his first international game in Pakistan, but against the country of his birth.

After allegedly facing difficulties at the Pakistan consulate in Birmingham recently, it will be interesting to see the backlash he gets from an unforgiving Pakistani crowd, especially if and when he celebrates a wicket in his trademark style.

Some intriguing contests between bat and ball are set to fuel the hi-octane series. Pakistan will rely on its bowling to contain a power-house batting line up of the World XI.

Pakistan’s ace fast bowler Mohammad Amir is likely to miss part, if not all, of the games as he is currently with his wife in England. They wait for their first-born to arrive, potentially this week.

However, his partner-in-crime on the pitch Hasan Ali has his adrenalin pumping and his eyes set. “The World XI is a good team, it has very good players, I will try to bowl well to all of them. Especially I would like to bowl out brother Hashim Amla, it would give me more pleasure," said young Hasan.

Given the track record of Gaddafi Stadium, high-scoring encounters can be expected with teams finding it difficult to stop the flow of runs.

Pakistan is in the phase of rebuilding a new team under the inspirational leadership of Sarfraz Ahmed and this series should help them further gel as a unit. Only three members of Pakistan's squad have played international cricket in Pakistan: Sarfraz Ahmed, Shoaib Malik and Sohail Khan.

Giles Clarke, the president of the England and Wales Cricket Board, who heads the ICC’s Pakistan Task Force, hit the nail on the head and said, “the terrorists cannot win and cricket must not give up on Pakistan.”

Believe it or not, international cricket has come back to Pakistan.

Fixtures:


Pakistan vs World XI, 1st T20I, Lahore September 12, Tuesday
Pakistan vs World XI, 2nd T20I, Lahore September 13, Wednesday
Pakistan vs World XI, 3rd T20I, Lahore September 15, Friday

Pakistan squad: Sarfraz Ahmed, Fakhar Zaman, Ahmed Shehzad, Babar Azam, Shoaib Malik, Umar Amin, Imad Wasim, Shadab Khan, Mohammad Nawaz, Fahim Ashraf, Hasan Ali, Aamer Yamin, Mohammad Amir, Rumman Raees, Usman Khan, Sohail Khan

World XI squad: Faf du Plessis, Hashim Amla, George Bailey, Paul Collingwood, Ben Cutting, George Elliott, Tamim Iqbal, David Miller, Tim Paine, Thisara Perera, Darren Sammy, Samuel Badree, Morne Morkel, Imran Tahir

Have you been part of memorable sporting events in any way? Share your experiences with us at blog@dawn.com

“Are you Chinese?” I have been asked many times, owing to my physical appearance.

On hearing “no”, they would ask me: “You must be from Hunza, then?”

“No, I am from Quetta,” I would answer.

Their next guess would instantly be: “Then obviously you are a Pathan…”

“No, I am a Hazara.”

“Oh! So you are one of the people who are being persecuted.”

Persecuted. It is so painful to hear this every time I introduce myself. My friends, too, face the same situation when meeting someone new.

Incidents such as the one a few days ago in which members of a Hazara family travelling to Quetta from Chaman were fired upon, killing four of them, including a 12-year-old boy, have become part and parcel of what it is to belong to our community.

Be that as it may, the Hazaras, a long-oppressed and marginalised people, are also a very resilient one. Despite living with a sword hanging above our heads, we choose to look past the blood and bullets and attempt to have (with some strange measure of success) a semblance of a normal life.

Thus, I was driven to tell the story of my people and my surroundings. For that I launched a project called Humara Mohallah, which shows different neighbourhoods in Pakistan in interesting and relatable ways through visual storytelling.

Also read: Pakistan's stepchildren

One such story, titled What we leave behind, is an attempt to show the Hazara community in Quetta persevering in the face of the inequities they face. It showcases the people who have been ravaged by the ongoing terrorism for nearly two decades.

The wanton persecution has prevented them not only from promoting their culture, but also severely hampered their participation in civic and public life.

The community is confined to a handful areas of the city: Alamdar Road and Hazara Town. It is a prison in the guise of a sanctuary.

The video features a graveyard, filled with the bodies of the people who have died in terrorist attacks and targeted-killings over the years. The story, however, is not just about the graveyard.

It tells much more — about a people who have repurposed the graveyard into a community centre, making it an integral part of their daily lives. A place of reflection, recreation, and ultimate destination, if you will.

A unique and beautiful graveyard where everyone’s loved ones are buried is the same place where a great many memorable moments are spent.

Having always been symbolised as a place of fear and unease, the word graveyard typically brings an almost irrational terror to one’s heart.

However, defying all conventional definitions of a cemetery stands Quetta’s Hazara graveyard: the Bihisht-e-Zainab.

Here, happiness begins from being amongst the dead. The locals celebrate Eid by going to the graveyard and remembering the loved ones they have lost —some souls lost to age, some to illness, while others ripped away at the end of a barrel.

Related: Living in the shadows: A Hazara man finds solace in poetry

Due to the lack of parks — or any other place to hang out — each day begins with a group of men and women making their morning rounds in the graveyard premises.

As the sun rises, the rejuvenating light chases away the dark insecurities of the night, and life begins anew, the deafening song of birds shattering the stillness of the cemetery.

When the clock strikes 10, the vegetable market — located within it — gets filled with women and one can hear the pleasurable sounds of their bangles jingling complemented with the sweet, chirping of their voices.

Along with these women, children can also be seen playing and their elated shrieks fill the atmosphere with a sense of community. A sense of belonging. An illusion of peace.

One day I met an old man passing by on a street in the graveyard. I found myself compelled to strike a conversation with him. I asked the man where he was off to, to which he replied, “I’ve brought my grandson for an outing so his mother can perform her household chores in peace.” The child was gleefully absorbing the sights and sounds from his pram, feeling at home in the resting place of his forefathers.

Just a few paces away from there, some old men sit languidly under the tranquil shade of trees every day, and reminisce about their fascinating past, no doubt one-upping each other, trading barbs or just sharing stories of happiness and heartaches.

The evening brings with it the most important activity of the day. The stones that are used to mark the graves are given a decidedly less morbid purpose. They are used as an accessory in the game of Sang Girag which the people of Hazara have been playing for centuries.

In the game, two teams of three to five players hold smooth round stones — typically the size of a cricket ball — and turn by turn, hurl them at a cylindrical target called a qarqa. Striking the qarqa gets you a point. The team that is the first to reach 10 points is declared the winner.

People of all ages partake in the action, even octogenarians. Others sit and watch, cheering for the ones they support and laughing at every misstep, many holding prayer beads in their hands.

As night falls, like clockwork, the people make their way back through the pathways of the graveyard that branch off to their respective homes, only to return the next morning to add soul to what would have otherwise been a place devoid of life.

One might wonder why a cemetery has been chosen for the purpose of community building. Due to the widespread fear of being attacked, the people largely do not leave their homes and instead find comfort in a place nearby.

The graveyard offers the distinct advantage of providing a safe space for people to gather as it is guarded by mountains on three sides and the streets all lead straight to their homes.

Though craggy stone, the dry, gray behemoths are perpetual sentries, proving to be effective protection for a people who have been forced to rely on inanimate objects and natural escape routes for their safety.

More than a century old, the graveyard, which once saw only a handful of visitors, now sees an entire community making full use of the only escape they have and, ironically, celebrating their lives among the dead, defiant in the face of systematic ethnic and sectarian attacks and hatred.

As narrated to Sameen Daud Khan, who put it together in the form of a blog.

Do you belong to an ethnic minority in Pakistan? Share your experience as a Pakistani citizen with us at blog@dawn.com

“Are you Chinese?” I have been asked many times, owing to my physical appearance.

On hearing “no”, they would ask me: “You must be from Hunza, then?”

“No, I am from Quetta,” I would answer.

Their next guess would instantly be: “Then obviously you are a Pathan…”

“No, I am a Hazara.”

“Oh! So you are one of the people who are being persecuted.”

Persecuted. It is so painful to hear this every time I introduce myself. My friends, too, face the same situation when meeting someone new.

Incidents such as the one a few days ago in which members of a Hazara family travelling to Quetta from Chaman were fired upon, killing four of them, including a 12-year-old boy, have become part and parcel of what it is to belong to our community.

Be that as it may, the Hazaras, a long-oppressed and marginalised people, are also a very resilient one. Despite living with a sword hanging above our heads, we choose to look past the blood and bullets and attempt to have (with some strange measure of success) a semblance of a normal life.

Thus, I was driven to tell the story of my people and my surroundings. For that I launched a project called Humara Mohallah, which shows different neighbourhoods in Pakistan in interesting and relatable ways through visual storytelling.

Also read: Pakistan's stepchildren

One such story, titled What we leave behind, is an attempt to show the Hazara community in Quetta persevering in the face of the inequities they face. It showcases the people who have been ravaged by the ongoing terrorism for nearly two decades.

The wanton persecution has prevented them not only from promoting their culture, but also severely hampered their participation in civic and public life.

The community is confined to a handful areas of the city: Alamdar Road and Hazara Town. It is a prison in the guise of a sanctuary.

The video features a graveyard, filled with the bodies of the people who have died in terrorist attacks and targeted-killings over the years. The story, however, is not just about the graveyard.

It tells much more — about a people who have repurposed the graveyard into a community centre, making it an integral part of their daily lives. A place of reflection, recreation, and ultimate destination, if you will.

A unique and beautiful graveyard where everyone’s loved ones are buried is the same place where a great many memorable moments are spent.

Having always been symbolised as a place of fear and unease, the word graveyard typically brings an almost irrational terror to one’s heart.

However, defying all conventional definitions of a cemetery stands Quetta’s Hazara graveyard: the Bihisht-e-Zainab.

Here, happiness begins from being amongst the dead. The locals celebrate Eid by going to the graveyard and remembering the loved ones they have lost —some souls lost to age, some to illness, while others ripped away at the end of a barrel.

Related: Living in the shadows: A Hazara man finds solace in poetry

Due to the lack of parks — or any other place to hang out — each day begins with a group of men and women making their morning rounds in the graveyard premises.

As the sun rises, the rejuvenating light chases away the dark insecurities of the night, and life begins anew, the deafening song of birds shattering the stillness of the cemetery.

When the clock strikes 10, the vegetable market — located within it — gets filled with women and one can hear the pleasurable sounds of their bangles jingling complemented with the sweet, chirping of their voices.

Along with these women, children can also be seen playing and their elated shrieks fill the atmosphere with a sense of community. A sense of belonging. An illusion of peace.

One day I met an old man passing by on a street in the graveyard. I found myself compelled to strike a conversation with him. I asked the man where he was off to, to which he replied, “I’ve brought my grandson for an outing so his mother can perform her household chores in peace.” The child was gleefully absorbing the sights and sounds from his pram, feeling at home in the resting place of his forefathers.

Just a few paces away from there, some old men sit languidly under the tranquil shade of trees every day, and reminisce about their fascinating past, no doubt one-upping each other, trading barbs or just sharing stories of happiness and heartaches.

The evening brings with it the most important activity of the day. The stones that are used to mark the graves are given a decidedly less morbid purpose. They are used as an accessory in the game of Sang Girag which the Hazaras have been playing for centuries.

In the game, two teams of three to five players hold smooth round stones — typically the size of a cricket ball — and turn by turn, hurl them at a cylindrical target called a qarqa. Striking the qarqa gets you a point. The team that is the first to reach 10 points is declared the winner.

People of all ages partake in the action, even octogenarians. Others sit and watch, cheering for the ones they support and laughing at every misstep, many holding prayer beads in their hands.

As night falls, like clockwork, the people make their way back through the pathways of the graveyard that branch off to their respective homes, only to return the next morning to add soul to what would have otherwise been a place devoid of life.

One might wonder why a cemetery has been chosen for the purpose of community building. Due to the widespread fear of being attacked, the people largely do not leave their homes and instead find comfort in a place nearby.

The graveyard offers the distinct advantage of providing a safe space for people to gather as it is guarded by mountains on three sides and the streets all lead straight to their homes.

Though craggy stone, the dry, gray behemoths are perpetual sentries, proving to be effective protection for a people who have been forced to rely on inanimate objects and natural escape routes for their safety.

More than a century old, the graveyard, which once saw only a handful of visitors, now sees an entire community making full use of the only escape they have and, ironically, celebrating their lives among the dead, defiant in the face of systematic ethnic and sectarian attacks and hatred.

As narrated to Sameen Daud Khan, who put it together in the form of a blog.

Do you belong to an ethnic minority in Pakistan? Share your experience as a Pakistani citizen with us at blog@dawn.com

I was thrilled to learn that for the first time since the Equator Prize was launched by the United Nations Equator Initiative in 2002, an NGO from Pakistan has won the prestigious award for this year.

Every two years, the Equator Prize showcases from around the world community efforts that strive to relieve poverty through conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity.

The Baltistan Wildlife Conservation and Development Organization (BWCDO) is amongst the 15 organisations from across the world that will be awarded the 2017 Equator Prize.

BWCDO is working on the ground in 17 villages in Baltistan to protect endangered snow leopards through insurance schemes and financial compensation against livestock losses that result from snow leopard attacks.

They will receive their individual $10,000 award money in a high-profile ceremony to be held in New York on September 17 after a week-long summit during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly.

Before he left for New York, I spoke to Ghulam Mohammad, the General Manger of BWCDO. “Our NGO started working back in 1999 in Skardu with the local villagers on snow leopard conservation,” he told me.

He credits Dr Shafqat Hussain, associate professor of anthropology at Trinity College in Connecticut, US for establishing Project Snow Leopard in 1999 which successfully introduced a community-based livestock insurance scheme in one village in Baltistan.

That scheme later spread to 17 other villages in the region and in recognition for which, Dr Hussain also received the Rolex award for the environment in 2006.

“He is the one who decided to give incentives to the local farmers to save the snow leopards who attacked their livestock,” Mohammad said.

Since 2007, Project Snow Leopard has been incorporated into BWCDO and Dr Hussain continues to serve as the chairman of the board of directors of the organisation.

In this mountainous region, local farmers have a meager annual income of around $500 on average. Therefore, an attack by a snow leopard on a farmer’s livestock threatens the entire family’s livelihood (a snow leopard can kill up to 20 or 30 goats at a time).

In the past, farmers killed snow leopards after their herds were attacked. Now, damages are paid after verification through joint decisions between BWCDO and the Village Insurance Committees established for this purpose.

According to research done by BWCDO, around 10 snow leopards were killed throughout Gilgit-Baltistan per year between 1980 and 2000. Farmers used to kill snow leopards by poisoning the carcasses of their livestock.

Now, when a farmer loses livestock, he informs the Village Insurance Committee and BWCDO. This needs to be done within five days of the attack so that it is possible to visit and verify the claim.

The committee members then inspect the place where the livestock was killed to verify whether it was a snow leopard or a wolf attack. They look for any pugmarks and wounds on the dead animals – for example wolves usually eat from the stomach of their prey, whereas snow leopards attack the neck.

Once a claim has been verified by the committee, they inform BWCDO. Payment is made to the farmer by cheque. These payments are made from funds that have been collected from farmers’ premium payments and from BWCDO donations (25% from farmers and 75% from donations).

This co-finance arrangement ensures that farmers have a financial stake in the insurance scheme; they are co-owners of the programme.

The actual predation rate is about 2% of the total herd. This means that 2% of the total value of the herd needs to be raised through insurance premium to cover the risk.

Since the farmers are too poor to cover the entire risk from their own premium payments, BWCDO subsidises the premium payments to the tune of 50-80%.

Therefore, if the total worth of 10 goats is Rs 100,000 (that is, on average Rs 10,000 per goat) and the total loss rate is 2%, it means that ideally the villagers should generate Rs 2,000 from their premium.

This means that each goat’s premium is Rs 200. But BWCDO subsidises this and farmers end up paying only Rs 50-100 per goat. The Village Insurance Committee collects the premium payment from the farmers once a year.

Until now, the organisation has paid compensation for more than 280 livestock through more than 100 claims. A total of approximately $30,000 has been paid to farmers as compensation through the scheme.

BWCDO has further helped farmers by assisting them in making around 50 predator-proof corals (solid constructions of stone and wood which create a periphery around lifestock) and providing them training on improved herding techniques and livestock vaccination. They have also helped them construct water pipes, pony tracks and protective walls.

“These are small interventions but in these tough areas where we work so hard in the short summer seasons, they have proven to be very beneficial to the communities,” Mohammad said.

The communities living in these remote mountains are poor and BWCDO supports them with these important infrastructural projects as an incentive, and to encourage them to support their conservation goals.

Helping the villagers reduces the burden of losing livestock to snow leopards and makes them more willing to coexist with the animal.

BWCDO’s work has certainly won over the trust of the communities and created economic incentives for farmers not to harm the snow leopards.

The elusive snow leopard is an iconic species of this region (Central and South Asia) and prefers to live atop mountain forests and high altitude pastures.

Conservationists say snow leopards have been threatened by poaching, retaliatory killing by farmers, declining prey species, shrinking habitats, and climate change.

According to Mohammad, there are only around 300 to 400 snow leopards surviving in Pakistan today. Dr Hussain, who has been studying snow leopards for almost two decades now, says that although more research is needed, it seems that the snow leopard population in Pakistan has been stable over the past 15 years.

We have now a pretty good idea about how the snow leopard population is doing in Pakistan, thanks to advanced technology such as camera trapping and genetic tests on faeces left by snow leopards.

“I would say that 80% of these snow leopards in Pakistan are to be found in Gilgit-Baltistan – which means that about 80% of the snow leopards in Pakistan are found here – while the remaining are in Khyber Pakhtunkwa and Azad Jammu & Kashmir,” pointed out Mohammad.

Experts say the habitat range for snow leopards extends over nearly two million square kilometres, involving 12 countries in Central and northern Asia, including Pakistan.

Last month, scientists and leaders from the 12 countries who host snow leopard population gathered for the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Programme (GSLEP) at the Snow Leopard Forum in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to address conservation challenges.

According to Dr Tom McCarthy, the Snow Leopard Programme Director for Panthera, the global wildcat conservation organisation, "Experts from each country within the range were asked to come up with the best estimates of snow leopard population by country and the total was between 7,400 and 8,000 animals”. This figure is higher than what was previously thought.

Pakistan’s newly-appointed minister for climate change, Mushaidullah Khan, also attended the meeting. The minister is currently the chair of GSLEP’s steering committee.

According to the global protection programme, 20 landscapes of snow leopards shall be protected by the year 2020. Pakistan is included in these landscapes.

BWCDO’s work at the grassroots level is an excellent example of how partnering with local communities can lead to feasible solutions to preserve wildlife and local livelihoods, which in turn can protect landscapes.

“It really is a big honour for us to win the Equator Prize. Our confidence has grown tremendously,” Mohammad told me. “There were over 800 applications from 120 countries around the world and only 15 were chosen in the end. The recognition of our work is a remarkable feat.”

Are you part of any conservation efforts to save wildlife in Pakistan? Share your insight with us at blog@dawn.com

I was thrilled to learn that for the first time since the Equator Prize was launched by the United Nations Equator Initiative in 2002, an NGO from Pakistan has won the prestigious award for this year.

Every two years, the Equator Prize showcases from around the world community efforts that strive to relieve poverty through conservation and the sustainable use of biodiversity.

The Baltistan Wildlife Conservation and Development Organization (BWCDO) is amongst the 15 organisations from across the world that will be awarded the 2017 Equator Prize.

BWCDO is working on the ground in 17 villages in Baltistan to protect endangered snow leopards through insurance schemes and financial compensation against livestock losses that result from snow leopard attacks.

They will receive their individual $10,000 award money in a high-profile ceremony to be held in New York on September 17 after a week-long summit during the 72nd United Nations General Assembly.

Before he left for New York, I spoke to Ghulam Mohammad, the General Manger of BWCDO. “Our NGO started working back in 1999 in Skardu with the local villagers on snow leopard conservation,” he told me.

He credits Dr Shafqat Hussain, associate professor of anthropology at Trinity College in Connecticut, US for establishing Project Snow Leopard in 1999 which successfully introduced a community-based livestock insurance scheme in one village in Baltistan.

That scheme later spread to 17 other villages in the region and in recognition for which, Dr Hussain also received the Rolex award for the environment in 2006.

“He is the one who decided to give incentives to the local farmers to save the snow leopards who attacked their livestock,” Mohammad said.

Since 2007, Project Snow Leopard has been incorporated into BWCDO and Dr Hussain continues to serve as the chairman of the board of directors of the organisation.

In this mountainous region, local farmers have a meager annual income of around $500 on average. Therefore, an attack by a snow leopard on a farmer’s livestock threatens the entire family’s livelihood (a snow leopard can kill up to 20 or 30 goats at a time).

In the past, farmers killed snow leopards after their herds were attacked. Now, damages are paid after verification through joint decisions between BWCDO and the Village Insurance Committees established for this purpose.

According to research done by BWCDO, around 10 snow leopards were killed throughout Gilgit-Baltistan per year between 1980 and 2000. Farmers used to kill snow leopards by poisoning the carcasses of their livestock.

Now, when a farmer loses livestock, he informs the Village Insurance Committee and BWCDO. This needs to be done within five days of the attack so that it is possible to visit and verify the claim.

The committee members then inspect the place where the livestock was killed to verify whether it was a snow leopard or a wolf attack. They look for any pugmarks and wounds on the dead animals – for example wolves usually eat from the stomach of their prey, whereas snow leopards attack the neck.

Once a claim has been verified by the committee, they inform BWCDO. Payment is made to the farmer by cheque. These payments are made from funds that have been collected from farmers’ premium payments and from BWCDO donations (25% from farmers and 75% from donations).

This co-finance arrangement ensures that farmers have a financial stake in the insurance scheme; they are co-owners of the programme.

The actual predation rate is about 2% of the total herd. This means that 2% of the total value of the herd needs to be raised through insurance premium to cover the risk.

Since the farmers are too poor to cover the entire risk from their own premium payments, BWCDO subsidises the premium payments to the tune of 50-80%.

Therefore, if the total worth of 10 goats is Rs 100,000 (that is, on average Rs 10,000 per goat) and the total loss rate is 2%, it means that ideally the villagers should generate Rs 2,000 from their premium.

This means that each goat’s premium is Rs 200. But BWCDO subsidises this and farmers end up paying only Rs 50-100 per goat. The Village Insurance Committee collects the premium payment from the farmers once a year.

Until now, the organisation has paid compensation for more than 280 livestock through more than 100 claims. A total of approximately $30,000 has been paid to farmers as compensation through the scheme.

BWCDO has further helped farmers by assisting them in making around 50 predator-proof corals (solid constructions of stone and wood which create a periphery around lifestock) and providing them training on improved herding techniques and livestock vaccination. They have also helped them construct water pipes, pony tracks and protective walls.

“These are small interventions but in these tough areas where we work so hard in the short summer seasons, they have proven to be very beneficial to the communities,” Mohammad said.

The communities living in these remote mountains are poor and BWCDO supports them with these important infrastructural projects as an incentive, and to encourage them to support their conservation goals.

Helping the villagers reduces the burden of losing livestock to snow leopards and makes them more willing to coexist with the animal.

BWCDO’s work has certainly won over the trust of the communities and created economic incentives for farmers not to harm the snow leopards.

The elusive snow leopard is an iconic species of this region (Central and South Asia) and prefers to live atop mountain forests and high altitude pastures.

Conservationists say snow leopards have been threatened by poaching, retaliatory killing by farmers, declining prey species, shrinking habitats, and climate change.

According to Mohammad, there are only around 300 to 400 snow leopards surviving in Pakistan today. Dr Hussain, who has been studying snow leopards for almost two decades now, says that although more research is needed, it seems that the snow leopard population in Pakistan has been stable over the past 15 years.

We have now a pretty good idea about how the snow leopard population is doing in Pakistan, thanks to advanced technology such as camera trapping and genetic tests on faeces left by snow leopards.

“I would say that 80% of these snow leopards in Pakistan are to be found in Gilgit-Baltistan – which means that about 80% of the snow leopards in Pakistan are found here – while the remaining are in Khyber Pakhtunkwa and Azad Jammu & Kashmir,” pointed out Mohammad.

Experts say the habitat range for snow leopards extends over nearly two million square kilometres, involving 12 countries in Central and northern Asia, including Pakistan.

Last month, scientists and leaders from the 12 countries who host snow leopard population gathered for the Global Snow Leopard and Ecosystem Protection Programme (GSLEP) at the Snow Leopard Forum in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan to address conservation challenges.

According to Dr Tom McCarthy, the Snow Leopard Programme Director for Panthera, the global wildcat conservation organisation, "Experts from each country within the range were asked to come up with the best estimates of snow leopard population by country and the total was between 7,400 and 8,000 animals”. This figure is higher than what was previously thought.

Pakistan’s newly-appointed minister for climate change, Mushaidullah Khan, also attended the meeting. The minister is currently the chair of GSLEP’s steering committee.

According to the global protection programme, 20 landscapes of snow leopards shall be protected by the year 2020. Pakistan is included in these landscapes.

BWCDO’s work at the grassroots level is an excellent example of how partnering with local communities can lead to feasible solutions to preserve wildlife and local livelihoods, which in turn can protect landscapes.

“It really is a big honour for us to win the Equator Prize. Our confidence has grown tremendously,” Mohammad told me. “There were over 800 applications from 120 countries around the world and only 15 were chosen in the end. The recognition of our work is a remarkable feat.”

Are you part of any conservation efforts to save wildlife in Pakistan? Share your insight with us at blog@dawn.com

Most people visit Uzbekistan for its unmatched treasure of centuries-old Islamic architecture in the shapes of turquoise and blue-coloured mosques, madrassahs and mausoleums. However, any tour of this Central Asian country is incomplete without visiting its fabulous bazaars located on the legendary Silk Road.

In fact, the bazaar is the heart of every oriental city, the centre of public life, and the breadwinner of the whole city. Since the dawn of time, bazaars appeared on the intersections of trade roads, and on big squares of cities.

On our recent trip to Uzbekistan, we spent a disproportionate amount of time in the grand bazaars of Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara and were impressed by their scale and organised display of produce and merchandise.

I was accompanied by my wife and daughter, who pride themselves for being discriminating shoppers. They have practiced their craft over years of rummaging through all kinds of merchandise in stores and malls of various countries. In the process, they claim to have acquired not only an eye for discovering hidden gems reflecting local culture, history and tastes, but also a sense of proper valuation that can be attributed to the purchase.

Explore: Living the good life in Alaçatı, Turkey’s chic seaside town

Confident of their ability to haggle over price, they are never bothered by the occasional failure to consummate a deal.

The bazaars of Uzbekistan offer ample opportunities to satisfy the cravings of the die-hard shopaholics as well as onlookers like me.

Tashkent’s Chorsu Bazaar, the age of which is more than a hundred years, is located on the main square of the city.

The central part of the bazaar is the main, magnificent domed construction, patterned with oriental ornaments, with a diameter of nearly 300-350 metres.

On the counters there, we found fresh fruits, amber-coloured dried fruits, toasted bread, cookies, pastries, freshly-killed meat, horse meat sausages, and other common and exotic produce.

The vast meat section had every conceivable type of meats and cuts with no trace of waste in inappropriate places. I didn’t even see flies on the meats or vegetables and fruits.

Next to the bazaar there are tea houses, where we tasted amber yellow pilaf, fragrant grilled meat and hot shurpa (soup). Having refreshed ourselves, we proceeded to handicraft shops, where masters of applied art sell handmade souvenirs. All these things were so attractive that we spent quite some time strolling through different sections of it.

In Samarkand, right around the corner from Bibikhanum Hotel where we stayed, near the entrance to the Bibi-Khanym Mosque and Mausoleum, is located a bustling, huge central bazaar consisting of many buildings and open shades with orderly rows of stalls displaying fresh and dried fruits, spices, meats, vegetables, bread, cakes and cookies.

Though not of any historical significance, this is a must-visit place for those who like to get a feel for the local culture.

In addition to the variety of produce, the cleanliness of the whole bazaar was instantly noticeable, with no garbage or discarded produce, no filth on the floor, no flies or stray dogs, and no beggars or peddlers to harass customers.

We bought some pistachios, cucumbers and their ubiquitous freshly baked round bread.

In Samarkand and Bukhara, we found that materialism has trumped spirituality and most of the madrassahs are immersed deep in the exercise of capitalism.

The rooms that housed students and teachers many centuries ago have now been converted into souvenir shops and the central courtyards into open-air tea shops or restaurants.

We visited one souvenir shop in Samarkand selling Uzbek caps and after listening to the history behind various types of caps for 15 minutes, bought one for my grandson for $10. When we checked other less glamorous shops later on in our journey, the same caps were selling for $5. We paid $5 for learning some valuable history lessons – not bad.

In Bukhara, my wife walked into one of those souvenir shops and came out triumphantly with a beautifully carved wooden stand for placing and reading open books (rehal). She was able to haggle its price down from $12 to $8.

While strolling in another part of the bazaar, the same book stand was openly selling for $8. But of course, the pleasure of haggling was missing, since there was a sign on the wall saying ‘firm price’.

In Bukhara, we walked from Lyab-i Hauz, the main city square, to the monument of Ark and passed through Taki-Sarrafon Bazaar, a long, covered bazaar full of shops selling souvenirs, carpets, local handicrafts and toys.

The area attracts a lot of foreign tourists and is keenly watched by the shopkeepers who have honed their selling skill through centuries of experience on the Silk Road. Since we had some spare time before dinner, we allowed ourselves to be lured by an English-speaking saleswoman into her shop that was full of handmade carpets.

Authentic handmade silk carpets from Bukhara and Samarkand have always been an object of admiration and desire in a corner of my heart. But I admit that it never got to the point that I would learn the intricacies and true worth of expensive carpets. Moreover, I have been unable to find a justification for squandering a bundle of money on objects of dubious utility just for the joy of possession.

Earlier in Samarkand, we had visited a carpet factory where we attended a workshop absorbing some of the finer details to look for in a carpet. Knots per square centimetre, wool vs silk, patterns and colours were explained with some hidden sales pitches. However, we managed to come out relatively unscathed and just bought some inexpensive handicrafts as souvenirs.

Entering the Bukhara carpet store, we gave a passing look all around to the display of silk carpets, woolen carpets, suzanis and other local handicrafts in fabulous colours, patterns and varieties.

Undeterred by our lacklustre interest in any kind of transaction, the saleswoman directed her assistant to unfurl dozens of carpets in numerous sizes shapes and materials.

The guy was an expert in giving his presentation a fabled magical touch by waving the carpets high in the air, as if they were ready to take us on and fly away to a distant enchanted land.

She continued making small talk and after learning about our two small grandchildren, she played the emotional card by describing how her four children safely roll over and play on one of those kinds of natural fibre carpets with natural dyes and no chemicals whatsoever.

Seeing that it had caught my attention, she elaborated that all her carpets were made from the silks produced by the silkworms, happily chomping over leaves from organically grown mulberry trees, using no chemical fertilisers or pesticides.

The saleswoman also made us believe that she routinely sold those kinds of carpets for three times the price she was asking when she toured the USA. Now, that was something for which I was not prepared.

For a fleeting moment, I lost control of my restraint and justifying my indulgence as the deal of a life time, moved quickly to grab an expensive carpet.

Also read: Why heavenly Bosnia deserves to be your next travel destination

While the carpet was being packed, the reality started sinking on me that after all, we had surrendered easily our claims to astute buying talent and supposedly superior haggling expertise.

The saleswoman tried to assuage our skepticism by promising to give us next day a certificate from some government department authenticating our carpet’s noble lineage.

She also suggested a restaurant around the corner, where we could have dinner to relieve our carpet-induced stress.

After we had dinner at the suggested restaurant, we came to know that it was also owned by the carpet-shop owner.

The carpet, in one corner of our living room, has yet to attract the attention of any of our guests commensurate to its purported rare beauty and price. Perhaps my wife’s plan to hang it up conspicuously, on an entrance wall, will succeed one day in winning a few complimentary words.

Otherwise, as the saleswoman suggested to me, we just need to turn to YouTube to educate people on the intricacies and eternal loveliness of handmade organic silk carpets of Samarkand and Bukhara.

In the meantime, I try to get some satisfaction that my grandchildren, though clad in pajamas sprayed over by chemical fire retardant, cuddling polyester-stuffed teddy bears and munching Pringles potato chips washed down with Coke, can play on an environmentally friendly carpet made from natural silks and plant-based dyes.

Have you travelled to places that are not commonly visited by tourists? Share your experience with us at blog@dawn.com

Most people visit Uzbekistan for its unmatched treasure of centuries-old Islamic architecture in the shapes of turquoise and blue-coloured mosques, madrassahs and mausoleums. However, any tour of this Central Asian country is incomplete without visiting its fabulous bazaars located on the legendary Silk Road.

In fact, the bazaar is the heart of every oriental city, the centre of public life, and the breadwinner of the whole city. Since the dawn of time, bazaars appeared on the intersections of trade roads, and on big squares of cities.

On our recent trip to Uzbekistan, we spent a disproportionate amount of time in the grand bazaars of Tashkent, Samarkand and Bukhara and were impressed by their scale and organised display of produce and merchandise.

I was accompanied by my wife and daughter, who pride themselves for being discriminating shoppers. They have practiced their craft over years of rummaging through all kinds of merchandise in stores and malls of various countries. In the process, they claim to have acquired not only an eye for discovering hidden gems reflecting local culture, history and tastes, but also a sense of proper valuation that can be attributed to the purchase.

Explore: Living the good life in Alaçatı, Turkey’s chic seaside town

Confident of their ability to haggle over price, they are never bothered by the occasional failure to consummate a deal.

The bazaars of Uzbekistan offer ample opportunities to satisfy the cravings of the die-hard shopaholics as well as onlookers like me.

Tashkent’s Chorsu Bazaar, the age of which is more than a hundred years, is located on the main square of the city.

The central part of the bazaar is the main, magnificent domed construction, patterned with oriental ornaments, with a diameter of nearly 300-350 metres.

On the counters there, we found fresh fruits, amber-coloured dried fruits, toasted bread, cookies, pastries, freshly-killed meat, horse meat sausages, and other common and exotic produce.

The vast meat section had every conceivable type of meats and cuts with no trace of waste in inappropriate places. I didn’t even see flies on the meats or vegetables and fruits.

Next to the bazaar there are tea houses, where we tasted amber yellow pilaf, fragrant grilled meat and hot shurpa (soup). Having refreshed ourselves, we proceeded to handicraft shops, where masters of applied art sell handmade souvenirs. All these things were so attractive that we spent quite some time strolling through different sections of it.

In Samarkand, right around the corner from Bibikhanum Hotel where we stayed, near the entrance to the Bibi-Khanym Mosque and Mausoleum, is located a bustling, huge central bazaar consisting of many buildings and open shades with orderly rows of stalls displaying fresh and dried fruits, spices, meats, vegetables, bread, cakes and cookies.

Though not of any historical significance, this is a must-visit place for those who like to get a feel for the local culture.

In addition to the variety of produce, the cleanliness of the whole bazaar was instantly noticeable, with no garbage or discarded produce, no filth on the floor, no flies or stray dogs, and no beggars or peddlers to harass customers.

We bought some pistachios, cucumbers and their ubiquitous freshly baked round bread.

In Samarkand and Bukhara, we found that materialism has trumped spirituality and most of the madrassahs are immersed deep in the exercise of capitalism.

The rooms that housed students and teachers many centuries ago have now been converted into souvenir shops and the central courtyards into open-air tea shops or restaurants.

We visited one souvenir shop in Samarkand selling Uzbek caps and after listening to the history behind various types of caps for 15 minutes, bought one for my grandson for $10. When we checked other less glamorous shops later on in our journey, the same caps were selling for $5. We paid $5 for learning some valuable history lessons – not bad.

In Bukhara, my wife walked into one of those souvenir shops and came out triumphantly with a beautifully carved wooden stand for placing and reading open books (rehal). She was able to haggle its price down from $12 to $8.

While strolling in another part of the bazaar, the same book stand was openly selling for $8. But of course, the pleasure of haggling was missing, since there was a sign on the wall saying ‘firm price’.

In Bukhara, we walked from Lyab-i Hauz, the main city square, to the monument of Ark and passed through Taki-Sarrafon Bazaar, a long, covered bazaar full of shops selling souvenirs, carpets, local handicrafts and toys.

The area attracts a lot of foreign tourists and is keenly watched by the shopkeepers who have honed their selling skill through centuries of experience on the Silk Road. Since we had some spare time before dinner, we allowed ourselves to be lured by an English-speaking saleswoman into her shop that was full of handmade carpets.

Authentic handmade silk carpets from Bukhara and Samarkand have always been an object of admiration and desire in a corner of my heart. But I admit that it never got to the point that I would learn the intricacies and true worth of expensive carpets. Moreover, I have been unable to find a justification for squandering a bundle of money on objects of dubious utility just for the joy of possession.

Earlier in Samarkand, we had visited a carpet factory where we attended a workshop absorbing some of the finer details to look for in a carpet. Knots per square centimetre, wool vs silk, patterns and colours were explained with some hidden sales pitches. However, we managed to come out relatively unscathed and just bought some inexpensive handicrafts as souvenirs.

Entering the Bukhara carpet store, we gave a passing look all around to the display of silk carpets, woolen carpets, suzanis and other local handicrafts in fabulous colours, patterns and varieties.

Undeterred by our lacklustre interest in any kind of transaction, the saleswoman directed her assistant to unfurl dozens of carpets in numerous sizes shapes and materials.

The guy was an expert in giving his presentation a fabled magical touch by waving the carpets high in the air, as if they were ready to take us on and fly away to a distant enchanted land.

She continued making small talk and after learning about our two small grandchildren, she played the emotional card by describing how her four children safely roll over and play on one of those kinds of natural fibre carpets with natural dyes and no chemicals whatsoever.

Seeing that it had caught my attention, she elaborated that all her carpets were made from the silks produced by the silkworms, happily chomping over leaves from organically grown mulberry trees, using no chemical fertilisers or pesticides.

The saleswoman also made us believe that she routinely sold those kinds of carpets for three times the price she was asking when she toured the USA. Now, that was something for which I was not prepared.

For a fleeting moment, I lost control of my restraint and justifying my indulgence as the deal of a life time, moved quickly to grab an expensive carpet.

Also read: Why heavenly Bosnia deserves to be your next travel destination

While the carpet was being packed, the reality started sinking on me that after all, we had surrendered easily our claims to astute buying talent and supposedly superior haggling expertise.

The saleswoman tried to assuage our skepticism by promising to give us next day a certificate from some government department authenticating our carpet’s noble lineage.

She also suggested a restaurant around the corner, where we could have dinner to relieve our carpet-induced stress.

After we had dinner at the suggested restaurant, we came to know that it was also owned by the carpet-shop owner.

The carpet, in one corner of our living room, has yet to attract the attention of any of our guests commensurate to its purported rare beauty and price. Perhaps my wife’s plan to hang it up conspicuously, on an entrance wall, will succeed one day in winning a few complimentary words.

Otherwise, as the saleswoman suggested to me, we just need to turn to YouTube to educate people on the intricacies and eternal loveliness of handmade organic silk carpets of Samarkand and Bukhara.

In the meantime, I try to get some satisfaction that my grandchildren, though clad in pajamas sprayed over by chemical fire retardant, cuddling polyester-stuffed teddy bears and munching Pringles potato chips washed down with Coke, can play on an environmentally friendly carpet made from natural silks and plant-based dyes.

Have you travelled to places that are not commonly visited by tourists? Share your experience with us at blog@dawn.com

Lahore is my native city — it has always been the dearest sense of love I have felt.

It was the beautiful gardens and my most favourite majestic Old Lahore. It was the mouthwatering hareesa at Gawalmandi on a foggy winter morning and it was the sun shining upon the tree-lined Canal Road.

It was the summer air mixing with aromatic smoke coming off a mutton kebab grill; it was the kohla puris from Khussa Mahal.

But what outdid them all were the large hearts of Lahoris.

The Lahoris who dance to dhol beats. The Lahoris who run on tall glasses of lassi. The Lahoris who show you why if you haven’t seen Lahore you haven’t lived.

These people are Christians, Hindus and Muslims.

Take a look: A song for Lahore

I grew up in Pakistan meeting people who did not identify as traditional Muslims and yet, never felt alien. We grew closer and at this point, some of them are the dearest people in my life today.

I do not think religion has much to do with the goodness of a person but the social narrative around ‘religious minorities’ in Pakistan did make me view these individuals in a different light.

It is unfortunate that for the most part of my life, I have seen Pakistan being fraught with violence, terrorism and religious extremism; plagued with rampant and senseless brutality against minorities. But I never saw these non-Muslims falter; they were to me, the most lively, compassionate and happy beings in my world.

They were winners even though we failed them quite a few times. They were in love with us even though we gave them enough reasons to hate us.

The ambiguous and horrendous mix of religion and state never seemed to work out very well for Pakistan in my eyes. It unnerved me every time a maulvi was audacious enough to issue fatwas against women.

It made me uncomfortable that my society feared backlash when it came to condemning questionable accusations relating to alleged blasphemy.

See: The untold story of Pakistan’s blasphemy law

It made no sense to me that the idea of a secular Pakistan is just wrong and unspeakable.

All this and more, informed my beliefs, passions and a laughably naive desire to change the world. Soon enough, it was time for college and the United States of America happened to my life.

As I moved to western Massachusetts from Lahore, suddenly it mattered that I was brown and Muslim. It mattered because now I was a minority.

In my two years of living in America, I have understood more than I ever did in Pakistan, the rhetoric of majority and minority.

It is discomforting to have a conscious awareness that your reality is different than that of an average American because you will probably face bigotry at the hands of a presidential front-runner, and that an airport guy will occasionally raise a brow because you have the green passport in your hand and are wearing a locket saying Allah.

Examine: If Donald Trump was a Muslim in Pakistan...

However, I was fortunate to have joined a very politically active and culturally sensitive campus: Mount Holyoke College.

The diverse community, the challenges of living away from home and a support system of its own kind helped me grow in ways I perhaps wouldn't have in my own country.

My biggest takeaway, though, has been learning to respect my own happiness and that of others. I started to see no need for being apologetic for my happiness, my beliefs and for who I am.

In the process, I also declared my International Relations major and began to foster, with ever-growing passion, my love for letting people live — the way they want to.

The night of the Lahore park attack, my friends and I came together for a candlelight vigil. I looked down at the burning candle in my hands with tears streaming down my face. We had come together for a world that felt ripped apart. We sang John Lennon; and I imagined all the people who couldn’t live for today.

This candlelight vigil marked the end of my Easter Sunday that had risen with the news of what, in my memory, is the most heinous terrorist attack to have shook Lahore in some time.

All day, memories of my city replayed in my head like a film with snippets of those large-hearted Lahoris. But I was hopeless and it has been the most real of struggles to find closure ever since.

I write this because I hear it is therapeutic to pen feelings down. One would need therapy when you grieve a grief that renders you helpless, when you see your ‘homies’ light up because Qandeel Baloch got blocked off Facebook and that is victory to their ‘moral police’, when religious extremists in your land are using the danda and chappals on humans and helicopters and that is a victory for their sense of pride, when your state requires you to attest to the non-Muslim status of Ahmadis on a vote registration form and when Pakistanis politicise human tragedies to rally electoral support for their own political views.

I do not know if it angers me more than it saddens me but I feel insane. If someone’s morality is different than yours and it affects you, you have weak morals. If coexistence with other beliefs threatens you, you have a weak faith.

God does not need us to defend His honour; God would appreciate much more if we defended the honour of humanity.

Explore: As a minority, it is the everyday discrimination that hurts me most

I may have never felt so disillusioned with the state of discrimination in Pakistan and my naive desire to change the world may have never felt this bruised, but I still have reason to feel proud.

I am proud that an Ahmadi in Pakistan strengthened my faith more than any maulvi could, that a Hindu in Pakistan showed me the art of coexistence finer than a Muslim here could and that a Pakistani Christian taught me the value of prayer better than any preacher could.

This blog was originally published on April 04, 2016.

Dystopian themes have always been popular amongst mass media consumers, whether it is a setting for a novel à la Hunger Games, or the premise of widely acclaimed television shows or films.

There is no denying the public's fascination with 'strange' locations or lifestyles, so different and exaggerated from their own.

Therefore, it only makes sense that the world is equally fascinated about what goes on behind the closed doors of Saudi Arabia, a nation too private for the information-hungry 21st century.

Recent developments in the Kingdom, such as the 'honesty app' Sarahah that took over the internet like wildfire, the government's decision to lift restrictions on WhatsApp, Prince Salman's plans to build beach resorts in the country where women can wear bikinis, and the recent video of a Saudi girl strolling in the desert in a skirt and cropped top, have intrigued the world even more.

Having lived in Saudi Arabia for most of my life, I have become somewhat of an informal traveling speaker on this Middle Eastern desert.

Females and Saudi Arabia are two things that do not seem to go together very well. Of course, it is not a sanctuary here for women – the driving ban, amongst other things, is very real.

However, the life I am used to in Saudi Arabia is very different than what the thousands of news articles scattered across the web would paint. Daily life here, especially for a woman, is difficult yet not impossible.

The first thing to address would probably be the abaya – a black cloak worn over clothes. Women are required to wear an abaya when out in public in Saudi Arabia. Contrary to popular belief, the only thing compulsory is the abaya itself. Head coverings (hijabs) or face coverings (niqabs) are not.

I have heard of some cases, though, where religious police (Mutawwa) pester Muslim-looking women to cover their hair if they are not doing so. On the other hand, foreign-looking women are given a pass on most of these things.

To most, this does seem like one of the worst parts about being a woman in Saudi Arabia. I won't disagree – there is something that is deeply dehumanising about being reduced to a black figure in public next to males and loud, rambunctious teenage boys donning bright clothes and the latest fashion trends.

At the same time, there is nothing like wearing pajamas under your abaya all day and having no one be the wiser because on most days, comfort trumps all. Abayas have also become fashion statements of the sort, with designers selling bedazzled and customised pieces for thousands of Riyals each.

More recently, colour has started to come back into the market, and amongst the sea women dressed in black in malls, you can now see purple, fawn and glitter-covered robes, a peek into one's personality.

The driving ban is the next topic many love to discuss, mostly only the sheer absurdity of it. It is sad, though, that it only seems absurd in other countries; here, the roads were paved by men for men.

I've had people ask me how I function here without the freedom to drive, and how my mother and other housewives even live, seeing as there is no public transportation to replace private cars.

When I'm asked that, I find myself pausing – how did we do it? Because once you have moved on from Saudi Arabia and experience the ease of mobility, it is difficult to recall a time when the outside world was not as accessible.

I have to commend my father at this point, for driving more than he probably should after 6pm on a workday. Whether we missed the bus to school or we wanted to go to a friend's house or to the mall, my father would be the chauffeur.

When he wasn't available, we utilised a private taxi to get to where we needed. To this day, I'm uncertain about the legality of those taxi drivers, as most were Pakistani or Indian men who my mother and her circle of friends paid in cash. We would refer to them as our personal drivers at highway checkpoints instead of taxi drivers.

Other than that, for those who live in gated compounds, private buses are scheduled for trips to malls or to neighbouring cities. For most school events, school buses are always arranged. Most importantly, almost every restaurant delivers! Even if your father or brother isn't around, you'll get fed.

The lack of movie theaters is another aspect of Saudi Arabian life that foreigners find extremely hard to believe. It is true that public establishments and entertainment facilities are extremely lacking and much more so for women than for men.

I live near a public beach and it is hilariously halal. Most of the beach is paved to create a sidewalk, for people to jog, bike or skate on. There are no explicit signs saying 'men only', but the rule is subtly implied because of course, if anyone has tried to bike or run wearing an abaya, they will soon find that it is more difficult than assumed (been there, done that).

On pleasant days, families will venture out to the beach for a picnic or barbecue, with the women staying on the picnic blanket while the males dive into the water. Some conservative families switch out the picnic blanket for a small tent.

Malls are open to 'families only', and you will usually see security guards throwing out groups of teenage boys who wander around inside. Something specific to Saudi Arabian malls is that female fitting rooms only exist when the entire shop is run by female employees exclusively, such as lingerie brands or dresses.

This has become an annoyance, especially when shopping for jeans (as my fellow girls will understand), because it is impossible to find the right fit in the first try. But there is a loophole! I buy the jeans, try them on in the mall's public bathroom, and go back and return them 20 minutes later if they do not fit, and cycle through the process again for the second pair.

It is tiresome, especially going through the exchange procedure, but it works. Moreover, I find that this is a small price to pay for giant malls housing every international brand you could think of. Think of it as a much (much) more stripped down and censored Dubai.

Restaurants and cafes are other forms of entertainment, with an extensive range of options available. Each restaurant has a males-only section and a family section. Both sides are supposed to be the same in quality, however, the phrase ‘separate but not equal’ does comes to mind often.

Nonetheless, there comes some peace of mind with such separation, which is avoiding the leering teenage boys who are prone to harassing and catcalling in almost any situation.

It is crucial to mention the existence of compounds, or, gated communities. Without describing these, a whole chapter of Saudi Arabian lifestyle is missing. These compounds were originally constructed to house the massive influx of expatriates (no Saudis allowed).

Built like suburban American communities from the 90's, compounds function as sort of a safe haven from the abundance of rules and regulations that govern public life. Abayas are not required behind the gates. Mixed swimming pools, grocery stores, private beaches and gyms are open day and night, with no strict dress code.

Some of the bigger compounds, such as Aramco, even have horse riding stables, restaurants and movie theaters available, and also allow women to drive inside to get around. Some foreigners even make their own alcohol at home (it was called Moonshine), if you wanted to know just how lax rules were for them.

Overall, during my time in Saudi, these private compounds were the setting for most entertainment. Parties, events, spring fairs – there were multiple things to do and hanging out in these gated communities made Saudi Arabia a little less Saudi Arabia for us.

Having gone to school in this country, I can say that my Middle Eastern experience was a lot more American than expected. Because I attended a co-educational American elementary, middle and high school, the culture and people I was around was another way for me to escape the strict regulations of the place I lived. 

In the middle of this desert, my school was another source of entertainment and friends, something obviously missing from the Saudi public sphere. These schools, again, were built specifically for expatriates, with very few Saudis allowed in, leading to an even greater divide between locals and foreigners (I did attend high school with a Saudi princess though, which is always an interesting party topic to bring up).

Movie nights, dances, dinners, sports, prom, pool days – there was always something to do. Everything was accessible as well, keeping in mind where we were. During school, there was no frustration based on being a female in Saudi Arabia – the thought never even came up. Only now that I am graduated, I notice how exasperating daily life can be for a woman.

Change is forthcoming, though, slowly but surely. Besides slight political reformations, Saudi culture is becoming more modern by the day. A recent example that has made headlines worldwide is the popularity of the Sarahah app.

Named after the Arabic word for ‘honesty’, Sarahah was developed by a Saudi programmer to allow the sending and receiving of ‘constructive criticism’.

The mask of anonymity can, of course, be dangerous. While many users receive compliments and kind messages, the majority get rude texts that blur the line between bullying and feedback.

It is interesting to note that such an app originated in a country like Saudi Arabia, where censorship is rampant both on and offline. The download numbers show a mind-boggling rate of popularity, clearly highlighting the need for openness, honesty and anonymity in such a closed-off nation.

At the same time though, Sarahah is an important instance of Saudi startups and businesses that are shedding some of the ultra-conservative nature of the society. Sarahah’s developers are focusing on monetising and further boosting the app, making it something to watch out for in the time to come.

Overall, my life growing up in Saudi Arabia has been, at its core, like any other teenager's. Friendships, drama, grades – it was all there, just set in an unconventional location. The personality of this place has frustrated me at times, and at other times, created who I am today.

Mine is just one story, though. Being a housewife in Saudi Arabia, being a female doctor in Saudi Arabia, being a maid in Saudi Arabia – each woman will have something different to tell based on the role she is in.

Most of these stories are still private, locked away in the Middle East, but with the globally connected 21st century, hopefully life down here in the desert will no longer be seen as mysterious and scary as it is made out to be.

Have you lived in countries that are often mischaracterised by the mainstream media ? Share your experiences with us at blog@dawn.com

Pakistan ranks high on the list of countries most threatened by the impending effects of climate change. Numerous studies show that temperatures in certain parts of Asia will exceed habitable levels by end of the 21st century.

According to a recent report published by the Asian Development Bank, a 6-degree Celsius temperature increase is projected over the Asian landmass whereby countries like Pakistan could experience a significantly hotter climate.

It won’t be just heat waves that will kill people; it is expected that the disruption in agricultural output and generally in the region’s economy will trigger deepening vulnerabilities at various scales: from country, cities and communities to households and individuals.

In southern Pakistan, cities like Karachi, Hyderabad-Jamshoro, Sukkur and coastal cities such as Badin are already at the forefront of climate change related impacts, ever more visible in the form of coastal storm surges, rising sea levels, hotter summers, unprecedented floods, human and livestock displacement and unpredictable precipitation.

A conceivable scenario of increasing temperatures could lead to a drastic change in Pakistan’s weather system and its industries and trade, and undermine any hope of achieving inclusive and sustainable development.

But attributing climate change to increasing vulnerabilities is at best a partial account about the limits to our planetary existence in the 21st century.

The urban question

A far more significant feature of the impending transformation concerns Pakistan’s rapidly expanding footprint of urbanisation and related ecological degradations that exacerbate vulnerability.

This is most visible, for instance, at the rural-urban interface where we find spaces of intense marginalisation, new forms of socio-spatial segregation, land-livelihood displacements and environmental degradation. These changes are altering the more familiar map of inner-city deprivation across Pakistan.

As analysts turn today to the urban question in Pakistan, estimates of scale and urban change proliferate. Despite the current controversy over methods of rural-urban classification in the 2017 Census, the preliminary results do show that an increasingly greater proportion of Pakistanis live in cities today, where all net new employment will be generated.

Transforming Pakistani cities into sustainable environments is the single biggest challenge that governments, policymakers and entrepreneurs face today, and the ongoing political struggles over resources, infrastructures, amenities and ecologies are shaping how cities play a role in climate adaption.

Notwithstanding the anticipated impacts on cities of climate change, vulnerability and danger are already conditioning the permutations of everyday life for ordinary citizens who are constantly put in harm’s way.

In urban Pakistan, the poor not only live in close proximity to toxic waste streams, but are often threatened by beautification projects that would displace and relocate them rather than improve amenities. These harsh material conditions that constantly endanger the lives of the urban poor, are not an outcome of climate change.

The effects of decades of unpredictable urban planning, incompetent engineering and the actions of greedy developers, have compromised local urban ecologies that could, otherwise, withstand the shock of natural disasters.

Recently, the extended period of heavy rainfall that crippled Karachi, flooded not only the city’s main infrastructural arteries, but also inundated emerging ‘unplanned’ settlements in peripheral parts such as Gadap Town.

More on this: Exploring why Karachi's rainwater has nowhere to go

Karachi’s flooding dilemma is largely due to the illegal developments on the city’s waterways and drains; developments that cater to the needs of rich and poor alike and literally choke the city’s natural drainage systems. Many developments also exemplify private builders’ attempts to reconfigure Karachi as a world-class city.

But the urban question as it relates to climate change isn’t just about cities and population size, which is a key lens through which Pakistan’s urban condition is conventionally understood, and it is the basis on which appropriate spatial boundaries are determined and policies made.

Given the relentless dynamics of socio-spatial restructuring since partition, boundaries, scale and the morphology of urbanisation and related ecologies have been continually reworked throughout the 20th century in Pakistan.

In large part, I believe that it is analytically fruitless to impose statistical fixity upon any settlement space, rural or urban. The rural-urban divide is not a quantitative fact.

The methodological conundrum of measuring and delineating urban populations is an old one. For a long time, demographic approaches have tried to resolve this vital spatial problem on a numerical basis: calculate how many people are required to reside in a given jurisdictional space and based on that, classify the ‘urban’.

In the mid-20th century, the eminent demographer Kingsley Davis was an early proponent of this approach, and his contributions have influenced a generation of demographers who continue to statistically chart the messy terrain of the rural-urban.

These orthodox attempts to code the ‘urban’ are largely rooted in a 20th century representation of a methodologically territorialist model of urbanisation; a model that is no longer helpful for understanding the process of planetary urbanisation in the 21st century.

Looking beyond the rural-urban divide

Despite Davis’ statistical penchants, he did make some nuanced observations about urbanisation. His observations are pertinent for considering Pakistan’s contemporary context that is embedded in the broader terrain of planetary urbanisation.

Davis had presciently underscored the dangers of confining the urban to a purely demographic approach. He had outlined a complex process of metropolitan expansion and dispersion that was already altering longstanding urban and regional configurations in Western countries in the mid-20th century.

Davis was considering the possibility that rurality was going to disappear entirely, and alongside this would emerge a different kind of urban existence. The relationship between the city and the countryside was changing in a such a way, that the two, Davis noted, would merge, leading to sprawling conurbations with no intervening countryside in the middle.

Davis subsequently proposed that data collection needed to remain cognisant of the powerful tendencies towards expanded urbanisation and shrinking rurality.

The urban cannot be understood as a bounded, enclosed site of social relations contrasted with the rural.

I take Davis’ point seriously given the socio-spatial fluidity that characterises our global urban condition under modern capitalism, where intensifying and interdependent socio-spatiality blurs the boundaries between rural and urban, and destabilises longstanding ecologies of agrarian, hinterland and coastal systems.

While urban spaces materialise through dynamics of movement, connectivity, circulation of commodities and reconfigurations of identity and attachments, these are also spaces of the accumulation of capital, the privatisation of common resources and the urbanisation of nature; where deforestation, concretisation, encroachment, land reclamation and land mining for development produce ecological ruptures.

A case in point is contemporary Karachi as a product of not only numerous ecological ruptures, but also a city whose relationship with the hinterlands or the agrarian-rural and the coastal is undergoing complex transformations.

Explore: Bahria Town Karachi: Greed unlimited

Thus, to carve sections of Karachi into a distinctly ‘urban’ space and relegate what lies outside as a ‘rural’ space by invoking a criteria of population size and administrative classification, ultimately prevents exploration of how these spaces are produced by the same political-economic process that includes not only capital accumulation, but also migration, privatisation of commons, and socio-environmental degradation.

The entrenched empiricism located in parochially defined theoretical/statistical certainties dominate Pakistan’s social sciences and the broader planning and policy making agendas.

This leads researchers to stress concrete investigations rather than to explore the underlying conceptual assumptions that frame those investigations in the first place.

So herein lies a key challenge for rethinking Pakistan’s contemporary urbanisation process and its bearing on climate change/adaptation.

Planetary urbanisation

Fundamentally, methodologically territorialist approaches rooted in 20th century epistemologies that treat the ‘urban’ and the ‘city’ as a bounded condition of settlement, have become archaic.

Such epistemologies represent a one-sided picture of an urbanising landscape that is variable and unremittingly dynamic.

The urban cannot be understood as a bounded, enclosed site of social relations contrasted with the rural.

These inherited assumptions obfuscate complex socio-spatial transformations of densely settled zones – megacities, city, metropolitan – that cannot be seen as exclusive agglomerations of clustered populations, economic activities and infrastructural systems, demarcated by an empty outside or a rural space.

Related: Census 2017: How can flawed results have any credibility?

In the history of modern capitalism and its relationship with the colonial/postcolonial, the terrain of the ‘rural’ was hardly an empty space or disconnected from the process of urbanisation.

Instead, the ‘rural’ or the ‘non-urban’ has evolved constantly through a complex, thickening web of infrastructural, economic and ecological connections with urban concentrations in virtually every part of the world.

These materialisations through densely, knotted circuits of labour, raw materials, energy, food, commodities, webs of social relations that connect/disconnect different places, cultural forms and more, mediate development pathways of planetary urbanisation in the 21st century.

Urbanisation today affects virtually every part of the world; it is a process that is unevenly woven into the fabric of socio-cultural and political-economic relations of capitalism.

The rural-urban binary as it pertains to theory, census methodologies, planning practice and everyday life doesn’t help; instead it obscures the frenzied socio-spatial transformations of the urban hinterlands and agrarian spaces within Pakistan.

The rapid transformation that is taking place in Pakistan is not within cities, but in its edges that are largely agricultural. Suburbanisation, de-agrarianisation, peripheral urbanisation, all these processes are interconnected and they index new modes of urbanisation; new modes of the production of urban space located at the limits of our planetary existence.

Planetary urbanisation produces wide-ranging socio-spatial conditions that necessitate the kind of contextual analysis that Kingsely Davis had briefly touched upon. This task has been taken up by critical urban theorists who combine critical cartography, geo-spatial-comparative analysis and political economy to investigate ongoing transformations.

My own interests align with such innovative analytical approaches of the urban in terms of thinking about the thickening webs of infrastructural connectivities/disconnectivities across the Asian landscape, across borders, cities, peripheries and so forth, and related displacements and endangerments for marginalised populations.

Planning urban futures

While we search for a new lexicon of urbanisation in order to grasp the unstable and violent geographies of 21st century capitalism in which Pakistan is deeply embedded, the question of the limits to our planetary existence in the context of unstable ecologies and the impending impacts of climate change is certainly germane.

In Pakistan, where governance is top down and land use is primarily within federal and provincial jurisdictions, and a fragmented structure of local governance exacerbates land-use decisions, city mayors and chief ministers are glorified managers whose actions are limited to platitudes or pushing for beautification projects and signal free transport corridors.

Such approaches are of limited use. Constructive solutions for a new urban future necessitate we take not only the city but also the wider region into consideration.

Further: Pakistan’s urban policy: Turning cities into slums

Realistic interventions that many urban planners in Pakistan have long professed, will need to push for conversations about climate change in the context of extended urbanisation, and that also pay attention to several key issues, such as urban design, land-use planning and zoning interventions.

These issues extend their reach into virtually every aspect of an individual’s well-being. Unfortunately, in Pakistan, political exigency at all levels of governance has ensured that these powerful tools remain underutilised.

But the uncomfortable fact remains that if we have already reached the limits to our planetary existence, then substantive changes are needed not only in terms of how we think about urbanisation, but also how we intend to reshape the future of our existing urban fabric.

Are you a policymaker, administrator or academic and have expertise on how to deal with Karachi's problems? Write to us at blog@dawn.com