“Is Bosnia dangerous? Isn’t there like a war going on there?” Our Bosnian guide frustratingly recounts the questions he is frequently asked when travelling overseas.

“Sarajevo is only known for three things abroad: triggering the First World War, 1984 Olympics, and the war (Bosnian War, 1992-1995),” he tells us.

“We need another Olympic games to balance things out,” he humorously says.

Sarajevo is an increasingly vibrant place again with a growing number of tourists each year. Rich in history and natural beauty, the country is relatively cheap to travel across by European standards.

Sarajevo, Bosnia’s capital, bears all the marks of the country’s turbulent history and blends together white Ottoman-style mosques, Serbian Orthodox and Catholic Croat churches, Austro-Hungarian 19th century architecture, Communist-era apartment blocks and modern shopping malls. A bit of Vienna, a bit of Istanbul, a bit of central Europe – and totally Sarajevan.

Sarajevo is made up of two words, ‘saray’ and ‘evo’: ‘saray’ comes from the Turkish word for palace and ‘evo’ is believed to be a Slavic derivative of the Turkish word ‘ova’ or ‘ovasi’ meaning field or valley.

The city is built inside a valley and is surrounded by the Dinaric Alps mountain range with green hills and beautiful houses with red roofs and white walls, minarets, church towers, forts, mansions and graveyards donned across it.

Walking through the streets of Sarajevo’s old town with its wooden-built Ottoman-style bazaar and smell of kebab and grilled meat being cooked, I can see that Sarajevans, despite the rise of huge shopping complexes, still retain a love for the traditional markets. Families, couples, friends and colleagues alongside tourists relax in tea houses, smoking nargila (water pipe).

Bars, pubs and nightclubs are blended in throughout the city; a tall woman wearing a hijab walks alongside her uncovered blonde-haired sister who is wearing a dress. The city still embraces its multicultural heritage, although as our guide, who has a Serbian father and a Bosniak mother, tells us – it’s not like it used to be. “Mixed marriages used to be very common in this city,” he recalls.

Bosnia was a part of Yugoslavia, which encompassed present day Macedonia, Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Montenegro.

In 1991, 49.2% of the population identified as Bosniak (Muslim), 29.8% as Serbs (Orthodox Christians), 10.7% as Yugoslavs, 6.6% Croats (Catholics) and 3.6% as others (including Jews and Roma).

The war drastically changed the demographics of the entire region. Today, Sarajevo’s population is 80.7% Bosniak, 3.7% Serb, 4.9% Croat and 10% others.

Sarajevo’s streets are littered with reminders of the war and a sense of macabre is undeniably present throughout the city. One typical mini memorial I kept coming across is the red roses of Sarajevo. Every other street has a section of the pavement that looks damaged, but upon getting closer, I realised that the damaged pavement is painted red and forms a rose-like shape.

A Sarajevan explained to me that “these damaged parts of the pavement are where artillery landed and killed someone during the war. Rather than forgetting our past, we want to remember each and every individual tragedy, each life lost. We painted a red rose as a sign of love and peace. Because this is not an official memorial, the roses sometimes disappear. If the government decides to redevelop the street, people get angry about it.”

Cemeteries play an important role within Sarajevan culture; the city has integrated graveyard space into its everyday social life. I went to a few graveyards and saw people having picnics. A local explained to me that “Bosnian Muslims have always had a very open attitude to death. It’s a part of life. Why hide away from it? Why shouldn’t graveyards also be public parks?”

Sarajevans love life. Huge developments across the city, which not only include new shopping centres but also restoration of historic sites, opening of galleries and museums, give a clear impression of a place moving on.

Hikers and trekkers will be in heaven in Sarajevo; I walked up a steep hill and reached the yellow fortress, where I saw many young and old relaxing and enjoying the stunning views of the city at sunset.

There is no shortage of places to visit, hills to hike or adventures to be had in the city. Getting lost is not an issue; the locals are warm and friendly and are willing to help you find your way. I should warn you that food portions are large here; a little salad is a mini feast. But if Sarajevo doesn’t win you over, surely Mostar will.

A two and a half hour drive from Sarajevo to Mostar has to be among the most beautiful and stunning rides of my life. Green and lush valleys, snow-peaked mountain tops, clear river, mini mosques and churches in tiny villages – it could be the description of paradise itself.

Once you enter Mostar, the city does not disappoint with its old stone streets, vibrant market place and tasty food. Undoubtedly, the main attraction is Stari Most, a 16th-century Ottoman bridge which is aesthetically pleasing but difficult to walk across. Also known as the Old Bridge, it was destroyed during the Croat–Bosniak War 427 years after it was built. It was finally rebuilt in 2004. It is a hump-back bridge; it goes up, stabilises in the middle, before going down again.

Locals look amused as tourists struggle to cross the bridge and some even hold onto the railings while crossing. It took repeated attempts before I could confidently cross it.

One local man climbed to the ledge of the bridge. As a crowd gathered, he worked them up, and when enough people had gathered, he jumped off the bridge and landed safely into the crystal-clear waters below.

From Mostar, it is easy to travel to anywhere in southern Bosnia. There are numerous towns, villages, cities, historical sites and nature reserves to visit.

A must-see is the Kravice Falls, 40 minutes away by car. The beautiful waterfalls are an ideal spot to go for a swim, take photographs, relax and eat Cevapi or grilled kebab in bread. Even on a hot day, being close to the water will keep you cool as you listen to the sounds of crashing water.

Coming to Bosnia and Herzegovina is an unforgettable experience. For many, the word ‘Europe’ conjures up images of Paris, London or Berlin, but the so-called ‘other Europe’ is as important to the identity of modern Europe.

Despite its troubled past, the importance of Bosnia – especially at a time when reductionist identity politics is sweeping the Old Continent – is about demonstrating the multiethnic and multifaceted of Europe’s past, present and future.

Beyond the history and political lessons that can be learnt in Bosnia, it is also a cool place to enjoy good food, great sights and warm people. The place is really opening up to tourists and it deserves to be on your travel checklist.

All photos by the writer.

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

• It was all a ‘mistake’, he told me, as I wailed in his arms. He led me to the bathroom to wash my face. He hugged me after bringing me back outside, asking me to smile for him. “You only look nice when you smile”, he told me. It was all a mistake.
• I believed that if I went to my family for help, they’d cast me out, disown me, and/or kick me out of the house. I thought they’d blame me and tell me I deserved it for doing something as wrong as being involved with a man.

It was physical – he beat me. It was psychological – he manipulated me. It was verbal – to this day, I flinch at Urdu slang, because I only learned it when it was hurled at me in the form of abuses. It was emotional – he took delight in humiliating and mocking me for his enjoyment.

He was skillful at lying and exploiting my feelings, and patient in gaining my trust and developing a relationship with me, before he began causing me harm. The abuse started slowly, building up over time.

He did things like grabbing my arm too hard, pinching me ‘as a joke.’ When I complained, he told me that I was being ‘delicate’ and making a ‘big deal’ out of ‘playful teasing’.

He would tell me how his friends and everyone in his university ‘knew’ about me and how ‘loose’ I was. This was the psychological aspect of abuse; belittling me, degrading me because he could. Because he knew he had the power to affect me with just his words, and saw fit to abuse it.

Over the passage of time, the abuse increased until it could no longer be disguised as playful teasing. It became blatant, undisguised abuse to punish me for perceived transgressions.

The first time he hurt me so severely that I wept was when I grabbed his phone and wouldn’t return it. I was retaliating for him doing the same earlier, teasing that I wouldn’t return it.

He grabbed and twisted my arm, but I still didn’t return it. He twisted it more, and I whimpered. “Cry all you want,” he told me, “I’m not letting go until you return my phone.” He slowly kept twisting my arm more and more, and that made me instinctively tighten my grip on his phone.

Finally, the pain was so severe that I couldn’t keep my fist closed. Now lifeless, my hand opened of its own volition and his phone fell on the floor. He immediately let go, and the second he did, I fell apart, crying hysterically for being treated this way.

It was all a ‘mistake’, he told me, as I wailed in his arms. He led me to the bathroom to wash my face. He hugged me after bringing me back outside, asking me to smile for him. “You only look nice when you smile”, he told me. It was all a mistake.

The next ‘mistake’ I made was to teasingly poke him with my foot. Not even my whole foot, just my big toe. He responded by kicking me, hard, in the thigh. The pain was excruciating and I couldn’t stop crying.

All those times when ‘mistakes’ were made – when he slapped me for swearing at him, when he slapped me for making a comment he disliked – it was all my fault, he said. I had given him chocolate or juice that made him hyper, and he needed to let the energy out somehow.

When he pushed me down that one time and whispered to me about how easily he could rape me, how I wanted him to rape me, it was my fault for taking a harmless ‘joke’ too seriously. Because, of course, threats, specifically rape threats, are something you make in jest.

He’d forcibly take my phone or Mp3 player from me and demand me to give him money if I wanted the devices back. I couldn't really wrestle it out of him because I was all of five feet to his 6'4. I had to give him money, which was upsetting. When I called him out once, he pushed me down and wouldn’t let me go until I did what he wanted me to do: to say that I was his whore.

When his friends would call and message me to slutshame me, I was just ‘lacking a sense of humour’ and was ‘taking their jokes too seriously’. I’d cry sometimes, asking him why he was letting his friends speak to me in such a way, or why he was speaking that way himself.

He’d tell me he left his phone in a friend’s car and the friend was just fooling around, or he’d say he was with his friends and thought it would be ‘fun’ to ‘tease me’.

He’d call me and tell me his friends wanted a night with me. Multiple times. The first time he did it, he told me, “Don’t worry, X isn’t going to go all the way with you, tumharay jism par tou mein ne kal raat apna naam pher diya.”

Related: A 7-step guide for Pakistani victims of hacking and blackmail

Sometimes, I tried to get away. I tried to ignore his calls and messages. He said he’d show the texts and calls between us to my family so they’d kick me out of the house. He said he knew where I lived, that he’d come himself and tell my father who he was. This was the threat I received every time I tried to get out of the relationship.

Another threat was, “YouTube kardun?” To this day, I don’t know what he was threatening to post on YouTube, but I’d still be scared, thinking he might have a text or some photo which I didn’t know he’d taken.

I wonder, as I write this, if he will recognise himself in this story. If he truly has something to YouTube and if he’ll do so to punish me for ‘giving him a bad name.’

Reader, you’re wondering, at this point, why I didn’t run. Why I didn’t look for help. There must have been something I could have done, you’re thinking.

For six years, I have thought about those 11 months. I know that I was overprotected like many women are. Yet, that protection left me ill-equipped to experience life, to understand how cruel men can be, how entitled they feel over my body.

I had spent my life being told to protect myself, my honour; failure to do so could only be my fault. Hashtag Internalised Misogyny. But that still isn’t an answer; my naiveté might be how I fell for his lies, but it isn’t an explanation for why I stayed.

I know that I was utterly terrified of him, and what he would do if I tried to leave. I was lonely and isolated with no support system except my university friends, who were as lost as I was.

They told me to stop talking to him, that he was a typical guy trying to take advantage of me. None of us ever called him abusive, they all told me he was a typical guy trying to get in my pants.

I believed that if I went to my family for help, they’d cast me out, disown me, and/or kick me out of the house. I thought they’d blame me and tell me I deserved it for doing something as wrong as being involved with a man.

And The Boy knew this very well; he knew I was afraid of my family, he knew I came from a conservative household and hid a lot of who I was from them, and he used it to his full advantage.

I was utterly terrified of my abuser but I was more scared of what he’d do if I tried to leave. I couldn’t see a way out. It was awful, living in such helpless fear, wondering when I’d be stuck with him the next time, when he’d use fear and threats to intimidate me into meeting him.

The only adult I could speak to was a much-loved Behavioural Psychology teacher, who figured out that something was wrong.

He approached me, asked me gentle questions now and then, and never abused his authority as a teacher or passed judgment.

It’s a debt I’ll never be able to repay, but even he couldn’t help me or get through to me.

Eventually, the bruises became prominent enough that my best friend brought up the matter with my siblings. I didn’t find out until years later that she had done this. Despite how distressing the resulting confrontation with my siblings was, I am thankful to her for having done so.

My siblings didn’t fully find out until years later what really happened to me, but when my best friend initially alerted them, they imposed a restriction on me from seeing my abuser.

And then … it became permanent. Time passed. Days turned into weeks, months, years.

I learned to name what had happened to me as abuse. I learned that I was a survivor. The hardest lesson was the realisation that I had mental health issues as a result, issues that will definitely last for the remainder of my life.

But I also learned how to deal with those issues, to be strong and learn to live life. I learned that when you’ve been abused, you’re never really the same, but that it is possible to rebuild, to have a rich, fulfilling life.

Guess what, though? I was abused again, years later, but there was a big difference. My first abuser had been a violent bully, someone I mistrusted and who terrified me; this abuser was a close friend, someone I trusted and felt safe with when it was hard for me to trust men anymore.

What’s worse is that as my feelings changed for him into love, he used the depth of my feelings to be more vicious, because he believed he could get away with it. To be honest, I sometimes feel that maybe he was punishing me for loving him because he didn’t believe he was worth it.

For years, I was constantly trying to be ‘better’ for this man. The few times he was good to me, were like scraps of meat thrown to a starving animal, only to later kick the poor beast. But because the animal remembers you’ve fed it a few times, it will whimper and stay, waiting for the food again.

It went on for at least four years until I saw what he was doing to me. When I finally saw the truth and confronted him, he admitted that he had been abusive, but had crueler things to say to me.

Read next: I was sucked into my husband’s narcissistic world, but came out of it stronger

When I finally saw him for a controlling egomaniac who got off on the power he had over me, I was emotionally and psychologically broken for a very long time.

It wasn’t until I left my familiar life to study abroad that I was able to face the victim I had been even as I learned to be a survivor, and reconcile the two as one person.

I learned then that being a survivor was not a shield against more abusers. I learned that I didn’t need to be ashamed of letting this happen and not knowing better, because I didn’t let anything happen.

What I need readers to understand is that abusers can be so manipulative that their victims start internalising the abuse. They blame themselves as the cause of abuse.

For the second time in five years, I rebuilt myself. I’m a survivor. I had to be strong and whole, in order to help other women who needed me. Who needed someone to look them in the eye and say, I’m a survivor too. Other people feel this way too. You’re never alone.

I wanted to write about abuse because I have personally lived that particular hell. I could have quoted statistics, research, various sociological or psychological theories. But I chose to connect with readers more personally, not just because my story, like every survivor’s story, deserves to be told.

In our society, we are so quick to blame the women, and then by default their whole family because a woman is burdened with the family’s 'respect' and 'honour.'

So perhaps there is a chance that someone reading this thinks my experiences of abuse simply happened because I come from a 'bad' household where I was not 'taught' the right way to be 'decent.'

But what about the man who beat the living daylights out of me on a daily basis? Did you, even once, think the same thing about him? Why not? Wasn’t he raised by a family, by parents too?

Where did he learn to slap a girl because she swore at him? If I ‘brought shame’ upon my family with my actions, does that boy exist as a separate entity, that he has no family, no parents, siblings to shame?

Before asking others why they raise daughters like me, why don’t you stop raising sons that beat women? Before shaming my parents for raising a warrior, why don’t you check in with your sons to see what kind of men they’re becoming?

I don’t ask for sympathy. I ask to be heard, because I want to tell my story and own it. I ask to be heard for all the women who do not have the opportunity or means to speak up.

I ask to be heard and understood, for this painful, gut-wrenching exercise to mean more than just a cathartic rant; if I could help just one person understand how abuse works, and how victims can be helped, then that’s one person who might be able to help someone in a similar situation as mine.

So if someone who is in an abusive situation reads this, know that you are worth more than being someone’s punching bag. Know that you do not have to pay the price for someone else’s need to hurt and dominate.

Know that there is a way out, and it might take years, and it might be a lifelong process, but it is so much better than living in fear and misery. You are not alone in fighting to believe that you deserve better.

If you're in an abusive relationship and want to seek help, the following are some of the organisations you can reach out to: The Punjab Commission on the Status of Women, Citizens-Police Liaison Committee, Social Welfare, Special Education And Women Empowerment Department, Aurat Foundation, Madadgaar, Bolo Bhi, and Digital Rights Foundation.

You can also share your story with us at blog@dawn.com

Long before The Palm Island was put on the map and the Dubai Marina was dotted with upscale yachts and boats, there was one main waterway in Dubai, the Dubai Creek, joining two of the city’s oldest neighbourhoods — Deira and Bur Dubai.

In contrast to Dubai’s more recent and luxurious developments that thrive on pulling in more tourists, these areas, having escaped excessive retouching, still bear some semblance to the city’s early life.

For a change of scenery from gleaming glass high-rises to coral and mud stone houses with wind towers, my two friends and I took the squeaky-clean train heading to Al Fahidi in Bur Dubai, avoiding the usual traffic in the busy area.

We started off our tour of old Dubai with a brief history lesson at the Dubai Museum, which is housed within the walls of the restored Al Fahidi Fort, built in the late 1700s.

The museum is worth a visit for its wax statues and interactive displays that give a background into how Dubai and its six sister emirates came together to form the United Arab Emirates in 1971.

At the back of the museum is the Grand Mosque, open only to Muslims, and behind the mosque is the Hindi Lane that’s home to temples for Hindus and Sikhs, as well as numerous small shops selling garlands, bindis, and other paraphernalia used in worship.

Walking out of the alley, we knew we were approaching the Bur Dubai Souk as the crowds and number of shops started to multiply and the smell of herbs and spices became stronger.

You’ll be hard-pressed to find many locals around in the area; as is the case with most of the city, you’ll see a mix of nationalities that have influenced and shaped the Emirati culture over the years.

Most of the shopkeepers are South Asian but have picked up enough Arabic and English to market their prices as “the best you’ll get”.

We stopped at one of the tea shops, where the seller told us reassuringly that he won’t charge us “anything extra”, adding that he saves the most exorbitant prices for the foreigners.

The shops at the souk sell everything from rugs and knock-off designer wear to spices and ceramics. Pakistani and Indian snacks, such as pakoras and dosa, are popular among the locals as well as visitors, and are sold at small cafeterias along with fresh juices and the famous karak chai.

Since the souk runs parallel to the creek, we stopped at the Creekside café and found a table by the water to have a cold lemon and mint juice while taking in the view of the abras (traditional boats made of wood) against the backdrop of Deira’s old buildings.

A few steps away from the Creekside café is Bayt Al Wakeel (“Agent’s Home” in Arabic), one of the oldest houses in Dubai that was built in 1935.

Earlier a shipping office, the building now functions as a restaurant that serves Arabic food — and while the food isn’t anything exceptional, the view from the jetty that has been transformed into a dining terrace certainly is.

The manager was nice enough to let us explore the inside of the building where pictures showing the creek and Bayt Al Wakeel in their original form have been put up.

We found an abra station just a few steps away from Bayt Al Wakeel to cross over to Deira; the five-minute ride took us past the traditional houses, wind towers and minarets into the heart of Deira, where we stopped by the Spice Souk and the Gold Souk.

Tired from our souk-hopping, we called it a day, got juicy shawarmas from Ashwaq Cafeteria (one of the best in town) for dinner, and decided to return to Bur Dubai the next day.

Day two started with breakfast in the Al Fahidi Historical Neighbourhood (also known as Bastakiya); we got off at the same metro stop and walked past the Dubai Museum towards Al Fahidi street to the Arabian Tea House, where we had the Arabic breakfast tray with hummus, fried halloumi cheese, and olives —the holy trinity of local cuisine.

A number of eateries have cropped up in the neighbourhood but be wary of tourist traps (an elaborately decorated camel outside is an easy giveaway); if you don’t mind being touristy, then the Sheikh Mohammed Centre for Cultural Understanding will take you on a tour of the area and host a traditional breakfast for you, complete with Emiratis to converse with.

In contrast to the bustling and noisy souk, this preserved quarter is quiet and you don’t feel hassled to rush through the alleys. Built in the mid 1800s, Al Fahidi is one of the city’s oldest heritage sites where you can get a sense of the life of the early Emiratis.

Traditional courtyard houses made of coral or sea stone and mud are marked with the wind towers (barjeel), which allow hot air to rise out and cooler winds to flow down.

Today, the neighbourhood has become an art hub with many houses having been converted into cafés and art galleries, and it is also the venue for the annual Sikka Art Fair that usually takes place in March during Art Season.

We made our way through the labyrinth, stopping at the XVA Hotel and Gallery, Make Art Café, Coffee Museum, Art Connection, Mawaheb Art Studio (for artists with special needs), and anything else which looked remotely interesting.

All the places welcome visitors who are not necessarily customers, so you can walk in and roam about without feeling the need to buy anything.

You can also see a small portion of the Bur Dubai wall, dating back to 1800 A.D., in the area and for the history buffs, there’s a Restoration House, dedicated to preserving original architecture and artefacts, where I saw some gorgeous traditional, wooden doors.

One of the best ways to get an idea of how Dubai has changed over the years is to strike up a conversation with the shopkeepers or the abra drivers, many of whom have been in the city for decades.

In the evening, we went back to the Creekside café to watch the sun set over the abras, which went about their routes as they have been for years, taking commuters across the creek for a mere one Emirati dirham.

All photos by the author.

Have you been to any lesser-known historical places across the world? Share your experience with us at blog@dawn.com

• Current ODI All-Rounders ICC Player Rankings

“Why is Hafeez still playing for Pakistan?” my cousin messaged, as the Professor propelled Pakistan into a batting collapse against Sri Lanka in Cardiff. Three perfectly-middled and well-timed dot balls with no intentions to score. Followed by a soft dismissal. A solitary run in the space of six typically Hafeez minutes spent at the crease without much purpose.

I try not answering. I have advocated Hafeez’s selection for too many years to get into that conversation. Hafeez is currently ranked as the second best ODI all-rounder in the world.

Yes, Hafeez is a better all-rounder than Ben Stokes, ranked higher than Angelo Mathews and positioned five places above Ravindra Jadeja in ICC’s player rankings.

Current ODI All-Rounders ICC Player Rankings

There has to be something wrong with ICC calculations, and/or something a miss with the Pakistani public, a large part of which does not want Hafeez in the team. The other nine in the top ten all-rounders are heroes in their country. Why is Hafeez then demonised in his?

Is there sound reason to this notion?

My brother responds to my cousin, “We need Hafeez’s bowling. It’s usually very good. He refuses to bat lower. It’s been a problem for a long time. He still wants to open. They moved him to three after many failures, and now to four after failing many times at three. At this rate he will move to number six by 2020.”

I laugh at the truth behind this comment, more though in disgust. Pakistan has made a mess of a modest chase of 236 runs on a pitch devoid of spitting cobras.

I can’t take it anymore. I reply, “You cannot expect bowling all-rounders to bat in the top order”. Pakistan has suffered from the batting all-rounder delusion for so long, and has yet not been able to get its balance right.

Also read: The 'batting' all-rounder delusion

Pakistan is playing with only three specialist batsmen, Azhar, Fakhar, and Babar. Hafeez, Malik, Sarfraz, Imad, Fahim, Amir, Hasan, and Junaid are the other eight players. We need more specialist batsmen I insist.

Why is Haris Sohail sitting out? He averages 52.01 in First Class cricket and 43.00 in ODIs. In comparison, Hafeez averages: 34.91 and 32.69, Malik: 37.09 and 35.35, and Imad: 41.59 and 35.00.

Imad and Hafeez play a similar bowling role with startling economy rates of 4.63 and 4.13 respectively. These numbers in this day and age are like that of Joel Garner’s of its time.

Imad bats low down the order with a strike rate of 100.26. And Hafeez bats with a horrendous modern day strike rate of 75.21 up the order, like he is batting in the time of Joel Garner.

By now, Pakistan is 137-6 with Imad also returning to the pavilion. I have had it. It is not about individuals, I say. Teams are built on combinations and balance. Please play proper batsmen in the top order, and either play Hafeez or Imad for the all-rounder’s slot. I am fuming.

After the next 80 minutes of miracle, Pakistani batting and morbid Sri Lankan fielding, Pakistan crossed the finish line, and went into the semis.

The conversation is halted by celebrations.

“They should play Shahdab, England is suspect against spin, and Shahdab is a wicket taker,” says my father–in–law before the semi-final. But whom would you drop? I ask. Imad, he suggests.

Shadab could be a good option, but dropping Imad would make the frail Pakistani batting line even more fragile, I reason.

The team against England is announced.

Amir is unfit, replaced by debutant Rumman Raees. Shadab is in, replacing Fahim Ashraf.

Fahim? The 23-year-old who kick-started Pakistan’s fight-back against Sri Lanka by hooking Malinga out of the ground? The debutant who took 2/37? Who chased 342 in the warm up game against Bangladesh? After being unlikely run-out on debut and then being dropped in the next game must have hurt the kid.

Well, horses for courses. Pakistan has probably picked their best XI, I thought.

And the best XI, performed at its best – crushing England with an eight-wicket win, in 37.1 overs.

In depth: India to face Pakistan in Champions Trophy final after comfortably beating Bangladesh

Within seconds of Pakistan winning the semi-final, I receive another group message from my other brother. “What a great win, comprehensive! No place for Amir in this XI.” I chuckle, shake my head, and resist to respond.

Amir is still almost always the first bowler the Pakistani captain picks, I say to myself. He is still the man the skipper turns to most on the field.

Amir has bowled 697 overs in the last 12 months, Wahab is number two with 443 overs, and Hasan third with 229 overs. Amir is the only regular bowler across all three formats. He is the first bowler that is picked in the Pakistani team, in any format.

Yet, my brother’s point holds weight. Rumman bowled his heart out on debut and returned with figures of 2/44 in the semi-final win against England. Amir has taken 2/135 in the three games in the tournament.

In Pakistan, we are all selectors. No captain knows how to select a playing XI better than any of us commoners. And the PCB and its selection committee over the years? Biased, corrupt, inept; the lesser said, the better. They have done well to earn a reputation usually reserved for the politicians of the country.

The Pakistani public knows better. It knows how Fawad Alam is the highest averaging (56.51), run-hungry giant on Pakistan’s domestic circuit and averaging 41.66 in Test cricket and 40.25 in ODIs. Ignored by the selectors for so long that his only solace today is the example of Misbah–ul–Haq, who has redefined the cricketing age-cycle in the country. But lets keep that for another day.

Debutants Fahim and Raees have performed well, while Junaid and Hasan (who has a niggle in his shin) seem automatic selections. And Amir should be fit by Sunday. Pakistani captains face many problems. But the difficulty of selecting from a bunch of performing bowlers is perhaps one of the few good problems Sarfraz will ever face.

Amir is likely to return in place of Raees, and Fahim might get the nod ahead of Shahdab considering how well India plays spin.

Expected team for the final: Azhar Ali, Fakhar Zaman, Babar Azam, Mohammad Hafeez, Shaoib Malik, *Sarfraz Ahmed, Imad Wasim, Fahim Ashraf, Mohammad Amir, Hasan Ali and Junaid Khan

• Behind this surge is the rise in the scores of these two batsmen. Zaman has struck 31, 50, and 57 and Azhar has made 9, 34, 76. The two, however, will be up against the most potent pace attack in the history of Indian cricket.
• Pakistan have beaten India twice in ICC tournaments, both times in the Champions Trophy in 2004 and 2009. They have met India six times across limited-overs formats in ICC tournaments since their 2009 triumph, losing every time.

London will be painted green and blue come Sunday in anticipation for one of the biggest games in cricket history. Pakistan play India in a 50-over ICC tournament final for the first time.

It cannot get bigger than this in the game of cricket, barring a world cup final between the two South Asian giants. But for now, the India-Pakistan final is the event and has already brought the cricketing world to a standstill.

Just a few weeks back, any notion hinting at Pakistan making it to the final of the prestigious ICC Champions Trophy would have induced laughter. After all, the Sarfraz-led unit entered the tournament as underdogs. The top eight teams in the ICC’s ODI rankings compete in this tournament – and Pakistan stood eighth.

But the Men in Green surprised everyone by becoming the first side to secure a berth in the final.

With a resurgent Pakistan, it is difficult to predict the outcome of the contest. One can never be sure which Pakistan will turn up to play this Sunday. Whether it would be the one that got humiliated against India exactly two weeks ago or the one that thrashed the best one-day side two days later.

Just two Sundays ago, India thrashed Pakistan by 124 runs. Virat Kohli’s men have an edge over their rivals this Sunday as well because of the latter’s fragile middle order batting.

Pakistan’s middle order (from number three till number seven) have scored 300 runs in the tournament at just 30 runs per wicket. The Indian middle order, on the other hand, have added nearly 500 runs at a staggering rate of 90.6 runs per wicket.

Four out of five in the middle order are right-handed batsmen and the only left-handed batsman of the order, Imad Wasim, comes in at the end, at number seven. This is an area that India will be targeting.

Left-arm orthodox Ravindra Jadeja averages 29 against right-handed batsmen as compared to 60 against the left-handed in the ODI format. However, after the match against Pakistan, in which he removed Azhar Ali and Mohammad Hafeez, Jadeja seems to have lost his lustre, bagging just two wickets for 140 runs in the following three matches.

Pakistan will be heavily reliant on their openers to get them a steady start. Since the introduction of 27-year-old Fakhar Zaman at the top of the order, Pakistan has seen a surge in the opening stands.

Pakistan’s first wicket posted 40 against South Africa. In the next match against Sri Lanka, the Azhar-Zaman duo put up 74 runs. During the semi-final against hosts England, they struck Pakistan’s first 100-plus opening partnership since May 2015.

Behind this surge is the rise in the scores of these two batsmen. Zaman has struck 31, 50, and 57 and Azhar has made 9, 34, 76. The two, however, will be up against the most potent pace attack in the history of Indian cricket.

Both Bhuvneshwar Kumar, who entered the tournament at the back of a fruitful IPL, and Jaspreet Bumrah, have been bowling at meticulous lengths. In a must-win game against South Africa, they choked Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock in the first power play, leading to a disastrous batting collapse for the best-ranked ODI side.

India will approach Pakistan’s opening pair in a similar manner, especially Zaman, who looked uncomfortable against English pacer Mark Wood in the semi-final, when he was being cramped for room.

After their loss against India, Pakistan resorted to their old tactics of unleashing their pacers on the opposition. Their spinners prepared the ball for reverse swing (legally) on an abrasive Edgbaston wicket in the match against South Africa. Hasan Ali, with his scorching reverse swingers, did the job in the middle overs.

This has been the pattern ever since.

23-year-old Hasan tops the tournament’s most-wicket column with 10 scalps in four matches. Left-arm fast bowler Junaid Khan stands at number four on the list with seven wickets.

Mohammad Amir has picked up only two wickets in the tournament from the three matches he has played. He missed the last contest due to a back spasm, but his impeccable bowling throughout the tournament keeps him in contention for the final. He will undertake a fitness test before the final and if deemed fit, will have a daunting task ahead.

Indian openers Shikhar Dhawan and Rohit Sharma top the most-runs-of-the-tournament section with 317 and 304 in four matches apiece. In their journey to the final, the pair have struck two 100-plus opening partnerships, the first one coming against Pakistan.

Indian captain Kohli, who bats at one-drop, has struck three 50-plus scores, with his best score of 96* coming in the last match.

Pakistan have beaten India twice in ICC tournaments, both times in the Champions Trophy in 2004 and 2009. They have met India six times across limited-overs formats in ICC tournaments since their 2009 triumph, losing every time.

With a resurgent Pakistan, it is difficult to predict the outcome of the contest. One can never be sure which Pakistan will turn up to play this Sunday. Whether it would be the one that got humiliated against India exactly two weeks ago, or the one that thrashed the best one-day side two days later.

But unlike the Sunday when they were drubbed by India, Pakistan have a side full of self-belief this time. A side that has picked itself up. A side where juniors stepped up when seniors faltered.

From being beyond abysmal, this Sunday the Pakistani team will enter the Oval with a shot at the championship.

This is certainly a contest that promises to live up to its expectations.

The stage is set: Pakistan vs India in the final of the Champions Trophy. Mother of all contests. For the Indian captain Virat Kohli,“it is just another game”. According to Wasim Akram, it is poised to be a “battle of nerves” between two countries that were once one.

Ex-Indian captain Saurav Ganguly gives India a 73% winning chance. The bookies somewhat agree and give 1/3 for betting on Pakistan. India are clear favourites.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani public, the social media, and the entire nation do what they know best. They pray a little harder.

First conundrum of the morning: win the toss and bat? Or bowl?

Pakistan cannot chase well, and well, India can chase anything. Looks like a flat pitch, but a fresh one. For Virat, it is simple: win the toss, bowl first. For Sarfraz, probably a good toss to lose. He could have very easily fallen into the death trap of chasing a big total in a massive final against India.

Pakistani openers Azhar Ali and Fakhar Zaman start the proceedings. First over is a maiden by Bhuvneshwar Kumar. India have done their homework. They bowl a tight line to Fakhar and give him no width. India are prepared. They are wired to win. They are facing Fakhar for the first time, but they know he likes width. They give him none.

Fakhar has been pegged on the stumps for eight deliveries and then Bumrah floats one outside off. Fakhar follows it and edges to Dhoni behind the stumps. But Pakistani prayers intervene and the first signs of magic appear. Bumrah has overstepped, it’s a No Ball. Fakhar gets a life.

It is the start of lady luck playing in Pakistan’s favour. Inside edge goes for four, outside edges go for four, and it even races off the helmet for four. India miss clear run out chances against both Pakistani openers. And luck continues favouring the brave.

Fakhar and Azhar take their chances, keep stealing quick singles and flash their bats at anything on offer. But it is not just boom-boom, bam-bam Pakistani batting. They have a plan too. They have targeted men in their minds. They know whom they are going after today.

Ashwin, who was not picked for the first game against Pakistan, bowls the eighth over. And Azhar charges down the ground and smashes Ashwin out of the park for a six.

The tone is set. Pakistan will attack Indian spin.

Pakistan blow punches, but are also circumspect. India feel the heat, and their fielding standards drop a notch. Fakhar hits straight to Yuvraj Singh but it goes through him to the boundary for four as Fakhar gets to his third consecutive fifty.

Is Fakhar the opener Pakistan has been searching for? Three fifties in four games with a career strike rate of 113 – so far, so good. Keep going, lad.

They run hard and take risks, till they are caught ball watching. Azhar is finally run out and is visibly upset. Some of the blame for the blunder is on Fakhar, but most of it is on lack of communication.

Azhar had taken the initiative in the partnership and was surprisingly scoring faster than Fakhar.

But this is where Fakhar changes gear and scores 58 off the next 37 deliveries, smashing three sixes and five fours. Reaching his first maiden hundred in style, but holding out in the deep not much after.

It was not the classiest hundred that one would see, but it was as important as any.

Babar Azam and Shoaib Malik tick the scoreboard but are not able to really explode.

Then walks in Mohammad Hafeez. The first ball he steps out of the crease and hammers it down the fence. For once, Hafeez is not given the liberty to play himself in. He does not have to rotate strike cause he’s striking so clean.

We know that Hafeez can time the ball as good as anyone in Pakistan. Maybe coming in at number five is more suited for his game play. Maybe when the professor has fewer options, perhaps when the game dictates play, he will not need to complicate things, like he so often does.

India are on the back-foot and feeling the pressure of a big game. They give away 25 extras. In their first game against Pakistan, they had given eight.

With runs on the board, Pakistan is in command.

But this is India. If there is anyone in the world who can chase down a mammoth total, it is Kohli and his men.

However, they are up against the most potent bowling attack of the tournament. In the last three games, Pakistan restricted South Africa to 219/8, bowled Sri Lanka out for 235 and bundled England for 211.

The new ball is in the hand of Pakistan’s ace fast bowler, Mohammad Amir. He angles two of them out and brings the third one back in – truly reminiscent of Pakistani left-arm god, Wasim Akram. The ball is too good for Rohit Sharma, who has scored 301 runs in the week with an average of 101. But he now returns to the pavilion with a duck.

Fast bowlers hunt in pairs. And Junaid Khan is steaming in from the other end. The last time Kohli had to walk in this early was in June, 2015. He is not used to this, and he is up against Pakistani fast bowlers who have their tails up.

Amir bowls another jaffa that catches the outside edge and flies straight into the hands of Azhar Ali at first slip, and then falls out of it. Kohli is dropped on five. Kohli, who has 17 hundreds when batting second. The 23-year-old Kohli had clobbered Pakistan for 183 not out and chased 330 runs in less than 48 overs.

Now he is 28, Indian captain and the number one batsman in the world.

Amir is livid, and rightly so.

Then something very Pakistani happens. Amir gets Virat twice in two balls. Pure Pakistani magic!

Amir is on fire, so is Junaid. Both have bowled maidens. But it is Amir who strikes again. This time, his victim is Shikhar Dhawan, the holder of the Golden Bat, the leading run scorer of the tournament.

India are reeling at 33-3 in nine overs, and Amir has taken 16-3 in five.

Amir has stream-rolled through Rohit, Virat, and Shikar; the top three Indian batsmen who had contributed 82% of the runs (894 out of 1094) that India had scored in the championship, before the final.

Yuvraj Singh and MS Dhoni stand as the last ray of hope for India. They stand between Green Glory and Bleeding Blue. But there is little respite.

Fast bowlers hunt in pairs, but Pakistani fast bowlers are known to hunt in packs. And they are deadlier when they have a leg-spinner in their ranks.

Sarfraz soon unleashes his second line of attack. Hasan Ali is bowling from one end, and Shadab Khan from the other.

The 19-year-old Pakistani leg spinner was two years old when Yuvraj made his international debut. But Shadab has the zest of youth and tosses one up to lure Yuvraj into a cover drive. It is from the back of Shadab’s hand. Shadab’s wrong’un is not easy to read as it goes past Yuvraj’s outside edge. Yuvraj is half out.

And then the second half is out on the next ball, one that pitches on a similar length but turns back in. Yuvraj tries to jam his bat, and the umpire adjudges it not out. Shadab thinks otherwise, he knows better and directs his captain into taking a review. He is right.

Shadab is sure he has got his man, Yuvraj Singh.

Technology confirms that Yuvraj was plumb.

Hasan Ali sets his field against Dhoni. Deep square leg in place. It is an obvious trap. The ball is short and climbing into Dhoni’s ribcage. He takes a dab at it and puts it straight down the trap, where Imad completes a fine diving effort.

Hasan starts the generator and opens his arms in trademark celebrations. He is already the highest wicket taker in the tournament, but this moment is more important to him. He has come, he has planned and he has conquered the Indians.

In the space of four balls, both Yuvraj and Dhoni are parcelled back to the pavilion. India are 54/5, with the top five back in the hut. That’s game, set and match for Pakistan.

Hardik Pandya later launches himself into Shadab, but it is too late. A lot of the Indian crowd is leaving the stadium and the writing is on the scorecard.

India are eventually bundled out for 158 runs. Pakistan win the match by 180 runs and are crowned as the champions. They received white jackets that are two sizes bigger, perhaps tailored better to fit the English team.

Sarfraz and his boys celebrate.

The entire team goes down in prostration.

The streets of London turn into Lahore. And celebrating fans surround Sarfraz’s house in Karachi. Television sets break across India, and Rishi Kapoor’s twitter account is painted with green graffiti.

Almost every Pakistani player who comes for an interview starts by first thanking Allah. It is as if Pakistan believes that they play with supernatural support from a superior being. As if they have a team of twelve instead of eleven on the field.

Pakistan’s performance is paranormal, it is pure magic and it is almost unfair.

• We’re all scurrying to work in the United States, or vacation in Europe, when there is so much we can learn from our next-door neighbours.
  • • My journey elicited stories from others also personally impacted by the Partition. I had an overnight layover in Ambala, where a Pakistani friend told me his grandparents lived before Partition. An Indian friend asked me to find the home his father had left in Lahore. Partition felt like recent history, despite having taken place 70 years ago.
    • I cherished my time in Lahore, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being somewhat of an outsider. But my newfound family ties alongside the cosmopolitan nature of Karachi erased that distinction. Here, ethnic Sindhis rub shoulders with Pashtuns, Punjabis, Baloch and even a few Hyderabadis like me. Karachi teemed with the infectious spirit of a bustling metropolis rapidly evolving, even reinventing itself, and I was hooked.

I almost couldn’t believe my eyes when I finally received my visa to visit Pakistan. As an Indian-American, it was not an easy process.

That I was born in Hyderabad – Deccan, not Sindh – made India home, but rendered Pakistan almost impenetrable. My first application was scoffed at by the embassy in Cambodia where I initially applied.

But still I persisted, finally succeeding through the help of a college roommate, another Hyderabadi-American, who connected me with an official at a Pakistani Consulate in the US.

It always surprised me that nearly everyone I know has visited either India or Pakistan, never both. That these two nations are born out of the same cloth; out of a shared cultural and linguistic tapestry that stretches back millennia, has been unfortunately obscured by the politics of a few decades.

During Partition, my entire family, as far as I knew, decided to stay in the relative security of Muslim-majority Hyderabad in southern India. Amidst a slightly different situation, I could just as easily have been born in Pakistan. I was, of course, as proud an Indian as any, but that never hampered my curiosity for my fraternal nation.

We’re all scurrying to work in the United States, or vacation in Europe, when there is so much we can learn from our next-door neighbours.

I couldn’t remember the last time I was so excited to go somewhere new. I had already visited some 40-odd countries, attempting with each to broaden my understanding of the world. But there was something especially evocative about Pakistan.

As a South Asian Muslim, it was the indignation of a birth right interminably delayed due to political complications. After all, Pakistan was created in the spirit of inviting and protecting the rights of Muslims.

As a proud speaker of the language, I was also excited at revelling in Urdu in all its glory in Pakistan. The Devanagari script used to render Hindi is, of course, just as beautiful to my eyes. But I yearned to immerse myself in the elegant curves of Nastaliq outside of the select Muslim-majority neighbourhoods where it’s prevalent in India.

Of course, this was not the first instance I seriously considered visiting Pakistan. I flirted with the idea every time I was in India. Yet, I always let myself be dissuaded by a well-meaning family friend or another advising it was ‘too complicated a process, or worse ‘too risky.’

I wasn’t going to be stopped this time.

This time, passport and visa finally in hand, I boarded a train to Amritsar, on the other side of the Wagah border from Lahore.

My journey elicited stories from others also personally impacted by the Partition. I had an overnight layover in Ambala, where a Pakistani friend told me his grandparents lived before Partition. An Indian friend asked me to find the home his father had left in Lahore. Partition felt like recent history, despite having taken place 70 years ago.

I arrived at Amritsar Junction around 9am, exhausted from the modicum of sleep I could muster amidst the overnight frenzy of a train station. Still, I was eager to head as early as possible to the Wagah border to solve any issues I was worried might arise. I hailed a cab and sat in eager anticipation during the 45-minute drive.

As we pulled into the Attari Integrated Check Post, my passport and visas were verified. The taxi driver’s license was held before we were allowed to enter. I had meticulously prepared backup documents: duplicates of invitation letters, passport copies, photos; anything I could think of, the absence of which might justify rejecting my crossing.

I held my breath at each step, worried that a wrong answer or a misstep would get me denied entry or detained. Although the security was thorough, every single person I spoke with was courteous and professional, on both sides.

I was joined by a few working-class Indians: some Kashmiris, and a few Sikh pilgrims visiting temples in the Pakistani Punjab. Cleared through Indian security and customs, we boarded the bus to head to the famous Baab-e-Azadi.

I’d seen it before, ten years prior in my first trip to India from the States. I had come to Wagah to witness the daily military parade. Like every other visitor in attendance, I had no visa to cross then. The border seemed impassable then.

But on this day, Quaid-e-Azam’s portrait and the qaumi parcham welcomed me. It was an almost spiritual experience as I took my first steps into Pakistan. It was hard to believe. I would be the first in my family to ever visit Pakistan; a nation close to my heart as a South Asian Muslim, a nation separated from me as an Indian-American.

I would be joining the unfortunately small ranks of individuals who have recently experienced both India and Pakistan, communities cleaved apart after Partition that had lived peaceably together for centuries. I was about to see through my own eyes how Pakistan compared to its international perception and perhaps more intriguing, with its sibling rival, India.

My friend’s father was the first familiar face to greet me on the Pakistani side. The hour-long drive to Shahdhara, Lahore kicked off an unforgettable week.

Watching the Mughal-era Baadshahi Masjid rise up in the horizon as we drove into the city was a majestic experience, perhaps rivalled only by joining the jamaat inside the following Friday.

I marvelled at the Lahore Metrobus, riding it routinely as I shopped for shawls at Anarkali Bazaar or kurtas from Junaid Jamshed.

I was even fortunate enough to participate in a Punjabi wedding, enjoying the most tender and flavourful mutton across any of my travels.

As memorable as my time in Lahore was, I had just uncovered a much more profound revelation. While there, I received an unexpected phone call from my mother in the States. The excited tone in her voice indicated something was up.

I had, in preparation for my trip, requested her and my dad to ask around on the off chance we might have any distant relatives who had migrated to Pakistan. Most inquiries had led to nowhere. It seemed like all of my living relatives stayed in India, or otherwise opted for the Gulf or North America.

However, on the phone this time, my mother informed me of recently receiving an invitation to a wedding in Chicago from a distant uncle. When she told him about my trip, he suggested a cousin of his, whose number he didn’t have.

My mom perused old phone books of my late nani to find this person’s number, a distant relative of whom she had heard, but never met. With this, my mom made her first call to Pakistan. She was ecstatic to deliver me the news, that I had a relative in Karachi who was excited to meet me.

I couldn’t believe it. I had lived 29 years of my life, believing my entire family (and by extension myself) to be solely Indian. That this journey might question that monolithic ancestry, and reunite me with family separated by Partition, imbued the journey with a much deeper sense of purpose.

Originally having planned just a week for Pakistan, entirely in Lahore, I changed my schedule. I ate as much chargha and murgh chhole as I could before I boarded my flight to Karachi.

When I landed at the Jinnah International Airport, I was the first in my family to meet Moin nana, the maternal cousin of my nani.

Given the distance, it was unsurprising that we only just learned of each other’s existence. More remarkable was how deep the familiarity still ran. I recognised him immediately, the spitting image of my nani’s younger brother in Toronto.

We quickly discussed our shared family. My nani had only met his older siblings in India over half-a-century ago. It was more than enough to forge the consanguine bond that tied us together.

I learned that Moin nana was born in December of 1947 just months after Partition. His parents packed up their life, and along with their kids, left Hyderabad in 1950. Like millions of Muslims immigrants, they were eager to settle in the Dominion of Pakistan and selected Karachi as their new home.

It was evident that Hyderabad remained with many of them. A replica of the char minar, Hyderabad’s most iconic landmark, welcomed me as we drove in to Bahadurabad. I recognised it immediately as an homage to the Deccan origins of the resident’s central Karachi neighbourhood.

Khatti daal and mahi khaliya cut adorned the dining table of my nana’s house, staples of Hyderabadi cuisine from 1,500 kilometres south.

My cousin, despite never having been to Hyderabad, could pull off a dakhini accent that wouldn’t raise an eyebrow near the original char minar. He introduced me to other relatives, as well as the best biryanis, niharis, and lassis Karachi (and perhaps the world) could offer.

I met friends from college and even attended a mushaira. I was beginning to see Pakistan less as a tourist and as more of an insider.

I cherished my time in Lahore, but I couldn’t shake the feeling of being somewhat of an outsider. But my newfound family ties alongside the cosmopolitan nature of Karachi erased that distinction. Here, ethnic Sindhis rub shoulders with Pashtuns, Punjabis, Baloch and even a few Hyderabadis like me. Karachi teemed with the infectious spirit of a bustling metropolis rapidly evolving, even reinventing itself, and I was hooked.

I know I’ll return someday, and soon. I intend to bring others along – to share the most important lesson I’ve learned.

My voyage to Pakistan was originally born out of intellectual and cultural curiosity. Driven by a desire to understand the broader canvas of South Asia, I thought I was heading to a foreign country. This Indian-American didn’t realise he was actually discovering another home.

All photos by the author.

Are you an expat living in Pakistan or have you visited the country as a tourist? Share your experience with us at blog@dawn.com

For the last few weeks, the weather in Kashmir has been a bit irritating. It rains every late afternoon after a sunny and hot morning. June 18th was no different. The sun started strong but by mid-day, lost its intensity. Clouds gathered overhead and rain was not far behind.

We left the mosque after zuhr prayers and sat outside a shop, giving our ‘analysis’ of what was about to come — the final of the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 — between Pakistan and India, a match that brings both excitement and fear to Kashmir and Kashmiris in India.

As we discussed the possible outcomes, Nab Kak, the most senior ‘analyst’ of the locality, joined us. He is in his late 70’s, prays on a chair, and uses a walking stick. Half of his teeth are missing and the other half have eroded and are nearing decay.

Throughout his life, he has watched cricket only because of Pakistan. He remembers the famous Miandad six, and the World Cup win in 1992. Name any important moment in the history of Pakistan cricket, and he is there to tell you a story.

For generations, maybe even cutting across ideological lines, people in Kashmir have cheered for Pakistan as their panen (own) team.

On Sunday, Nab Kak looked nervous. “Be wary of Kohli”, he said, adding, “but have faith in Amir”. The boys at the shop told him Pakistan is going to win. The sale of firecrackers had already started.

Even before the tournament started, it was the Kashmiris who held hope for Pakistan’s victory. Only a people who brave bullets with stones in hand, can vouch for Pakistan to win against the likes of South Africa, England, and India. Hoping that we will prevail against the odds is in our blood. The rankings don’t matter.

As we left the shop, all of us agreed that the toss is important. So we hoped for Sarfraz to win the toss, but he lost the call. It was a disappointing start to the match.

A self-imposed curfew of sorts was established. There was no movement on the roads. Men, women, and children, were all glued to their TV sets.

My 14-year-old cousin, a crazy Pakistan fan, sat beside me, taunting her younger brother who supports India because they have MS Dhoni on their side. She thinks it is unnatural for a Kashmiri to support the Indian team.

My grandfather arrived to give us more support. He predicted a 100 by one of Pakistan’s openers.

When Azhar Ali and Fakhar Zaman made their way in, I began to criticise Azhar, even before he faced a delivery. I have always found him an odd man in the Pakistan ODI squad.

But then, he is a Pakistani cricketer. He had to prove his critics wrong (although I still believe he has no place in the ODI squad).

Fakhar Zaman looked sloppy at the start. The Indian bowlers were playing according to plan. But soon the plan fell apart. Fakhar went on to score a 100.

My father had an appointment with a neurologist. I didn’t want to leave. Close to 12 overs were still to be bowled and Pakistan had yet to cross the 300 mark.

Finally, we left. On the Baramulla-Kupwara highway, traffic was next to nothing. The market was deserted too.

When we were done, the Indian batsmen were already out for the chase. As I collected the medicine from the only chemist store open at that time, I heard a loud bang. “A firecracker,” somebody in the shop said.

I picked up my phone to check the score, to find Rohit Sharma making his way back to the pavilion. Amir had struck in the first over. There was jubilation all around. More firecrackers followed.

By the time we reached home, Kohli had been dropped by Azhar Ali and dismissed by Amir in the following ball. His spell seemed like poetry in motion.

With Shikhar Dhawan back in the hut, people were out on the streets. They knew it was all over for India.

Slogans followed firecrackers. Firecrackers followed slogans. There was no chasing the total now. The Pakistan pace attack bulldozed the Indian top order. They made the Indian batting look ridiculously incompetent.

In Kashmir, it was Eid a week before Eid.

Nothing could have been better for the battered and bruised people here than a humiliating defeat of India at the hands of Pakistan. A momentary celebration amid the perpetual state of mourning was probably needed to stay sane — or insane, perhaps.

The revelry on the streets was never seen before in these parts.

Shortly, the retribution followed.

Reports poured in from various places that the Indian army had beaten up people. As expected, there were clashes between stone-pelters and Indian forces in Srinagar.

Kashmiris have always had to pay a heavy price for any cause of celebration. However, this time there was no loss of life reported. For a day, there was no mourning.

The celebrations continue. For now.

How did your community celebrate the Champions Trophy win? Are you a cricketing enthusiast, player, or trainer? Share your thoughts at blog@dawn.com

• The accidental rise of Sarfraz Ahmad

Sarfraz Ahmad made his ODI debut in 2007 at the age of 20. He had come into the side after leading the Pakistan U19 team to victory in the 2006 youth World Cup in Sri Lanka. The team’s opponents in the final of that event were India.

In 2007, Sarfraz was selected in the country’s national side during its tour of India as an understudy of Pakistan’s then regular wicketkeeper-batsman, Kamran Akmal. Sarfraz’s ODI debut was quiet. He hardly grabbed any catches and was not required to bat.

Born in Karachi into a middle-class Urdu-speaking family in 1987, Sarfraz, like most cricket enthusiasts in this city, began playing the sport in streets and alleys. From the streets, he eventually graduated to playing for various clubs.

Inspired by the exploits of Pakistan’s wicketkeeper-batsmen of the 1990s, Moin Khan and Rashid Latif, Sarfraz adopted wicket-keeping.

For some reason, Karachi has produced the most number of quality keepers. These include Wasim Bari (1967-83); Shahid Israr (1976); Taslim Arif (1979-81); Anil Dalpat (1984-95); Saleem Yousuf (1982-89); Moin Khan (1991-2002); Rashid Latif (1992-2003) and now Sarfraz Ahmad.

Many believe that cricketers from Karachi are always more innovative in their technique and thinking compared to those emerging from other parts of the country. This may be due to the way cricket is played in the narrow lanes and streets of this city. It creates an entombed and almost besieged cricketing mindset which demands innovative methods and thinking from the players.

As batsmen, they need to come up with unique strokes to navigate the limited gaps and spaces available to hit the ball in; and as bowlers and fielders, they, through tight lines and regular sledging and bantering, reinforce the entrapped feeling in the batsmen’s mind.

This mindset remains with those who manage to enter the city’s widespread club cricket scene and even when some of them rise further to play international cricket for Pakistan.

Karachi’s first batch of famous cricketers came from the same family: the Mohammad brothers – Hanif, Wazir, Mushtaq and Sadiq. Hanif had played much of his initial cricket as a child and teen in Junagadh, where he was born, in pre-Partition India.

So when he was selected for Pakistan after the country’s creation in 1947, he played with a straight bat and was the most conventional cricketer among the brothers. Same was the case with Wazir.

However, even though both Mushtaq and Sadiq were also born in Junagadh, they were much younger and started playing cricket on the streets of Karachi when the family moved from Junagadh to Pakistan. Mushtaq was arguably the first batsman to use the now-common reverse sweep. He pulled it out in a side game against the visiting Indian side in 1978. In his 2006 autobiography Inside Out, Mushtaq wrote that he had been playing the reverse sweep as a kid in Karachi.

It was also Mushtaq (as captain) who introduced the whole concept of sledging in the Pakistan team during its 1976-77 tour of Australia. In his book, he wrote that though the Australians invented sledging, he thought since Pakistani players (especially from Karachi) had grown up doing it all their lives, it was easy for them to counter Australian sledging by doing it in a more effective manner.

The most intriguing example of how street cricket in Karachi shapes many curious innovations is associated with Sadiq Mohammad, the dashing left-handed batsman who went on to become one of Pakistan’s most successful openers.

Sadiq was born right-handed but when as a kid he began to play cricket with his elder brothers on the streets, they forced him to bat left-handed by tying his right hand behind his back!

Mushtaq wrote that they did this because where they played, there were more scoring areas for a left-handed batsman and also the fact that there were not many left-handed batsmen in the city’s cricket scene at the time.

However, the cricketer who most famously reflected the curiosities that Karachi’s street cricket instills in a player was Javed Miandad (1976-96). Considered to be the best batsman Pakistan has ever produced, Miandad’s whole cricketing demeanour – sly, pragmatic, vocal, expressive, innovative, observant, distrustful and bearing a besieged mentality – brought to the world the eccentricities of Karachi’s cricket scene when foreign cricketers and media tried to understand why he was the way he was.

In his book Cutting Edge, Miandad wrote that the label of street fighter was actually given to him by the British press.

Most interesting, however, is the way Karachi’s wicket-keepers have come in and fallen out of the Pakistan team ever since Wasim Bari’s retirement in 1983. In fact, Bari is also part of these curious, fateful tales.

Bari was a regular in the Pakistan team since 1967 until he was suddenly dropped during the third Test of the 1976 series against New Zealand. He was replaced by another Karachiite, Shahid Israr. But Israr vanished as suddenly as he had appeared, and Bari reemerged.

Bari’s longest understudy was Karachi’s Taslim Arif, a much better batsman than Bari but not as clean a keeper. Bari lost his place again in 1979 and Arif finally managed to bag a place in the side. He made an immediate impact, smashing one century and two 50s. But during the 1981 series against the visiting West Indies, Arif suddenly lost all form (both as a batsman and a keeper). He was discarded and never seen again, though he did reappear after a few years as a TV commentator. Sadly, he passed away in 2008, aged just 53.

Bari returned to the side again and held on till he retired in 1983.

In 1982, when Bari became part of the ten-player rebellion against Miandad’s captaincy, Miandad brought in another Karachi wicket-keeper, Saleem Yousuf. But after his first Test, Yousuf fell ill and was replaced by Bari’s then understudy, Lahore’s Ashraf Ali.

Yousuf, briefly returned to the side after Bari’s retirement, but failed to impress.

Another Karachiite, Anil Dalpat (a Pakistani Hindu), made his way into the team in 1984. He impressed with the bat and gloves, but just a year later was discarded when, during an important ODI in Australia, he dropped a few chances off Imran Khan’s bowling. He was never heard from again.

Dalpat was briefly replaced by Ashraf Ali before Yousuf returned in 1985, but soon he was gone again, losing his place to Lahore’s Zulqarnain.

Zulqarnain made his ODI debut in 1985 and after his very first Test series in 1986 (against Sri Lanka), he was described by Imran as “the find of the series.” However, Zulqarnain fell ill after the series (jaundice) and was advised rest. Saleem Yousuf was once again called in as a stop-gap measure.

But as fate would have it, his performance with the bat (termed “gutsy” by captain Imran Khan) meant that for the next four years, he became the regular wicket-keeper for Pakistan . Zulqarnain never returned.

Yousuf’s bashful, vocal and street-smart demeanour greatly impressed two other young Karachi-based keepers, Moin Khan and Rashid Latif. They idolised him, but it was Moin who replaced Yousuf when he finally lost form in 1990 and was dropped.

From 1990 till 2004, Moin and Rashid were Pakistan’s frontline keepers. Both were as bashful and aggressive as Yousuf, but unlike Yousuf (and Moin), Latif was the most technically correct. Latif came in 1992 after Moin lost form. Then between 1993 and 2004, both kept replacing each other for various reasons.

Moin would come into form then suddenly lose it, whereas Latif always seemed to be at loggerheads with the cricket board and most of his captains. By the late 1990s, it became clear which of the two was preferred by the time’s leading fast bowlers, Wasim Akram and Waqar Younus. Akram, as captain, clearly preferred Moin; whereas Waqar, when he became skipper, ousted Moin and brought Latif back.

At one point, both the keepers were in such good form with the bat that one played purely as a batsman in the side (Moin)! Both also became captains: Latif in 1997 and then again in 2003, and Moin in 2000. Both retired in 2004, thus ending the long era of Karachi-based keepers in the Pakistan side. Until the emergence of Sarfraz.

The accidental rise of Sarfraz Ahmad

As a child and then as a teen, Sarfraz had been inspired by the likes of Moin and Latif. Like them and those before them, he was the archetypal Karachi cricketer – cheeky, vocal, innovative and yet wary.

He managed to be selected as captain in the Pakistan youth team in 2005, and in 2006 led the team to that year’s U19 World Cup win. Kamran Akmal had been the senior side’s regular keeper since 2005. In 2007, Sarfraz became his understudy.

But Sarfraz failed to make an impact whenever he was given a chance in ODIs. Finally, when Akmal lost his place in 2010, Sarfraz made his Test debut.

But also emerging during the time was Kamran’s brother, Adnan Akmal. Sarfraz wasn’t able to adjust to the rigours and pressures of the big arena and was eventually surpassed by Adnan who became the Test side’s regular keeper.

In the ODIs (and later, T20s), the team kept rotating Adnan and Sarfraz, and for a while the volatile Zulkarnain Haider and even Kamran. But by 2012, it was becoming apparent that Adnan was to be a regular in all formats of the game. Though a technically-sound keeper and a good batsman, he lacked the power-hitting abilities of his brother.

He was considered to be a notch above Sarfraz who, by 2013, had all but lost the confidence of the selectors and was almost completely discarded. Then, an accident happened.

During the first Test of the 2013-14 series against Sri Lanka, Adnan fractured a finger. Sarfraz was flown in as a stop-gap measure. He smashed a 50 in the second Test and then made a quick-fire 40-plus during Pakistan’s frantic series-equaling run chase in the third Test.

Just as illness had made Zulqarnain lose his place to a struggling Saleem Yousuf in 1986, Adnan Akmal lost it to a discarded Sarfraz due to an injury.

Sarfraz’s fighting 50 in his comeback Test against Sri Lanka in January 2014 finally cemented his place in the side.

After this, Sarfraz never looked back. He began to score big in all formats of the game but still, it wasn’t until after the 2015 World Cup that he also became a regular in Pakistan’s ODI and T20 squads. Ironically, Adnan’s batting brother, Umer Akmal, was asked to keep wickets in ODIs and T20s to make room for an additional bowler.

Nevertheless, after the 2015 World Cup, Sarfraz finally became a regular in the ODI squad and after Misbah-ul-Haq’s retirement from ODIs, was made the deputy of the ODI team’s new captain, Azhar Ali.

In 2016, Sarfraz became the ODI and T20 skipper and right away called to induct fresh talent in the side, something the team’s coach Mickey Arthur was in complete agreement with.

Sarfraz then became the vice-captain of the Test side and is now all set to become the skipper of the Test team as well.

Unlike the recently-retired Misbah who carried Pakistan to great heights during the country’s most testing years with his calm, reflective and subtle demeanour, Sarfraz is an extrovert, very vocal and animated.

Like Miandad, he loves to chat on the field and, like Shahid Afridi, he openly exhibits his emotions. But unlike Afridi, Sarfraz has a much sharper cricketing brain.

He loves to sing, recite naats and crack jokes. At age 30, he has now suddenly risen to become a well-respected character and senior in a dressing room which is now increasingly being populated by younger, hungrier players.

Last week, I went to one of the leading hospitals in Karachi to get checked for some pain in my lower back. My mother went with me to the doctor's office, but not into the examination room.

It was a tiny room where I was led, about the size of a medium walk-in closet. There were only two people in the room at this point — a female nurse and myself.

The nature of my medical concern required me to take my pants off and expose bare skin to the nurse and the doctor.

The nurse gave me a gown and prepared the site of examination. Then entered the doctor.

He took a look at my back and inquired what the problem was. I told him I was experiencing some pain post-surgery. He proceeded with his examination i.e. applying some pressure on the point of concern, waiting for my response.

I let him know where it hurt and where it didn’t, and just when all necessary examination was done, out of nowhere — there came a smack on my butt.

I tried to phrase that elegantly, but it really was just that. A slap on my posterior, completely catching me off-guard.

The icing on the cake: he followed it up by smugly saying “ab naheen hoga” (you won’t feel the pain now).

….

….

….

….

….

This spatial interval on your screen mimics my mental situation at the time. I went blank, speechless — all sensibility flew out of the room with the doctor as he left right after casually smacking my butt.

I pulled up my pants and my eyes fell on the only other occupant of the room — the nurse. She looked down, avoiding my gaze, and in her silence I could feel her saying “I am sorry, but I am helpless.”

I walked out of the tiny room and into the doctor’s office, where my mother was sitting, waiting to read my expression, trying to get a preview of what the doctor was going to say, completely unaware of what had ensued behind closed doors.

“Honestly, there’s nothing wrong. You’re fine”, he said to me, without batting an eyelash. I avoided eye contact, trying to absorb what had just happened.

My mother spoke concerned, “Are you sure? So what about the pain she’s feeling?” He replied nonchalantly: “You see, I don’t want to say I can give you something for it, because that means I’m making you think there’s a cure for it. Just get it out of your head and you’ll be fine”.

After leaving the hospital and all through the drive back home, I kept replaying in my head those three minutes inside the narrow confines of the examination room, restarting the mental movie with the sound of a slap. Apparently my face looked washed-out as my mother asked me why I was so quiet and ‘off’.

In-depth: Pakistan: No country for women

It was then that I decided to bury it deep into the recesses of my mind. I started to shrug the memory off of me as if I were brushing a bug off my shoulder. I longed to take a shower as I felt absolutely disgusted.

Disgust.

The word came nowhere close to encapsulating my feelings in the aftermath of such an agonising encounter.

I tried hard and failed to justify one scenario where that action by that man on my body was okay. My intellect and intuition strained to come up with a single justification for that man to have touched me in that way.

Maybe it was informal? Maybe he thought I was a little girl and it came as a joke? Maybe that’s just his way of expression?

Be that as it may, in no way, under any circumstance, will it ever be okay for a doctor to touch their patient the way he did. Neither was it in any way necessary for the purpose of medical examination, nor was it warranted in any other situation.

Also read: The hell of harassment

A smack on the butt is not the same as a whack on the shoulder or on the arm. It is not a casual or even remotely acceptable gesture for a doctor to make toward a patient; more so, a male doctor toward a female patient.

The act of smacking the butt is inarguably sexual. I say this for any of you who may be wondering why I am turning it into such a 'big deal'.

Let me put it this way: a highly-esteemed surgeon, sitting at one of Karachi’s top-notch hospitals, smacked a female patient’s butt while examining her. Now, does that make you uncomfortable?

I wasn’t going to write anything about this, but I was convinced otherwise by the sensible minds around me.

Should I have gone back to the hospital afterward? What are the odds my complaint would not have fallen on deaf ears?

Should I have gone to him? What could I have said if he denied that it ever happened? What if it was something so trivial and common for him that he wouldn’t even remember it? Who knows.

The question I asked myself then, and I ask still, while writing this is — what do I want out of this? Do I want an apology? No. Do I want some compensation? No.

What I want is for any person who has been through any form of sexual harassment to stop re-imagining and reconstructing a scenario of when it is acceptable for the perpetrator to act the way they did.

Stop trying to look for excuses to justify their actions. Do not try to reposition yourself as an instigator of harassment. Staying quiet must never be the course of action for being treated inappropriately.

I took to the media because even if one person reads this, and feels a little bit more comfortable in owning their story — it is worth the effort to translate my thoughts into words.

I didn’t want to be that girl who complains about ‘minor issues’ but the fact that we might consider this a ‘minor issue’ is an issue. A serious issue.

More on the topic: I was a victim of verbal sexual harassment at work and blamed myself for it

The hospital and the clinic is one place where stripping down bare does not mean you are willfully naked, and surely does not give license for anyone to take undue advantage of your vulnerability. It is the responsibility of the doctor and their management to make sure you are comfortable in these situations.

I don’t want to delve into conjecture about what this doctor could have possibly done with other patients (conscious or unconscious) or how he may have treated his female subordinates, because maybe he never did something like this before. But the point is, he did it to me.

Sexual harassment is not limited to a culture, a society or a race — it is a condition of the human self. The pain in my back might be, but sexual harassment is not ‘just in my head’ — or yours.

If you are facing sexual harassment and would like to file a complaint, please follow the government's guidelines here and here. You can also reach out to NGO helplines. If you wish to share your story at Dawn, write to us at blog@dawn.com

This blog was first published in July, 2016.

Last summer during Ramazan, I shared the Shan Masala Eid commercial like Pakistanis all over the world. The ad showed two brothers spending the occasion away from home. For the purposes of the advert, a simple plate of Sindhi biryani was the balm to their feeling of homesickness.

This year, I found myself in the characters’ shoes.

Away from Pakistan for my graduate studies in Honolulu, Hawaii, I was scrolling through Facebook when I found the usual Eid-related posts flooding my timeline.

Unending stories about tailors and broken promises, event pages for chand raat meet­-ups, and the perpetual confusion on whether the next day would be Eid or another Roza (followed promptly by jokes at the Ruet­-i-­Hilal committee’s expense).

Soon enough, WhatsApp groups were abuzz with ‘Chand Mubarak’ wishes. While my friends in Karachi made plans to grab chai on the eve before Eid, I was literally stuck on an island. Sitting alone in my dorm room, I couldn’t help but feel blue — I missed home, my friends and my family.

I found myself thinking back to the Shan commercial. But while the ad’s protagonist and I were experiencing similar homesickness, we were quite dissimilar. He was a Muslim man from Pakistan; I am Pakistani Hindu woman.

What business do I have missing Eid?

Growing up as a Hindu in an Islamic republic is full of contradictions. My mother is often hesitant and wary of my Muslim friends. A bit strange, considering she is more than happy if I invite them to our home.

Read: What being a minority in the US taught me about minorities in Pakistan

Perhaps this perplexing attitude is passed down through generations. As a young girl I loved listening to my grandfather’s partition stories. He would tell us incidents where Muslims went door-to-door killing any Hindu in sight (I’m sure Muslims grow up with similar stories of cold-blooded Hindus).

But then, he would also talk about his Muslim neighbours. The ones who protected our family, who made a human chain around our house when the riots broke out.

The obvious takeaway here was that good and bad people exist everywhere. But my grandfather’s stories carried an underlying warning: you can get close to Muslims, but remember that you are not one of them (and they know it too).

Following this tradition of mixed messages, every Ramazan, many Hindus living in Pakistan fast. My mother herself happily sets an alarm to wake my sister up for sehri. She prepares an elaborate sehri, and reminiscent of the Thadri festival — where Hindus fast — her fried lolis make an appearance at the table.

No one else in my house wakes up with them, but we make it a point to join in for Iftar, and jokingly try to convince my sister that eating five minutes before the azaan is acceptable.

And then comes Eid. At least in Pakistan, Eid and Diwali have much in common. Both are marked by an abundance of mithai. It is customary to wear new clothes if one can afford them, and like Eidi on Eid, it is traditional to give presents on Diwali too. Every year, my family welcomes our friends over for Diwali, and come Eid, we visit our Muslim friends’ houses.

Yet, each time a story breaks of another Hindu girl being kidnapped and forcefully converted, my interactions with male Muslim friends start causing my mother distress. “Be careful around Muslim boys,” she warns me. It is frustrating, but I can see where she is coming from.

When I heard news of the Hindu reporter in Karachi who was forced to drink from a separate glass, my blood boiled. Sitting thousands of miles away, I was instantly transported back to my childhood when something similar happened to me (and I am sure, many religious minorities like me): a classmate had refused to share utensils with me because I was Hindu.

Children’s acts are a reflection of what they are taught at home. Many years later, seeing this news was a bitter reminder that even among supposedly educated, well-knowing adults, prejudice is alive and well.

The white in the flag

I have long known that despite having the same nationality, my Muslim friends back home and I are different in many ways.

During Pakistan Studies classes in school, teachers would make irresponsible claims about how Hindus were single-handedly responsible for the loss of Muslim lives. Reduced to a ‘cow-worshipper’ during the lectures, I would suddenly be othered, excluded, bullied.

Read next: Where should a Pakistani Hindu go?

As I grew up, my ‘otherness’ interestingly became exotic. The same identity I had been bullied over now became my ticket to being a ‘cool kid’— since I had access to all the firecrackers (thank you, Diwali), and invitations to holi parties.

As we grew up underneath the layers of systemically taught hate, my Muslim friends and I began to find common ground, and developed a better understanding of each other. I would sneak them into our temples so they could get a glimpse of my world, and accompany them to Mughal­ era mosques to get a sense of theirs.

I still come across a simpleton or two who wants me to prove my Pakistani-ness. Every time Pakistan plays a cricket match against India, there is always that one guy who wants to know, “How come you’re not supporting the Indian team instead?”

Thankfully, more often than not, my friends take over the task of shutting such bigotry down.

I keep thinking back to my family enjoying their long Eid break in Pakistan. We are a huge family, and most of my cousins are older, working people. On Diwali (a working day for most Pakistani Hindus until recently) we are usually only able to manage a dinner, however, the longer Eid holidays are quality family time for us.

During Eid, we get together at a farmhouse or the beach. We laze around playing cards, barbecuing, and catching up on gossip. Eid mornings mean waking up to seviyan and other breakfast treats, with my uncles over, watching the news and discussing the current state of affairs in Karachi.

Away from home, I find myself missing it all. Whether it is the memory of spending time with my family by the waves; or the calming sound of the azaan; or Eid plans with my friends to get mehendi.

Home, after all, is home, no matter how dysfunctional.

And so, on the first day of Eid in Hawaii, not unlike the characters in the Shan Masala advert, I picked up a packet of seviyan from a desi store here. I looked up the recipe online, managing to burn half the packet, and cursed myself for never waking up early with my mother to help out.

But my friends came over and made custard and fruit salad. I ended up spending the day recreating what Eid has always been about for me back home in Pakistan: good company, laughter, and a satisfied stomach. It was heartening watching my American friends try seviyan for the first time, while assuring them that the delicacy is indeed supposed to look semi-charred.

There was no Eid or chaand raat for us in Parachinar this year. Across the country, as people were getting ready for a happy Eid, so many of us here were buying shrouds to bury our loved ones, candles and incense to place on their graves.

As I was penning my sentiments, I could see on TV the scenes of jubilation as the Shawwal moon was sighted. My cellphone was ringing with messages of Eid Mubarak.

I felt disappointed, frustrated and hurt. My heart burnt in anguish thinking of the lives lost, children made orphans and wives made widows after the merciless attack in my hometown that killed more than 70 and injured hundreds more.

I feel like a stranger in my own country. The apathy of my fellow Pakistanis and the media hurts me more than the actual bombings. It is incomprehensible as to why a day of mourning was not declared in the country and why the national flag was not flown at half-mast.

The silence and negligence of our leaders in face of our tragedy is of criminal proportions.

I want to know as to why I am being treated as practically a non-citizen of this country. Where is the hue and cry in the media over the mass killing of people of my area?

I want to know why has there been no high-level meeting to urgently discuss what happened in Parachinar. Why didn’t any politician, high official or anyone of note attend the funerals?

TV channels across the board were broadcasting Eid-related shows; how many minutes were dedicated to the families who had gathered outside the offices of the Political Agent demanding justice, attention and words of sympathy?

I feel dejected and even though I would like to think that I am wrong, I cannot help but wonder if we are being ignored simply due to our sect, our ethnicity and the area to which we belong.

People had to transport dead bodies and the injured in handcarts because we don’t have enough ambulances. Many of the injured would have been saved had we had adequate emergency facilities.

The indifference of the federal government is there for all to see; the state of neglect only becomes more apparent when incidents like these take place. Even small towns like Sahiwal and Gujranwala have the basic amenities that Parachinar desperately lacks.

Why did the prime minister not cut short his holiday in London and come straight here after the mayhem?

Homes that were full of life and light not long ago have turned into places of mourning. I met a distraught sister: “My beloved brother, I had just stitched new clothes so that you look like a groom on Eid.” I saw an inconsolable mother at the grave of her 12 year-old child: “O my son, sleep well, your mother will remember your wounds till the last breath of her life.”

Heartbroken at what was happening around me, I went to see my mother. She was down on her knees, head bowed, thinking about her brother whose body was blown to a million pieces in a similar attack previously. My mother’s brother is now joined by her cousin Kamil Hussain who lost his life last week. Kamil was killed in the second explosion; he had rushed to the site to help after the first blast went off.

“My God! Where should I go?” asked my wife. Her father was shot to death on his way home from an Imam Bargah a few years ago. “All I see around me is either the mutilated bodies of the victims, or Pakistanis celebrating Eid in the rest of the country.”

The prime minister visited Bahawalpur and announced compensation for the fire victims there, but we are hurt that he has so far ignored Parachinar. A visit here would have sent a strong message to terrorists; silence is not the way to fight terrorism.

As the rest of the country ignores us, we are trying our best to help ourselves and survive on our own. Maybe our wounds will heal and tears will dry out, but the silence and the indifference to our ordeal will never be forgotten.

Are you part of the protest or helping the victims' families in Parachinar? Tell us about it at blog@dawn.com

The ball that left Mohammad Amir's hand on July 15, 2016 had poetic justice etched all over it. It was released with the aggression he was once formidably famous for, only this time it was woven deeper into the threads of the seam like a cry for redemption.

The ball ingeniously betrayed Alastair Cook's bat, kissing it softly on the edge before clipping the bails off. It wanted to be noticed, to be feared, to be revered - again. Lords watched in wonder as Amir claimed his first Test wicket in six years at the same ground his career almost died a fateful death.

In the span of those six years, every fan hoped and prayed that whenever Amir returns, he must not have changed. We wanted the same 18-year-old with his contagious energy.

We wanted him to jump, yell, and smile with the same unrestrained passion. We wanted his long black hair that swung in rhythm as he ran. We wanted the same pace, the same swing.

We wanted the same old Amir back, but our wish was not granted. What we got instead was an older, wiser, better Amir.

His first international series after his return was underwhelming. Pakistan were in New Zealand and Amir was in the squad, much to the displeasure of some teammates. He kept a straight head and focused on the ball, even when two of his catches were put down in the first T20.

The pace was there, we could all see it, but something else was not. That is not to say that he didn't show promise; it was evident in his contained aggression and on-field morale that he wanted to go big. The crowd occasionally booed but he didn't care for them. He was there to get a wicket.

Amir finished the T20 series with one wicket and a myriad of expectations. He yearned for esteem, respect, redemption, and he knew he would have to wait.

In the following ODIs against New Zealand, Amir bagged five wickets in two games, with an average economy of 3.87. What followed next, however, was a beautiful culmination of six years worth of patience and faith.

Asia Cup 2016: the first ball of the first over of Pakistan's first game. The opponents were India and the setting was Sher-e-Bangla Stadium, Dhaka. Pakistan had 84 runs to defend and Rohit Sharma was on strike.

An exuberant Amir ran in with the new ball, bowling a loaded yorker that Sharma almost edged coming down on his front foot.

There were screams. Keeper, first slip, second slip, bowler all appealed in assertive harmony for an LBW. The umpire didn't budge.

A baffled Afridi exchanged looks with his boys; Amir could not believe his fate. Sharma survived, but Amir knew it was only a matter of time.

How short a time? Six seconds.

The very next ball swung straight onto Sharma's pad, escaping inside edge and flying towards middle stump. Amir appealed with double the force and Sharma was on his way.

There are moments like these with Amir, when he just knows. He appeals like he knows your darkest secrets and where they're hidden.

He doesn't forget scores unsettled.

Amir finished with 3-18.

Asia Cup 2016 was his resurgence onto the international stage, and the world held its breath as Amir prepared for England.

Fast forward to Champions Trophy 2017. Much was similar to the Asia Cup spectacle. The opponents were India and the setting was Kennington Oval, London. Pakistan had 338 runs to defend and Rohit Sharma was on strike.

The third ball of the first over came crashing onto the pad like last year's replay. The umpire raised a finger and in that instant, India knew Amir had arrived. Both hands in the air, he roared with every muscle in his body.

One over later, he bowled a blinder to Kohli who nicked it without due consideration to slip. As fate would have it, the ball was put down by Azhar Ali. Had we given the most dangerous batsman in the world a second life? Amir knew better than to let this setback get in his way; he had written a similar script before.

The next ball deceived Kohli into attempting a flick towards on-side, but he edged it straight to the fielder at point who carried it comfortably.

I like to believe that before his ban, Amir bowled like any insanely talented young pacer would. His ambition was limited to securing more wickets, setting more records, winning more matches. Since his comeback, he has shown signs of greater aggression.

Back then, he bowled to win; today he bowls to win something back.

The Pakistan cricket team is fondly known as Shaheen (falcons), though Mohammad Amir, I believe, must not be counted as one. He is Pakistan's phoenix, for he resurges from his ashes and continues flight.

For every catch dropped, for every appeal denied, for every wound sustained and for every disgrace suffered - Mohammad Amir rises again. He lives through and keeps flying, undaunted.

Lastly, to everyone who opposed his right to a second chance - has his return not been worth it?

The US Supreme Court recently reinstated parts of President Donald Trump’s travel ban on seven Muslim-majority countries. These include Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Iran, Syria, Yemen, and Sudan.

Whereas the situation in countries such as Somalia and Libya has become almost entirely anarchic; Syria, Iraq, and Yemen are in grip of complex wars and insurgencies.

Iran has been severely antagonistic towards the US (and vice versa) ever since the 1979 Revolution there, even though till only recently some major breakthroughs were achieved to stall the always-degenerating relations between the US and Iran by former US President Barack Obama.

So what is Sudan doing on the list? From the 1990s onward it has been declared a pariah state by the US (for ‘supporting terrorism against the US’). The common perception of this country is that of a chaotic land ravaged by crazy dictators nurturing crazier ‘Islamic terrorists.’

Indeed a lot of this was largely true, but Sudan is nothing like what has become of countries such as Syria, Libya, Somalia, and Iraq. As the regional editor of The Economist and author Richard Crockett mentions in his breezy 2010 study of Sudan, Sudan: The Failure & Division of An African State, in the early and mid-2000s, Sudan’s economy was one of the most robust in Africa, exhibiting a growth of almost nine percent. Since the early 2000s, Sudan became Africa’s biggest economy.

The economic growth was almost entirely due to Sudan striking oil in 1999. But then, its government had had a falling out with the US and most European countries and severe economic sanctions were imposed on it. China then stepped in and became the biggest consumer of Sudanese oil and also a major investor in Sudan’s economy.

Crockett mentions that the booming economy saw the emergence of a wealthy upper class and a prosperous urban middle class in Sudan; shopping malls, cinemas and stylishly built office and residential complexes became common in the country’s capital, Khartoum. What’s more, Crockett also suggests that at one point Khartoum was preparing itself to become to Africa what Dubai is to Asia! A powerful economic hub.

Though the economy began to somewhat buckle after the dramatic fall in international oil prices, Sudan remains to be one of Africa’s biggest economies – even bigger than its more prominent Muslim-majority neighbour, Egypt.

Crockett, who has visited Sudan on a number of occasions, mentions that no Europeans and Americans can be found in Sudan. But there are a large number of Chinese who remain to be the country’s biggest economic and trading partners and investors.

Crockett also informs that due to sanctions, European and US currencies are not available in Sudan and major credit card companies do not operate here. All business is done on cash – Sudanese, Chinese, and UAE.

Though Sudan did not plunge into anarchy like Syria, Somalia, Yemen or Iraq, its history of the past 60 years or so is one of the most vivid reflections of how during the Cold War (1949-89), major international powers manoeuvered regimes in various Muslim-majority countries for various economic and strategic gains.

They bolstered those regimes and then turned against them once certain ideological and geopolitical experiments which they had supported began to backfire and became ‘Frankenstein’ in nature.

A look at the rise and fall of perhaps Sudan’s most enigmatic leader, Gafaar Nimeiry, can clearly unfold the complex and highly mutable ideological and geopolitical intricacies which eventually led to the anarchic destruction of so many Muslim countries after the Cold War.

Independence and turmoil

Sudan won independence from the British in 1956. At the time, the country’s two main political parties were the conservative and quasi-Islamic Ummah Party (UP) and the secular Arab nationalist, National Unionist Party (NUP). The NUP advocated a union with Egypt. Sudan also had a large communist party, the Sudanese Communist Party (SCP).

Sudan emerged as a democracy, but intense power games in the parliament and a struggling economy gave the Sudanese army the peg to intervene and impose the country’s first military regime in 1958. The coup was pulled off by officers affiliated with right-wing quasi-Islamic groups, the Ansar and the Khatimiyya (a Sufi order in Sudan).

But the political situation and the economy continued to deteriorate, especially when unrest grew in the Christian-majority southern region of the country (South Sudan) against the Muslim-majority (the ruling elite) in the north.

Though Sudan as a whole was economically weak, the south was its most poverty-stricken region. The military regime reacted by expelling all Christen missionary and charity groups in the south, further compounding the problem.

No major power showed much interest in the affairs of Sudan.

In the north, the communist party led popular protests against the military regime which, in 1964, was finally ousted. Parliamentary democracy was restored.

Enter Nimeiry: The socialist

Though after the fall of the military regime in 1964, democracy returned, Sudan had to go through multiple elections when the voting continuously failed to give any party a majority. Weak coalition governments came and went as the economy continued to slide and resentment in the south grew even further. Sudan stood as an ignored, poor post-colonial African state, on the brink of an economic collapse and civil war. A failed democracy.

In May 1969, a group in the Sudanese military, operating secretly as the Free Officers Movement and led by the 38-year-old colonel, Gafaar Nimeiry, toppled the weak civilian government and declared Sudan’s second Martial Law.

Nimeiry was a great admirer of the charismatic Egyptian nationalist leader, Gamal Abul Nasser. Nasser immediately recognised the new Sudanese regime and this also attracted the interest of the Soviet Union which was aiding Nasser since the 1950s.

This way Nimeiry pulled Sudan into the Cold War. When the Soviets and Egypt began to dish out economic and military aid to Sudan, the US and its allies became concerned about ‘the spread of communism in Africa.’

Nimeiry had used pro-communist factions in the military to launch his coup. He was also helped by the strong labour, trade and student unions controlled by the Sudanese Communist Party.

With Egyptian and Soviet aid, as well as help from the newly installed radical regime of Colonel Qaddafi in Libya, Nimeiry began to implement ‘socialist’ economic policies, nationalising whatever little industry Sudan had. He also struck a peace treaty with the leaders in the restive Christian-majority south.

In 1970, the Ansar rose up against the regime’s ‘secular’ and ‘communist’ policies and launched a militant movement in its stronghold, the Aba Island. The Ansar were supported by the Sudanese faction of the Muslim Brotherhood, a largely Egyptian organisation which was brutally suppressed by Nasser. The Ansar and the Brotherhood were being financed by Saudi Arabia.

The Sudanese military, supported by Egyptian air force, crushed the uprising, bombing the Ansar’s headquarters and vanquishing the party. In 1971, after banning all political parties, Nimeiry formed the Sudan Socialist Union (SSU), turning the country into a single-party ‘socialist’ state. He also began ousting the more radical communists from the government, accusing them of ‘blackmail.’

The communist party activated its supporters in the military and attempted to topple the Nimeiry regime in a coup. But the coup failed and the communist party was driven underground through arrests, executions and exile. It could never revive itself again.

Nimeiry: The liberal

After crushing the Ansar and then the communists, Nimeiry’s ideology began to shift to the centre. He broke away from the Soviet Union (who he accused of facilitating the aborted 1971 communist coup against him). As a consequence, he was immediately approached by the US and oil-rich Arab monarchies.

In 1972 Nimeiry began to reverse his regime’s earlier ‘socialist’ policies by introducing economic liberalism and a nominal return to democracy. The US responded by beginning to shower financial aid on Sudan worth millions of dollars.

Nimeiry also managed to bring peace in the south where he constructed schools, hospitals, roads and bridges. Through a new constitution his government recognised the South’s Christian majority and it became an officially-recognised faith in Sudan along with Islam.

Economic and social liberalism was successful in heralding an unprecedented era of political peace and economic development in Sudan. But by 1975 it became clear that all was not quite well.

Economic growth largely failed to trickle down and the radical Islamic groups, especially the Muslim Brotherhood, vehemently criticised the regime for its lopsided economic policies, its social liberalism and for becoming an unquestioning ally of the United States.

As often happens in developing countries, a centralised and authoritarian government’s policies expand the social and economic influence of the middle-classes which, in turn, begin to ask for greater political power. The same happened in Sudan as well.

Since the communist party now stood crushed, young Sudanese, especially from the expanding middle-classes, and the intelligentsia, began to drift towards Islamic groups such as the Muslim Brotherhood, which seemed more ‘modern’ and ‘revolutionary’ than the more traditional Ansar.

In July 1976, Nimeiry faced a serious coup attempt orchestrated by officers sympathetic to the Ansar. Nimeiry responded by ordering severe crackdown on Islamic groups, killing over 400 members of the Ansar.

Nimeiry: The ‘Islamist’

In 1977 Nimeiry moved to reach reconciliation with the Islamic groups. He agreed to release hundreds of political prisoners and allow the return of opposition groups into mainstream politics, even though Sudan remained a one-party state.

In 1979, Nimeiry also recalled the Sudanese Muslim Brotherhood’s main ideologue, Hasan al-Turabi, from exile and made him the Justice Minister. The regime however remained close to the US.

Turabi began to exercise greater influence over Niamey, who donned off his ‘western clothes’ and began to wear traditional Sudanese dress and turban. Corruption became rampant in state and government institutions and even though the US continued to dish out millions of dollars in financial aid, much of this aid landed in the pockets of crooked government and military officials and bureaucrats.

In 1983, as the economy began to decline, creating food shortages and widespread unemployment, protests erupted on the streets. As a reaction and on the advice of Turabi and the growing numbers of Muslim Brotherhood members in the regime, Nimeiry introduced strict ‘Shariah’ laws.

Amputation of limbs for supposed thieves was introduced and such punishments, including floggings and hangings, were televised live on state television. Sale of alcohol was banned and Crockett wrote that in one such exhibition, Nimeiry, who had been a heavy drinker all his life, appeared at an anti-alcohol rally to smash beer bottles against a wall!

The amputations, the floggings and the executions which was all televised live worried Sudan’s allies in the US and Europe. But the aid continued to come in and US President Ronald Reagan actually praised Nimeiry for keeping communism at bay in the region.

In 1985, the economy almost completely collapsed and a severe drought killed thousands of poor Sudanese in the rural areas. The civil war reappeared after the region’s Christian majority saw the introduction of ‘Islamic laws’ as a negation of what the South was promised in the 1970s.

Nimeiry refused to allow aid agencies to distribute food in drought-struck areas. In one meeting he shouted at an official who was requesting him to allow food trucks to reach the victims of the drought. He told him “No! They (the aid organisations) are undermining my revolution!”

In 1985, as protests against the regime grew and became violent, Nimeiry flew out to the US for a meeting with his main supporter, President Reagan. But when he was in the US, General Abdel Salam Swar toppled the regime and imposed the country’s third Martial Law. Sadiq Al-Siddiq of the Ummah Party became Prime Minister.

End result

A series of democratic governments (mostly uneasy and weak coalitions) tried to reverse Nimeiry’s extreme policies and convince the International Monetary Fund to bail Sudan out of its deepening economic quagmire.

In 1989, General Ahmad Bashir toppled the civilian regime in a military coup. Bashir revived the harsh laws imposed by the Nimeiry regime (in the name of Shariah) and went to war against the South.

Under him, Sudan became a pariah state and a hotbed and refuge for radical Islamists. It is believed that by the late 1990s, the situation of the country was such that had oil not been discovered here and the Chinese not stepped in to become main consumers of this oil, Sudan would have descended into complete anarchy just as Somalia had done in the early 1990s.

But with the dramatic fall of international oil prices, old wounds in Sudan opened up again and protests and the civil war in the South became even more intense. In 2010, Bashir was forced to soften his stance against the South and in 2011, the South became an independent country, South Sudan.

Sudan is still on the US list of ‘terrorist states’ and hate crimes against minorities and suspected ‘anti-Islam elements’ are common here. However, China’s large economic involvement in the country has made Bashir try to cultivate a more ‘moderate’ image of himself and his regime.

Famed Indian politician, Dr Shashi Tharoor, rightly asserted that the British put up the railway system in India in their own interests and benefited immensely from it. While partly agreeing to Dr Tharoor’s assertions, I am willing to forgive the British for giving us this engineering marvel in the shape of treks spread over thousands of miles, rolling stock, steam engines and the beautiful Victorian railway stations all over the country.

Let's not forget the continuing benefits of this exquisite logistical feat. It is fascinating to see how the west was won (partly) by the imperialists of the subcontinent in the later half of the 19th century. This cannot be better explained without appreciating the role of the North Western Railways.

Read more: Putting railways back on track in Pakistan

In the later part of the 19th century, the British had already laid main broad gauge lines (five feet, six inches) across the subcontinent. At the time, North Western Railways had a vast network across present day Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

One of the main broad gauge lines ended at Mari Indus near Kalabagh on the eastern banks of the River Indus. The British established a large military depot near Mari Indus to provide for the troops stationed across the river in the Wild West in areas such as Bannu, Tank, Kohat and Waziristan. The depot still exists today nearby the Mari Indus station.

To reach the Wild West, the British laid a narrow gauge (two feet, six inches) line from Mari Indus to Bannu passing through Kalabagh, Isakhel, Lakki Marwat and Bannu with a branch line to Tank. From Tank and Bannu, only military lines were allowed to take the cargo into forts in Waziristan. The gates of these forts would open, engulf the whole train and then close.

These trains were primarily meant to address military logistics, but also provided local passenger services. However, they would move so slowly that people would get down to buy a drink and more passengers could get on the train as well.

Another broad gauge line ended at Kohat, connecting the city to the garrison town of Rawalpindi. One can still see the colonial-era stations at Fatehjang, Basal or Jand on the way. These stations still display Gillet and Johnston Croydon wall clocks, although only a few of them are working today.

I also saw the elegant Neale’s ball token system that is still in existence, which was used to avoid collisions on single track lines. While the clocks and token systems may be out of order, the traditional signal lamps are always working, including the postcard platform benches with ‘NWR’ carved on them.

I was also fascinated to see the iron double-decked bridge built in 1905 over River Indus at Khushal Garh with the passage for trains above and vehicles below with massive iron gates to close the bridge in case of any trouble from the west. From Kohat, another narrow gauge line would emerge to connect it with Thal in the west.

There were three narrow gauge lines set up by the British, primarily in western mountainous areas as they allowed better maneuverability for locomotives and wagons. The longest one in the subcontinent was Zhob Valley Railways connecting Bostan near Quetta with Zhob.

The second longest ran from Mari Indus to Bannu line, laid over a 1928 vehicle-cum-railway bridge over the River Indus in Kalabagh. The third was a 100 kilometre narrow gauge line laid to connect Kohat and Hangu with Thal near Parachinar.

The narrow gauge trains finally stopped functioning somewhere in the early nineties after being in service for about a century. There are fascinating accounts written of those fortunate enough to enjoy the train rides by narrow gauge lines in the late eighties. These include accounts from our own railway buff, Salman Rashid.

Explore: All aboard!

Today, the railway stations at Kalabagh, Tank, Bannu, Hangu, Ustarzai and Thal are abandoned while the treks are derelict, misaligned and stolen at places. Traveling from Kalabagh to Bannu or from Kohat to Thal, I couldn't help but notice the rusty, brown coloured railway treks, old fort-like stations and broken bridges. This reminded me of an era when the whistling train would tear across the Wild West, the forgotten backyard of Pakistan till this day.

I was always captivated by the western-most frontier station of North Western Railways in Thal. After the long drive from Kohat to Hangu and finally to Thal, I saw only remainders of the rusted railway treks lying around. It was difficult to imagine how a foreign power could lay these treks a century ago in this hostile territory.

There were around four or five stations from Kohat to Thal including Ustarzai, Raisan, Hangu and Kahi before the railway trek passed through the 1909 Thal fort, currently the Brigade headquarters of the Pakistan Army.

Initially, the railway station may not have been part of the fort but with time it expanded to become part of the station. The old fort-like railway station still has the traditional, maroon water tank of North Western Railways. The railway station has traditional sentry turret at the top with loops to guard against invaders and reinforced iron gates.

The station is now occupied by Christian families from Sialkot, oblivious to the history of the last frontier station of North Western Railways. However, the icing on the cake was finding some long-standing rolling stock.

Read further: A railway station steeped in history

I noticed that the wagons had ‘Thal Safari’ marked on them, which still stand at the very end of the railway line on a small cliff. The train never went any further from this point, although it appears that the British played with ideas to extend the railway line to Parachinar and on to Kabul.

Parachinar town, some 70 kilometres further west, still has a lot of railway properties and a rest house, which was perhaps acquired by the British in anticipation of a grand North Western Railways traversing Koh-i-Sufaid range into Afghanistan.

While Dr Tharoor may be right that the British developed railways in their own interest, it is unfortunate that we didn’t maintain what they left behind.

While it may not make sense to redevelop the narrow gauge lines, Pakistan Railways should at least think about reviving some of the abandoned stations on the pattern of Golra railway station in Islamabad. To add to this, redesigning small sections of narrow gauge trains could also become potential tourist attractions.

All photos by the author.

Have you travelled by train across Pakistan? Share your experience with us at blog@dawn.com

I am Rifee Khan, a trans woman and advocate for transgender rights in Sindh. I have come a long way since the day I ran away from my home.

People advise me to gain a skill and start working instead of dancing or begging; little do they know that I have a double master’s degree.

I belong to a well-educated family from Larkana, but that didn’t stop my parents and siblings from rejecting me on the account of my gender. Fortunately, soon enough, my family realised that I was a part of them and they could not just do away with me.

Also read: Pakistan's transgenders mocked by most, abhorred by many

I had run off to a guru who lived in my neighbourhood. The guru talked to my father and explained to him that the more I was suppressed, the more I was going to rebel.

My parents understood and became more accepting of me; they told me that I can be whoever I want to be, and that I should invest in my education so that I could go on to help the transgender community.

It was not easy going to school. I was treated harshly; I had to dress like a boy and was not allowed to sit with girls. Teachers used to ask me to sing and dance to entertain the class, as if that is what a transgender person was supposed to do.

But the most important thing was that I had the support of my parents, which allowed me to go on and do my master’s in political science and economics from Shah Abdul Latif University in Khairpur.

However, the irony is that the desire to live as I wanted has become the biggest hurdle in my life. I thought that getting an education would solve all my issues.

Explore: 'Our birth is our single biggest regret' — Being transgender in Pakistan

My sisters are professors and my brothers run their own businesses and have government jobs. I am more than 40 years old, have a university education, but I am still struggling to make ends meet. It hurts.

When I moved to Karachi to look for a career, I had high expectations. Everyone wants to move to Karachi and live the city life. I did too. I quickly found out that my hopes were misplaced. Not being able to find a job, I had to resort to dancing and begging.

During this time, I was lucky enough to have found a guru and a transgender community in Karachi. My guru thought that looking for a job was useless – and they had a point – but my friends knew that being an educated person, I should have been doing a lot better. My friends didn’t want me to end up like them.

With guidance, I landed a job as a tax recovery officer. Later, in 2014, I was shifted to run the Karachi Trans Community Centre, which was initiated by the Sindh government under the leadership of the Social Welfare Minister, Rubina Qaimkhani.

Everyone was excited that I was working for the government, but the reality is that very soon I was back on the streets begging. I was promised a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 at the centre, but even that derisory sum stopped coming after a while.

I have not been paid a single dime since the past year. I tried to keep the centre alive and buzzing, but we simply weren’t given the funds to do any activity. I no longer go to the centre.

My parents tried their best to educate me, but I am not even able to send them money. I feel ashamed. The government has failed me and my community.

The Supreme Court gave us a 2% quota for government jobs in Karachi, but not even two transgenders have government seats to date. Jobs are advertised for men and women, but there is no mention of transgenders.

Many of us aren’t even registered citizens. Getting identity cards made is a big challenge. Most of us are reluctant to go to NADRA offices because of the obscene abuse we are subjected to by NADRA officials.

Read further: Calls for transgender rights echo in NA budget debate

I help as much as I can. I go with people of my community to NADRA in order to assist them in the process. I worked with the government to get a separate window made at NADRA for transgenders. Thankfully, some NADRA offices now have separate windows for transgenders.

People think that transgenders are nothing more than sex workers; little do they know that if we did sex work, our lives would actually be a lot better than what it is now.

As narrated to Annam Lodhi, who put it together in the form of a blog.

Are you a member of the transgender community or an activist? Tell us your story at blog@dawn.com

Disclaimer: This article is categorised as satire.

Ever since the 2011 Arab Spring, the Kingdom of Bahrain has fascinated me and piqued my curiosity. I’ll admit, I didn’t know much about it other then how it is considered by some as the 'Las Vegas of the Gulf region' because of its vibrant nightlife, cheap hotels and tolerant attitude towards alcohol.

The tiny island nation is five times smaller than the entire city of Karachi and has a historical legacy that spans over five millennia. Located in the Arabian Gulf, Bahrain has always been at the centre of a major historical trade route.

This is why it has been conquered, ruled and colonised by many different empires from the Persians, Greeks, Islamic dynasties, to the Portuguese and British conquests – finally ending with their independence from the British in 1971.

Also read: Here is why a trip to Tehran will leave you in wonder

When my friend moved to Bahrain, I decided to go there and explore the country. For starters, the trip didn’t require much planning – reasonably priced flights head out to Bahrain almost daily from Karachi and the visa policy for Pakistani nationals is pretty relaxed. You can easily acquire a seven-day tourist visa through an efficient online visa system. With my ticket in hand, my 48-hour Bahraini adventure had begun.

When I landed, the first thing I noticed was the airport didn’t look like a gaudy, over the top sci-fi movie set, which was a refreshing change from the other Gulf States I had been to. Everyone at the airport from the sweeper to the immigration officer who stamped me into the country were very friendly.

This came as a much welcomed change in a region where airport staff is notorious for being lazy, unhelpful and sometimes even arrogant. I hadn’t even stepped out of the airport and had already fallen for the charms of this country’s people.

By the time I had come out of the airport, it was already midday. Since it was Friday, my friend and I decided to head straight for prayers in Manama, the capital of Bahrain. We went to at the Al Fateh Grand Mosque – the largest house of worship in the country.

At full capacity, the mosque can accommodate around 7,000 people. Built in 1987 by the then Emir of Bahrain, the mosque is named after the founder of the country, Ahmed Al Fateh.

Explore: Shahjahan Mosque: Thatta's timeless splendour

Compared to other mosques I had visited in the Gulf region, there was nothing architecturally spectacular about this one. It was like any other large mosque I had prayed at back home in Karachi. But what made it unique was the beautiful setting along the coastline of Manama against the backdrop of the city’s skyline.

On the way to my friends place, we passed by a large chunk of the Bahraini capital. Being one of the smallest, yet most densely populated nations in the world, the entire country felt like it was a fully inhabited city.

On the surface, it looked like any other stable, wealthy Gulf city with the usual trickle of oddly shaped skyscrapers. But once you start driving through the inner streets, you start noticing the underbelly of the capital.

For starters, you get a feeling that all is not well in the island kingdom because of the noticeable police presence everywhere. According to my friend, the situation in Manama was under control, but it wasn’t unheard of to hear about violent clashes breaking out in the villages outside the capital. If you look closely, you can even spot some anti-establishment graffiti here and there on the walls of the streets– a visible legacy of the recent uprisings.

The majority of Bahrain’s indigenous population (around 75-80%) adheres to Shia Islam, while the ruling political Al Khalifa family adheres to Sunni Islam. For many years, the majority of the population in the country has felt disenfranchised by the minority ruling elite. In 2011, peaceful protests that soon turned violent led to being controversially suppressed by the state’s military apparatus.

With the Arab Spring still in my mind, I asked my friend to show me the infamous Pearl Roundabout – the Tahrir Square of Bahrain and the site where the 2011 demonstrations started. With a sarcastic grin on his face, he told me that the roundabout didn’t exist anymore. Apparently, its demolition was also a part of the state-sponsored crackdown on the protests.

In depth: Graffiti: Street art and the Arab Spring

After grabbing a quick bite to eat at the Manama Souq, we went to explore the nearby marketplace. Unlike the other souqs in the region I had visited, there wasn’t anything particularly Arab about this one – it felt more like Tariq Road or Liberty Market rather than somewhere in the Middle East.

The smell of incense wood was particularly strong in and around the souq area. To my surprise, everything was on sale in the mobile shops, women’s clothing and kitsch souvenir stores. The majority of the salesman working at the souq were from India, which gave the environment a South Asian vibe.

The deeper we walked into the souq, the more multicultural it seemed. I even saw a Hindu temple and an imambargah, both located a stone’s throw away from one another. Unfortunately, I couldn't go into the Sri Krishna temple since prayers were being conducted at the time.

Read further: Secrets of Thar: A Jain temple, a mosque and a 'magical' well

But I did go to the imambargah, locally known as matams or hussainias. I went to the Matam Mada, which was similar to the ones I had been to in Pakistan. The only difference I noticed was the Persian influence in its architecture. The interior and exterior of the building were embellished with beautiful blue tiles.

We were told by locals that there was also a synagogue in the vicinity, but unfortunately we couldn’t find it. Bahrain is the only Gulf State with a remaining indigenous Jewish population of approximately 37 people, including a Jewish representative in the national assembly, Nancy Khedouri.

After spending a few hours at the souq, we made a quick stop at the national museum. Truth be told, I am not a museum person but I would highly recommend a visit to the Bahrain National Museum to understand the history of this small nation.

It was interesting to learn that Bahrain was at the centre of the global pearl trade industry from the mid 1800s to the 1930s. Before the discovery of oil in the early 1900s, Bahrain made the most of its wealth through pearl diving.

However, only a few pearl divers remain in the country today. Outside the museum, I saw a few interesting monuments showcasing the pearl diving history of the country.

In the evening, we drove south towards the town of Sakhir to check out the Bahrain International Circuit – the site of the Bahrain Grand Prix. I was amazed to learn that Bahrain was the first country in the Middle East to host the Formula One (F1) races.

Every Bahraini that I spoke to throughout my trip, even during the plane ride, were very friendly and helpful in terms of recommending places to visit.

I had the chance to meet many locals and realised that Bahrainis stand out from the rest of their neighbours, since they were approachable and easy going. They were also much more culturally aware and to my surprise, many of them spoke conversational level Urdu.

Everyone was suggesting to go to the F1 circuit; it was obvious that they were really proud to have the opportunity of hosting this grand event in their country. It didn’t come as a surprise when I noticed the iconic F1 circuit on the local currency. Within a short span of time, the races had become a part of the nation’s identity.

When we drove back to Manama, we spent the later half of our evening walking around the bohemian neighbourhood of Adliya, which is filled with hip cafes and restaurants.

It was really interesting to see funky street art in the area. In the middle of the block, there was a small public space where people had gathered for live music and performances.

The next morning, we went on a short drive to the neighbouring town of Muharraq to check out the “Bahrain Pearling trail”, a UNESCO world heritage site. The trail is a 3.5 kilometre long pedestrian pathway that passes through the alleyways of Muharraq, which links together several heritage sites.

Although Muharraq is a short drive across the bridge from Manama, it can easily be mistaken for being in a completely different country. Compared to Manama, the vibe in this part of the country is very Arab.

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

While walking through the Muharraq souq, you start to notice the small differences; the smell of incense wood is replaced by the overpowering aroma from the Arabian Oud store, more men seem to be dressed in local garb rather than western clothing and the stores playing popular Bollywood songs were replaced by subdued Arabic songs. Even before I had fully began to explore the souq, I was already in love with it.

While aimlessly roaming around the souq, we randomly came on to the pearling trail by accidentally stumbling across one of the heritage sites.

The entire pathway consists of around 17 restored buildings, three oyster beds located out at sea, a part of the coast and a fort that was located in the southern tip of Muharraq.

With my time in Bahrain almost coming to an end, we headed back towards Manama to check out the final site on my travel list - the Qalat al Bahrain (the Bahrain Fort).

Located on a hill overlooking the sea, the fort comprises of seven stratified layers. Each layer is occupied by a different occupant – that includes the Kassites, Persians and finally the Portuguese in the 16th century AD.

Seeing the fort lit up at night in all its glory, I couldn’t help but think how it is a microcosmic representation of the Bahraini identity – open minded, multicultural and a link between the east and west.

Before coming to Bahrain, I was only interested in ticking off another place on my bucket list. But once I began to explore, I realised it is a country that has a raw soul – from the bohemian artistic quarter of Adilya, the Arabian vibes of Muharraq to the subcontinental charms of the Bab Al Bahrain souq.

In a region that is competing for world records, Bahrain doesn’t even need to try. There is nothing pretentious about Bahrain – from its people, souqs, rustic dhows (traditional boats) and coastline – it is genuine. I think that is what makes Bahrain unique and beautiful from every other country in the Gulf.

All photos by the author.

Have you explored any lesser-known destinations across the world? Share your journey with us at blog@dawn.com

M Bilal Hassan is a doctor by profession who loves to travel off the beaten track.

You can follow him on Instagram here. And reach him by e-mail at bilalhassan4688@gmail.com.

My earliest memory of Aamir Zaki is foggy. But this much I remember: He came to my school when I was very, very young.

He sang Mera Pyaar on an acoustic guitar and I immediately knew what I wanted. I wanted a guitar and I wanted to play like him. How ignorant of me.

Many years later, in 2009-10, I was part of a blues-rock band called Spoonful in college. Someone told us Zaki was looking for some guys to play with. He wanted to start performing again. And that person had told him about my band.

Zaki graciously agreed to come jam with us. He brought a small Roland amp with him, too small to cut through the drums and the large amps we'd piled up in a rather small room at my friend's house.

But Zaki didn't need a large amplifier. He didn't even need any pedals or processors. He just plugged his strat into the small Roland contraption and blew our minds.

In consequent jam sessions, we arranged for a bigger Fender amplifier for him. He would gleefully turn it all the way up. We all probably lost a bit of our hearing in those jams. Just as well. We may never ever hear something like that again. I will certainly never hear another guitar player like him.

There's so much that will be written about him in the coming days. About his ability to serve the song, to let it rip when he wanted to. He was Pakistan's greatest guitar hero, our Jimi Hendrix, our Stevie Ray, our troubled, enigmatic rockstar.

My band and I saw his demons too. We knew he was a misplaced genius. He refused to compromise on his music and self even when he fell on hard times.

We could tell that his famous friends were wary of his eccentricities. They wanted someone reliable, someone who fit the mould of the corporate-sponsored cupcake that mainstream music had become.

I’m glad he eventually featured in Coke Studio. But when I saw him sitting there playing a humbucker guitar as opposed to the shrieking single-coil strat he loved, poker-faced, unsmiling, I knew he wasn’t really there. He didn’t deserve to be either.

He deserved to tour the world, to record dozens of incredible albums like Signature. I knew he had these songs in him that he couldn’t wait for the world to hear. We were privileged to hear them, unaffected by the glam of the stage, at my friend’s house.

We would be in awe of his ability, even when he would be lecturing us on the lack of our own. But he never really put us down. He never told me how bad a player I was. On the contrary, he gave me one of his guitars. Just like that.

We were driving back home from a gig and he asked me if I liked the guitar. I told him I thought it was great and he just handed it to me. "Keep it". He later joked how he would not sign it because I’d sell it for a fortune after he died. How ignorant of him.

What is your memory of Aamir Zaki? Tell us at blog@dawn.com

The writer is a desk editor at Herald.

“Pakistan ka mutlab kyaa? Laa ilaha ila Allah. Naraye Taqbeer, Allah ho Akbar! Pakistan Zindabad”. The typical Pakistani cricket chants got louder as the match progressed. There were a few of us Pakistanis watching the game at a hotel in Bur Dubai, surrounded by Indians in the fall of 2009.

Shoaib Malik was in his usual elements against India and Mohammad Yousuf was showing his class as Pakistan secured a rare victory against India in an ICC hosted competition.

At the time, the score was 4 -1 in India’s favour. India had won all four World Cup games while Pakistan had triumphed in the previous Champions Trophy bout.

Explore: After the 17-year-itch: The historic 1978 Indo-Pak cricket series

To date, Pakistan has lost seven out of the nine ODIs played against India in ICC held tournaments. India is 6-nil up in World Cup matches, while Pakistan is 2-1 up in ICC Champions Trophy games.

Win the toss. Win the match: the team that has won the toss has won eight out of nine games.

Win the toss. Bat first: seven out of nine times the team that has won the toss have batted first. India asked Pakistan to bat once on a rainy English summer morning and won on Duckworth Lewis method in a game that was reduced to 22 overs.

While Pakistan has gotten the short end of the stick in ICC tournaments against India, overall Pakistan’s ODI numbers look pretty good. Pakistan has won 41% more games against India than India has against Pakistan. The score is 72 – 51 in Pakistan’s favour.

While Pakistan was perhaps a stronger team through the first four decades of ODI cricket, India has been the more dominant team in world cricket in the last seven years. It is the only period in the rivalry where India leads the head to head. However, very little cricket has been played between the two neighbours in the current decade.

The Indian team of the recent past presented an ideal opportunity for India to close the gap with their neighbours. But due to political tensions between the two nations and the stance from the Indian Cricket Board, in particular, denied India this chance to catch up.

While history can be an indicator, the current rankings present a more accurate assessment of where the two teams stand at the moment.

India is ranked number 3 in the top half of the table, and Pakistan lingers right at the bottom at number 8, just under Bangladesh.

Pakistan had to postpone a series to make sure that they could qualify for the ongoing Champions Trophy, while direct qualification for the 2018 World Cup is still under threat.

In these circumstances, India will go in as clear favourites.

However, in a game between India and Pakistan, pressure acts as the great equaliser. The history, the rankings, the numbers, the odds, everything else will seize to matter once the teams set foot on the ground. What will be of utmost importance is how the two young teams handle the burden of over one billion people that will have their eyes on them.

This subcontinent cricket rivalry provides the chance for players to become heroes, and runs the risk of them becoming villains. This mother of all encounters makes them into a Javed Miandad, or turns them into an Aamir Sohail. You become Shahid Afridi overnight or turn into Misbah –ul- Haq forever. Either way, these performances are etched on the minds of those who watch them unfold.

Pakistan will hope that young batting talent Babar Azam will come to the party and raise his hand when it counts most. It will be interesting to see what number he bats at. In a short career, Babar’s batting position has already floated around a bit.

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India has multiple match winners and any of them clicking will make it difficult for Pakistan to compete. Pakistan will have to come out all guns blazing if they are to stand a chance.

The recent record of Edgbaston suggests that the track will be a belter and a run fest is expected to entertain a full house crowd.

The weather during the English summer is always unpredictable and there are showers expected through the weekend in Birmingham. The toss could again be crucial in this regard.

By the time the 2009 India vs Pakistan Champions Trophy game ended, there were only a few people left at the hotel where we saw the game, almost all being Pakistani. My good Indian friends Saif and Hurez, who had invited me, asked what relevance these religious slogans have in a cricket match.

“We are a Muslim country and God is with us”, I said in my own Shoaib Malik moment. My friends reminded me that they were Muslims too and perhaps there were more Muslims in India than in Pakistan, or at least almost as many.

I did not really have an answer to that because they were right and I was being ignorant. But in response, I shouted out, ‘Naraaye Taqbeer’. After all, that is what I grew up chanting and screaming at National Stadium Karachi.

This was the last time Pakistan won a match against India in an ICC tournament.

It was eight years ago.

What are your predictions for Pakistan's performance in the Champions Trophy this year? Tell us at blog@dawn.com