Karakoram Conversations III

Sost is the last town on the Pakistani side of the Karakoram Highway. There is little reason to linger in Sost other than to absorb the strange atmosphere inherent in an isolated settlement separated from its closest Chinese neighbor by the highest official border crossing in the world, the Khunjerab Pass.

Getting to Sost tried my patience. I had been waiting all morning in the previous town for the rumored Natco bus plying the KKH before word finally got around that a snowslide had stranded the bus earlier in its route. I waited with an old man and his chicken for numerous full vans and jeeps to zoom by before finding a tiny space in the back of a rickety van blasting local music through a tinny-sounding portable tape player. Except for some minor rock slides the passage was OK.

It was 3pm when we arrived, with the incessant drizzle and increasingly threatening storm clouds casting an ominous edge over an already shadowy community. No women wandered the primarily empty streets. Only the odd group of men hiding beneath their head scarves and shadowy beards. Up ahead, a typical KKH cricket match between rowdy boys with big grins and tattered shoes. The highway made for a challenging bowling surface with its potholes and pebbles; the best bowlers uncannily capitalizing on rather than being flummoxed by their presence. The vice-principal of Sost Government School and principal of the Aga Khan Girls School introduced themselves and invited me to join them for tea and coconut cookies. The Veep was reading a book on Neurolinguistic Programming and stared glassily at me for most of our time together.

“You find for me more book like this?” he asked hopefully.

“What is this?” I asked, curious to hear what he would say.

“I can control my students with this,” he winked.

“How?”

“Oh – this technique velly good.”

I considered volunteering to participate in an experiment but thought better of it. And so ended my final night in Pakistan. The night’s sleep punctuated by occasional jeeps screaming past my roadside room window up towards the pass and border, fog lights sweeping their way in and blinding me. Loud arguments outside and much banging on the wall. Not a restful place.

Karakoram Conversations II

“Let him read your palm.”

“What for?”

“He has good eye and he come from family of palm readers. Tlee generations!” the palmist’s publicist piped persuasively, thrusting three fingers triumphantly up in the air.

“OK – but I no pay money, understand?”

“No, No – no money, my friend. Only for fun. No money.” he assured.

“For fun OK,” I smiled and opened my right palm up for inspection.

The palmist spoke no English at all and his friend translated for us. “He say you very lucky - very VERY lucky,” the friend clucked as the palmist eyed my lines seriously, studying them from various angles in a manner more scientific than any fairgrounds quack I’d seen before.

“You will not have money problems in this life,” he winked, making me wonder if the earlier proclamations about all this being nothing but simple non-commercial fun were in fact extremely naïve of me to believe. No matter – I was in a public place in broad daylight.

“What about marriage?” I asked, “Will I marry and when?”

There was a long pause and much twisting and prodding of palm, “Mmmmm, difficult to say, my friend. Not clear answer.” This left me a little dejected.

The two of them then started a flurried exchange in Urdu and there was much hmmm-ing and not a little scowling even.

“What is it?” I asked, feeling more uncomfortable at this point.

No answer was forthcoming – only more frowning and a quick reference glance, it seemed, at my left palm. Finally, the friend said, “There is one warning you have to take with you always.”

I took a deep breath and prepared myself, “Y-y-yes?”

“Electricity.”

“What?”

“You know – electricity. Switch. Power.”

“What do you mean?”

“He say you must be careful of electricity. Maybe when you take bath, don’t touch switch or when you fix machinery, be careful the wire, that kind of thing.”

“Ahhhh…..I see” though I was no less comfortable at this point.

The palmist put my hand down and looked me in the eye expressionlessly as if trying to siphon out more insights known only to him. He turned away and mumbled to himself as his friend followed after him. “Very lucky. Very very lucky…..” I think he said in halting tones.

All I could think of was electricity.

Karakoram Conversations I

“You have come here seeking something, have you not?”

“What are you talking about?” I asked, looking up from the book I was leafing through in his store.

“People like you always come here looking for something,” his knowing smile peeking through the thick beard. “I am Sufi mystic. I know.”

“If you know so much, maybe you can tell me what you think I’m hoping to find,” I teased good-naturedly while meeting his piercing stare.

“Mmmmm, I think maybe you have illness you want to cure.”

I didn’t think this was particularly perceptive as I had been suffering from immense travel fatigue and it was probably etched on my face. I was unceremoniously dumped in Nairobi and waylaid for 7 days because Jeddah airport, my original connecting nexus, had been overrun with pilgrims over Eid, a major religious holiday. By the time I stumbled into Hamid’s bookstore in Rawalpindi, I was due for an illness. My glazed eyes from the breakfast joint a teenage Afghan student had left me as a parting souvenir from our brief conversation the evening before only added to my overall torpor.

“I did not come seeking a cure but it is true that there are physical ailments I have which I would be happy to see go away,” I conceded.

“Speak and Hamid will make you well,” he bellowed, wagging his finger commandingly and never once averting eye contact.

“I have had asthma since I was a child and if you can make it go away, I shall remember you forever, Hamid.”

“Bring our guest here some cha!” he gestured to a curious cherubic boy who throughout this exchange had been sitting quietly, his big round eyes never once blinking. He was a cute boy but rather unnerving too. Like a Paki Chucky. Once the cha had arrived, Hamid ordered me to sit down about 20 feet away from him facing the far wall of the bookstore and drink the entire cup.

Highly skeptical, I nonetheless gulped it down. It tasted OK. “Now what?” I asked.

“Patience,” he said.

The one other patron in the store during this entire time had been going about her business without the slightest interest in this long-haired foreigner going through an ancient Sufi ritual to rid him of a lifetime of asthma. She paid for her items and left, and the whole store plunged into an unexpected silence.

I was still sitting in a well-behaved way facing the wall when Hamid let out a sudden, forceful and emphatic “Hohhhhth!” from deep within his abdomen.

Slightly startled, I let the moment pass and maintained my steady posture.

“Now stand up slowly and without turning around, walk backwards towards me,” Hamid instructed.

Thinking this could not get anymore absurd, I figured there was no point in breaking the Sufi spell at such an advanced stage and motioned gingerly backwards, taking care not to upset the precariously balanced piles of books on the floor. At least I was still conscious and not being carted away in a panel van after downing the mysterious cha.

After several paces, I felt Hamid’s hand on my back, halting my progress. A tingling warmth emanated from his hand while the other was placed behind my neck. We stayed thus for about 15 seconds with Hamid muttering incessantly in what I presumed was Urdu. Then he announced, “OK, it is done.”

I wanted to laugh but restrained myself. “So I am cured?” I asked.

“Yes. But if after a year your asthma returns, come and see me again.”

I wasn’t sure where else to go with this conversation and after exchanging some pleasant banter – relatively meaningless by comparison – I bade farewell to Hamid and his store.

Two months later, I went on a week-long trek to a holy Hindu lake in Nepal. It was some 15,000 feet high and for a long time – well before my encounter with Hamid – I had been concerned about my asthma acting up on the trek as I had done no preparatory training for it whatsoever. Not only did my respiratory faculty perform exceedingly well, Badri – my guide – commended me on my pace. Not bad, I thought, for someone bedeviled with asthma throughout his life. I found it difficult to accept that Hamid’s incantations and grunts had done what a lifetime of Western medicine hadn’t even claimed to attempt. Must be a placebo, I concluded.

A year later, I started wheezing again.