Eventful Monotony

As I wandered the streets of India, I had no idea that the copy of the novel that earned a death sentence complete with bounty by the ayatollah of Iran in 1989 was also banned in India. In fact, had I not been reading the Satanic Verses openly on trains, in cafes, and various other public places on the subcontinent, I never would have realized that books can, in fact, be banned in India.

Such as it is, though, the Satanic Verses is off limits throughour India, Pakistan, and the majority of the Middle East. However, should one be looking for a good copy of Mein Kampf in this military state, he won't have a problem provided he has four dollars to spare. In the meantime, rallies and riots will ensue in the name of religious tolerance and respect. People will continue to plead that "we don't criticize Jesus or other people's prophets!" and shut down shops in hartals while Hitler's profecy sits in prominent display at Saeed Book Bank, and at least a few other independent book stalls. The ongoing self-contradictory fervor means that the KFC that I had ice cream in a few weeks ago is now charred due to irrational Islamic youth pissed off about a cartoon published in a country with half the population of Karachi.

But enough about that.

We decided to go see a Spanish film at the French Alliance in Pakistan. Perhaps the most interesting outcome of the choice was that I was interviewed to make my third appearance on television during my short time on the subcontinent. Also, we met a few interesting guys.

Stunned that we had not yet found a route to enjoy a cold beer in Pakistan, these two products of upper class society invite and we accept. We pull up to an unmarked building in a residential area, where Saad hands a few bills through his car window. Minutes later, a man emerges with four cold ones in a plastic bag. Four cold Murree Brewery Beers, that is, fresh out of Rawalpindi in the heart of this "dry" nation - another highlight in self-contradiction.

Being that such possessions are still illegal, we drink them in the car as we cruise around, but our driver is not too worried about the police as his is a VIP license plate. "See the emblem on that car, over the license plate? That's a member of the National Assembly. Those guys are invincible." And here the locals persist in placing more importance on a cartoon in Denmark than on their own national woes. Sorry, I revert.

The Shisha Tobacco on offer at the tea shop next to a gelatto den provides a stark contrast to the Western Ambiance the place seems to vomit up. Nevertheless, we stop for Kahwa and the converstion veers toward religion (via, of course, cartoons). The host sees chaos coming, so rerouts the verbal exchange; though his choice of politics as a mediating topic is less than understandable. One predictably commends the relative stability of Afghanistan under the Taliban (though it just now ocurred, the press was far from free during their time in the limelight, so how can we discern between stability and illusion, really? But then information is necessarily limited in every topic, is it not?)

America went WAY out of its righteous parameters to bomb Iraq and Afghanistan - the nation should isolate and worry about itself only, leaving everyone else to endure on their own. Except, of course, for the Kashmir dispute - which is an issue so grave that it requires the hard hand of a mediating superpower. Maybe you should just worry about opposing Musharraf, for whom your companion's Uncle used his vote as a Supreme Court Justice to validate...huh?

Then Jenny and I absolutely slaughtered a few potentially good days as plans to write, read, learn, relax, and gain control over my spiraling ambitions gave way to watching HBO movies so terrible they make your brain crack in a nearby British Hill Station. Yet with all the local tourists doing nothing more than strolling up and down the one hundred meter long main road stuffed with handicrafts, shawls and crappy souvenirs, we found little to pull us from our lazy self-destroying onslaught of movies. So it was two full days of insufferably dull existence, interrupted briefly by a solitary walk down the deserted road into familiar smelling evergreens and chilly bliss of clean crisp air, and we decide to head back to the dull capital.

Yet another Hartal has been called to protest whatever it is they can come up with - Bush, Washington, Cartoons, Musharraf, etc. Busses are not running to Islamabad, so we opt to share a taxi with a "doctor" from Azad Kashmir who is nowhere near being proactive despite his linguistic advantages over the Anglo-descendent visitors. We are soon turned back as five small stones in the roadway apparently indicate that a gas line is under repari. No passage. Back through the other way we think we're golden until the taxi runs out of good old Compressed Natural Gas (CNG). We quickly learn that the disadvantage to this ultra-clean fuel is that one cannot simply run to the store and grab an extra gallon of it should he run out in the middle of, say, Pakistan. Thus, while our driver attempts to turn the engine back into a petrol-guzzling ice-cap melter but accomplishes nothing but sputters and spurts, we concur that ditching him is our best option.

We hop in the back of a pickup with four women very, very excited to see Jenny. Though outgoing, the veils over their faces make me question my own appropriate boundaries, and I remain mostly quiet. Soon after they jump ship, we hit another road block and are detoured along with everyone else along a road where not a single person seems to know where he's going. Eventually, however, we wind our way out of the meandering countryside back into Islamabad just in time to hop a cab to avoid the clouds of teargas coming our way. Soon we hit another roadblock.

We hit pavement to walk the rest of the way. We're near the diplomatic enclave, and fully armed guards with assault rifles sit behind sandbag bunkers and coil upon coil of barbed wire. Others stand shoulder to shoulder in riot gear ready for an outright battle against maybe not irrationality but at least disobedience. One guard points out the tear gas billowing baove the road somewhere in the vicinity of Aapbara Market, where we fled a similar riot a few days back. However, he doesn't seem too concerned about his own post as he nonchalantly waves us through the barricasdes. The soldiers behind the bunker smile and wave as we pass in fron tf the muzzle of their disproportionately large weapon. We realize the only path home is via the entrance to the diplomatic enclave, through the secretariat and into the Blue Area - the main strip of town. The streets are still and virtually empty save an occasional army car, police patrol, or VIP-esque ride.

Sure that we shouldn't be allowed to wander these currently off-limits regions (espeicially with large suspicious backpacks), the rows of riot-gear-clad soldiers and armed army men simply smile, slaute and return our "Asalaam Maleikum"s as we mosy past. Past the enclave, parliament, the supreme court...all of it. We weren't too sure that we weren't walking directly into the eye of the storm until we crossed the mass of barbed wire and guns at the Blue Area. A man with a walkie talkie runs past almost frantically as though in dire need to prepare for an onslaught of lawlessness, but just when anxiousness might set in, a guard nearby reaches down and scratches his groin in calm indifference. As if that weren't enough, the next guard mocks our lack of a taxi, and the over-prepared infantry behind him lay in the grass as if prepared for the afternoon barbecue. I think we're going to be just fine, despite the moderate disappointment such an uneventful day inspires. My camera's film did not get impressed with images of teargas amidst burning tires or effigies of God-knows-who being defaced. But then, I suppose, such is the life of the majority of people here - the people who don't make the front page every damn day for weeks.