Tag: South Asia

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The Bright Side of the Rhodo(dendrons) – Nepal 2024

Rhododendron Trees

And time seems to go by so fast
In the twinkling of an eye
Let’s enjoy it while we can (let’s enjoy it while we can)
To the bright side of the road
(Van Morrison)

I’m a great admirer of professionals who make difficult work look easy – none more so than the guides, cooks and porters who support foreign travellers in the mountains and foothills of Nepal. Mountaineers know this of course: few would reach a Himalayan summit without an extensive local support team behind them. But less recognized – outside Nepal at least – are those who support ordinary trekkers from around the world whose “summit” is not a mountaintop but rather a peak experience; walking spectacular countryside in the company of its tough, resilient, gracious and hospitable people.

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The Case of the Disappearing Island: Bay of Bengal, 2009

Before taking up writing full time I’d spent a quarter-century assisting people on both sides of international disputes to meet informally and explore solutions that might be politically difficult to discuss officially. Indeed, in some cases, officials couldn’t even talk at all. It’s discreet, behind the scenes work that occasionally enables politicians to take credit for newsworthy diplomatic breakthroughs; sometimes sows seeds that won’t bear diplomatic fruit for years; but often has no measurable results at all, other than fostering modest improvements in mutual trust and communication. Inevitably, though, this somewhat arcane field of “Track Two diplomacy”  provides its practitioner with some quite interesting moments.(*)

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Holy Cow(s)! – Delhi, India

At Humayuns Tomb

The driver of one of the city’s three-wheel auto-rickshaws had proven honest and personable so I offered to hire him for a full day of exploring Old and New Delhi. The next morning Yogesh was at the door, right on time, in his little canvas-covered “tuk-tuk” with its puttering two-stroke engine, and off we went. As our final stop I wanted to wander the famous gardens surrounding Humayun’s Tomb so, after my faithful “rickshaw-wallah” took a picture of me taking a picture, I let him go with thanks. I thought that the thirty-minute stroll back to my lodgings would make the perfect end to a perfect adventure. I was wrong.

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Transcending Fundamentalism – The Lahore Literary Festival

Reports from Afghanistan this week tell of of gunmen storming Kabul University just before the opening of a book fair. It reminds me of similar anti-cultural violence in Pakistan in 2015. Just two days before the Lahore Literary Festival was due to begin, a suicidal fanatic had blown himself up nearby. Officials tried to cancel the event but the organizers refused to be intimidated. Both the army and police vowed to provide protection. Some foreign ambassadors declined to attend, but over the course of three days thousands of Pakistanis and guests from around the world joined in a resounding repudiation of fanaticism and barbarism.

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A James Bond Moment in Pakistan

Some stories are so improbable that you just couldn’t make them up. This is one of them.

A decade ago there was much speculation about the newly-built port at Gwadar on the bleak coast of Pakistan’s underdeveloped and restive Balochistan province, better known for independently-minded tribes and a Taliban refuge than for maritime trade and commerce. Yet China had paid to transform this obscure fishing town, strategically located at the approaches to the Gulf of Hormuz through which about a third of the world’s seaborne oil passes. I’d been hearing much theorizing among China’s rivals, but never met anyone who’d actually been there. So I went.

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Lowering Flags at Wagah Crossing

It would be easy to dismiss the daily sunset ceremony at the crossing straddling the storied Grand Trunk Road linking Pakistan’s Lahore and India’s Amritsar, as a caricature of militarism taken to extremes. But I don’t, and here’s why. On the day I visited a few years ago it was indeed reminiscent at first of the famous Monty Python’s “Ministry of Silly Walks” sketch on 1970s television, but an unforeseen event uncovered a very human face behind the mask of blatant hostility.

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