newsletter-2018

LIBRARY & NEWSLETTER
EXPLORING THE UNEXPLORED
“to
travel
is to live”
Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, and an author of nine
travel books as well as the only Pakistani to have seen the
North Face of K-2 and trekked in the shadow of the great mountain,
Salman Rashid acclaimed as ‘the most erudite travel
writer of the country’ was the Chief Guest of the evening who was
here to share his experiences from the wonderful
journeys and explorations in and out of the beautiful land of Pakistan.
with
SALMAN RASHID
Mr. Rashid started the talk by telling the packed audience how
squatting on 'Boundary Pillar 186, the seal of border posts
according to Pakistan Military maps of the owned territory, as well
as the tripoint where Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan
converge, was something he always wished after reading G. P Tate’s
‘The Frontiers of Baluchistan’ and spotting a picture
taken at the time, that had ultimately gotten him to this area of the
land.
He further spoke about his time at Makran, a semi desert coastal
strip in Pakistan and Iran, along the coast of the Persian
Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, the region that acquired a notorious
reputation due to Alexander the Great disastrously
marching back to Babylon after his Indian campaign through its
deserts, and finding it an inhospitable and pitiless
landscape of rock, dust, sand and baking heat. Audiences were
particularly interested to learn about the newly built
‘Makran Coastal Highway’ with 63 bridges, 1,433 culverts and 4
causeways as part of the CPEC project and that has
economic, social and strategic links for both Pakistan and China.
Mr. Rashid also shared stories from his interaction with the locals
who never run short of quoting mythical and historical
references attached to each place, adding numerous true and
untrue versions of an incident and making the whole
experience of researching and exploring all the more convoluted.
Disapproving what he thinks was never but known to be
the Silk Route, as we now term the Karakoram Highway, Mr. Rashid
told the enraptured audience there is no record of a
bolt of silk, neither here, nor anywhere else in the entire length of
the road and is merely titled as such to add glamour to
this already great Pak-China overland connection that in itself is a
wonder. Mr. Rashid concluded the evening by answering questions
about his favourite place, safety and security concerns while traveling
to a place like Balochistan and the future of disputed territories
like Kashmir and Aksai Chin. Internationally
recognized art-historian and author, Fakir Aijazuddin, who was also
present made the final comment of the day mention
ing “Salman is the last of the intrepid entrepreneurial explorers we
all must value”.
31