Muzaffarabad

Muzaffarabad – Chehlum

March 21, 2006 It’s real blade The mourning of the death of the Prophet’s grandson, Hazrat Hussain, who was killed in a war in Qarbala, 1400 years ago, still continued until the fortieth day after Ashura. It was 20 Safar, 40 days after 10 Muharram, the final day of all of the mourning. I had experienced the Ashura celebration in Lahore, which was an astonished experience. For Chehlum, I had it in Muzaffarabad. I came quite early in the morning, 12 noon, to the Shia mosque near the chowk of Medina Market. The mosque itself was not big, signified by the black huge flag, distinctive of Shia mosques. An attendant there said that before the earthquake, the mosque was always crowded during this time of the year. But now, many of the believers had gone. Indeed, the majlis was not crowded, the people who came was only about a quarter of the number the space can handle. The majlis speech, delivered in language more about the same as Urdu, also brought the listeners to hysteria. Ya [read more]

March 21, 2006 // 2 Comments

Muzaffarabad – Day of Accidents

Having lunch in a ‘hotel’ and got invited March 19, 2006 The day was started by a missed call, missed call from God. It was a small aftershock early in the morning. I was in the middle of my dream, and suddenly felt that my matras was rocked. It was exactly the same feeling as when I stayed in a cheap hotel in India, and got a room next to the main road, and the whole room would be rocked by the passing trucks or buses. The aftershock, a real earthquake, brought me back to India in my dream. And just realized I was in a tent in Pakistan side of Kashmir when I got up. After a hot and sunny day yesterday, today it changed drastically to be cloudy and raining. Many of the plans today were altered, and instead of going to another village, I returned back to Muzaffarabad today. I met the boy who was so desperate to kiss me before, and he gave greetings, and said to me, “A beautiful… piece of meat”, and laughed. Hmm…quite a command of English vocabulary. [read more]

March 19, 2006 // 0 Comments

Muzaffarabad – Sea of Tents

Sea of tents March 4, 2006 The city of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, sprawls along two important rivers in Pakistan, Niilam and Jhelam. The two rivers meet in the heart of the city, where the economic activities of the city concentrated. The main road stretched from the north through Chella Bandi area until the ‘Secretariat’ area, of total 4 kms of length. Muzaffarabad is hilly city, the roads are all ‘uupar niche’ (up and down), with several steep cliffs (many were collapsed due to the earthquake 5 months earlier) and ladder provided to pedestratians to up the hill. Was the main landmark and tourist attraction of the city, the historical Red Fort or Lal Qila is now a bunch of red stones. The remains of the fort, walls now not more than 2 metres tall, are still standing on the top of small hill near Chella Bandi. The shops and houses are also still showing the scars of disasters, with orphaned children beggar sleeping on the street, [read more]

March 4, 2006 // 0 Comments

Muzaffarabad – World Hartal Day

Protesters yelling “Death to America”, in front of a banner stating that help from an American fondation is highly appreciated March 3, 2006 Friday, March 3, 2006, was supposed to be the world strike day to protest the Danish cartoon. I didn’t know whether it was indeed done universally, but at least it was nation-wide in Pakistan, and included in this quake torn capital of AJ&K, Muzaffarabad. The experience of unrest in Lahore gave me a fore thinking, that anything could happen in so-called ‘peaceful protests’. The boy from the office accompanied me along the way, and I was wearing my Indonesian peci for my national identity, not to be misunderstood as Chinese and Japanese. From the information I gathered, the whole city would be under strike situation, where all shops were supposed to be closed and no public transport operating. But even though most shops were closed, those which kept doing business were not few anyway. And many restaurants were [read more]

March 3, 2006 // 2 Comments

Noraseri – Tent Life

Morning ritual of the volunteers February 26, 2006 The rain which was started the day before yesterday and lasted for more than 30 hours had just stopped at midnight. The sky was still dark in the morning, and I had problem with my camera lens. I don’t know how to clean the lens, and because of overusing under the rain, the lens had vapors on it, and the pictures taken were not sharp. Any input from other photographers is expected. The morning life is always hilarious in our camp. Everybody started the day by shaving the moustache (the Pakistanis prefer to use the plural form of the noun – moustaches, possibly mean the upper and lower part of the moustache, as it indeed means ‘two different parts’ – the men tend to preserver the upper and clean shave the lower), washing faces with the warm water, and brushing teeth with a stick of a certain tree. I prefer not to do anything to clean myself in this cold weather (learnt this bad habit from China), and [read more]

February 26, 2006 // 0 Comments

Muzaffarabad – Five Months after the Disaster

Muzaffarabad, 5 months after the disaster February 23, 2006 So, at last I am going to Kashmir, the earthquake affected area. The departure was with an NGO, Dannish Muslim Aid. The organization name bears the name of the country mostly infavorable in many Muslim countries. Rashid, the guy from the NGO told the driver, a Pakthan from Peshawar, to say that we were from ‘Ganesh’ instead of ‘Danish’ whenever anybody ask. Muzaffarabad, the capital of Azad Jammu and Kashmir (Azad= Free), one third of Kashmir which is under Pakistan control, is a winding 4 hour journey through the Murree Road. For Rashid, the trip was extremely unbearable. He tried to make himself fall asleep instead of tortured in the “uppar-niche” – up and down journey. Murree itself is among popular place for vacation for locals, as there are several tourist buses passing the area. And the Punjab province meets its end in the border town of three provinces: Punjab, NWFP, and Azad [read more]

February 23, 2006 // 0 Comments