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+ "Nuclear Neighbors" 22-23 August, Islamabad
While Scott and I are having a very "civilized" meal at the U.N. Club, a place reminiscent of a gentleman's club in the colonial subcontinent, India attacked Pakistan. I find out about the latest skirmish twelve hours after dinner as we try to track down General Musharraf's closest aide, General Rashid Qureshi. He is swamped with calls, so we figure that the only way to trap him into meeting us is by attending the special press briefing. "Late last night India launched a totally unprovoked attack on a Pakistani outpost in Northern Kashmir," General Qureshi told a couple dozen Pakistani journalists crammed in a space that looks much like my grandmother's old living room. It's an old conflict -- this part-time war between India and Pakistan -- one that has lasted for more than 20 years. Ironically, it seems to flare up every time an American dignitary comes to town to mediate the dispute between the two uneasy nuclear neighbors. Tomorrow, Richard Armitage, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State, will arrive from Delhi. And so to mark his arrival, Pakistan says, the Indians have bombarded one of their outposts using aircraft.
Pakistan is fiercely religious. It is, after all, called the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. Here there are hundreds of madrassas, or religious schools, and a mosque every few hundred yards. Men walk about in their Shalwar Kameez and prayer hats. Beige and light blue seem to be the colors in vogue. One rarely sees women on the streets, and if you do, they are wrapped from head to toe in a colorful medley of cotton fabrics. Scott and I took a walk through a middle-class neighborhood today. Men sat on benches having their beards trimmed by roadside barbers. Others held hands in friendly embrace. And a few prayed on straw mats in a courtyard. Vendors were deep-frying batter in pools of grease sprinkled with a few dead gnats. Piles of dung were scattered here and there. The smell was so odious, I felt nauseous. Martin has arrived and once again he's lost his luggage. Tomorrow, Inshalla, we will go to Peshawar.
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home - introduction - mapping the journey photograph ©afp/corbis
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