Church and the Old City

It was Sunday, so we met with a friend of Kristeen’s named Sana and joined her at a beautiful cathedral. Due to all the very serious security problems faced by everyone in the country and in particular any minority group, it is not so easy to walk into different places of worship. These places offer a glimpse into the diversity of Pakistan. So we went to a church service. The building is beautiful.I’ve spent some time with the minority communities here in the past and I see parallels in their situation to some of the issues faced by communities in other parts of the world. This community has it particularly difficult in Pakistan today. Everyone is at risk of becoming a victim in the ongoing violence, but these communities in particular have been singled out all too many times. Yet they are just as important a piece within Pakistan as all the rest.I thought about this as I sat in the pew and appreciated the service. Afterwards, we looked around at the cathedral a bit before heading to Pak Tea House for some snacks. From there we walked through Anarkali, then caught a rickshaw to Delhi Gate with Sana. I had wanted to see the renovated portions of the walled city for a while, but had waited until Kristeen came to Lahore. We walked through the gate and on to Masjid Wazir Khan, through long winding lanes beyond the renovated sections, until we eventually found our way to Naunihal Singh’s Haveli. With some help, we were allowed to take a look around at Raja Ranjit Singh’s grandson’s former home, which was converted to a school during British times and continues to be one today.

Lahore Social

We took a bit of rest, then met with some of my high school friends on the fancier side of town at a place called the Lahore Social. It is easy enough to get there on the metro, but getting back when it is late is more challenging. Thanks to Adeel and Ijaz for goinhg out of their way to get us back. It's interesting meeting with old friends. It can be like a window into the past. 

Hafeez center and Panj Vera

So Hafeez Center was the place. First Hall road was the place, then Nisbat road and now Hafeez Center. Okay, I thought. What choice do I have but to try? We took the Lahore Metro, which is a raised bus system that blights the city, but provides a much easier, if severely packed way to get to some further parts of town.The women’s section is in the front and the men’s is the rest of the bus. So, Kristeen and I separated there. You have to push your way in. I don’t really push people, but rather maneuver my way into the cracks and make them grow just a little. The day before was really frustrating and being packed on a bus, dripping with sweat is no fun either. Yet, I managed to stay polite with everyone, because really we were all suffering together. I did not want to let my own discomfort make me forget it. People are pretty miserable and agitated on the bus. There is a good deal of pushing to get out and people do get angry at each other. One guy behind me kept talking to his friend about someone not standing on his own weight and leaning on him. He was facing the other way. Then he shoved me a bit. So I turned around and told him I did not realize he was referring to me. I was not leaning on him in any way, but really, this hell hole was no place to try and argue a point. I spoke to him politely and told him that he should have just tapped me on the shoulder and spoken to me so that I would know. The metro bus is packed and runs very frequently, but the public transportation needs of this city are great. Everyone is miserable and uncomfortable with good reason. Yet at the same time, this bus is clearly a vitally important need.Anyway, that was fun. We rode on for a while and eventually got off the bus at the closest stop to our destination and took a rickshaw to Hafeez Center. We walked around and no one had the compressed air cans we were looking for to clean our computers. My laptop was heating up and I hoped that cleaning the dust of Jamshoro out of it might help. At Hafeez Center, we learned that those cans are not available in Pakistan. People use an air blower to clean computers.Well, that was a lot of effort for nothing, once again. How do I learn to ask the right questions, and reduce leg work to get to my goal faster with less pain? I think about this a lot, and hope I can get better at it.So, we hopped on a rickshaw and ate some delicious food at Bundu Khan’s then walked around Liberty Market. My friend Imran was meeting some friends nearby at night. He suggested I visit one of the contacts he sent me as he was not far and then I could join them. The contact was Sohail Azad who runs Check Post, a post production house that specializes in color timing for films. It is an exciting time as the film industry in Pakistan is making a comeback. There are many films being released and an audience eager to watch them. I have not been directly connected to this scene and I was very happy to get a chance to visit.We found the office then head upstairs. It just made me happy to see a beautiful office space with artists working on interesting projects. Sohail sahib greeted us, one of the artists gave us some water and we sat down with a documentary filmmaker who works on films about the endangered wildlife of Pakistan. He showed us some incredible footage from a project he worked on featuring leopards and their habitat.My friend Yaser dropped by and we sat with Sohail and discussed what they are up to and what I am trying to do. I really appreciated the possibilities that we discussed. Perhaps, as Imran had also suggested, I could bring the puppeteers here and work from Lahore. We discussed possible resources and logistics. I got to learn about some other projects that people are working on in Lahore. There are many challenges, but to see people make their films is always inspiring.From there, Yaser dropped Kristeen and I off at Panj Vera, a fun eating spot down the road where we met with Imran and a whole new group of friends. Imran made Kristeen feel right at home immediately with his humor. It felt really good to connect to such a good group of people. Zahid drove all of us transportationaly challenged folks back across town afterwards.

Hall rd and Nisbat rd

Today was the day to track down a place where I could get my music recordings from Sindh digitized form miniDV (obsolete format) so that I could begin working on it in the computer. Hall road is packed with cel phone shops and some other electronics. After much asking around, several people suggested trying there. We made our way to the building that had been suggested.I asked a shopkeeper and he sent a guy to go ask a source that he knew. The shops are a mess. I had also been warned that these places could easily lose or ruin my tapes. I really could not afford to lose them. That would signal the end of this project. Perhaps it would save me further trouble in that regards, but I really did not have any other choices. So I brought one of the tapes I had already digitized in Sindh, so that if something bad happened, it would be all right as a test.It is hard to walk around there, and I felt bad for Kristeen, but she is a trooper and as long as I made sure to get her something yummy to eat, all would be forgiven. Each shopkeeper sent us to another and so we walked all over, back and forth down hall road. Finally people suggested that camera shops are on Nisbat rd and we should try there. We were already quite tired from the heat, the misinformation and the unnecessary difficulty in getting correct information.So we hopped on a rickshaw at the end of Hall rd and went to Nisbat rd. The place was full of camera shops and it seemed that this might be a better bet. There were lots of nice shops with all kinds of professional gear. Those in particular were the ones that were jerks. So it was that we went back and forth, crossing through murderous traffic, following every wrong lead that people had to offer. There was one shop where a kindly older man had a little handicam and he agreed to digitize the tape for me. Unfortunately, he could only output a highly compressed (as in crappy quality) file. The only other options on both roads were random folks saying that they could do it, as in someone they knew in a back alley might be able to do it, even though they had no idea what I was talking about when they looked at the tape. This man had a very dusty shop with camera lenses and some computers in the back with their guts exposed. However, he did have a camera, so I gave him the tape and he said come back in an hour.We grabbed a pizza, then walked around a bit more. That bought me some more time to put Kristeen through the discomfort of existing in that place. We got the recording as a file on a usb hard drive I took with me and then began walking back, searching for a compressed air can to clean out our computers. Again, we were lead all over, back to Hall rd, all the way through to every place that did not have it or know what it was. Some people mentioned a machine that was used for this and also said to go to Hafeez Center, a technology building across town. I was asking one shopkeeper and he suggested stores behind his building. I mentioned how we had been back there and was trying to make sure he was not referring to the same place. His friend got annoyed and lectured me on how I was not letting him answer. There was no point in arguing. I was already defeated before we started on this fool’s errand.So, we went to Chaman ice cream, had another amazing khoya khajoor ice cream and then went home with our tails between our legs.

Kurri Jam Gai!

Raja Ranjit Singh’s samadhi with Badshahi mosque behind

Guru Arjun Dev Gurdwara

samadhi

Badshahi mosque

Lahore fort

Lahore fort

shish mahal in fort

outside view of fort

Kristeen’s favorite

I thought I would show Kristeen around Lahore so that we could fulfill that famous saying for her, “Jinai Lahore nai waikhia, o jamia ee nahi (whomsoever has not seen the city of Lahore, has not been born).” So, for Kristeen to be born, she needed to see some interesting places here. We went to the Lahore Fort.We took a rickshaw to Kashmiri gate (part of the walled city of Lahore). We walked around a bit and grabbed some tea. Somehow I have only spent time on the south side of the walled city and not the northern side, so I thought it would be fun to explore a bit of that too. There were lots of women’s clothing or cloth shops around there. We walked around and picked up a khamiri roti and some chai from the chai stall next door. The area is messy, with winding narrow lanes, dilapidated buildings and in some spots piles of trash. Despite that, I love it more than any other place.While the heat can be exhausting and finding your way and dodging motorcycles, rickshaws and donkey carts can be tough, there is something about the people. Not to romanticize too much, I mean there are all sorts of characters in the walled city, but I enjoy being able to walk up to a shop and ask questions and have bits of conversations along the way. Tea stalls and food spots are very male dominated as is so much of everywhere around us. The tea stall people picked up a bench and took it up a small flight of stairs to a nice spot perched above the street across from them for us to sit. We ate our delicious fresh bread followed by tea that they brought up for us.We watched people pass by and they watched us too. I’ve lost what anonymity I might have had before, and I am even more conscious of the challenges and male dominance of the places we go to, but I don’t want that to affect our ability to explore. With some basic precautions, it does not have to. There are certainly women walking about in the old city was well, but you can’t hide being an outsider. People stare all over the place, but in the walled city, they also tend to be nicer when you are walking around. If you are polite, they are generally more polite, or at least within each group I’m likely to find someone who is.After some tea, we walked the rest of the way to the Lahore Fort. I had never seen that side of the fort, so it was fun to see all the windows from the outside. We came to the main entrance. Things have changed. Cars no longer drive up to the main gate. They stop a ways from it and people walk the rest of the way. The first spot we came upon was the entrance Guru Arjun Dev’s Gurdwara and Raja Ranjit Singh’s Samadhi. The places of minority communities have controlled access due to very real security concerns. Every place has a lot more security as the country has been at war with itself for so long, caught between its own turmoil exasperated by external conflicts it has been forced into.So, after a bit of back and forth, we went in and sat in the Gurdwara for a bit, then looked at the samadhi. It is interesting that the samadhi is so ornate and huge, while the Gurdwara is so very simple. Kings really love themselves.Next we walked to the fort. There are bits that have been restored beautifully and hope for more of that to continue. It is massive. After much exploring, we head to Badshahi mosque and enjoyed the wonderful architecture there. I’ve seen these places many times in the last ten years, but it was really fun to share it with Kristeen.Afterwards we head to Hall road to follow up on leads for DV tape digitizing which I needed for my puppet film. Everything was closed due to a strike in response to a new government tax to be imposed on all financial transactions. So, we had some ice cream at Chaman and I think that was Kristeen’s favorite thing we did. We had khoya khajoor which was amazing. After a lot more walking around Mall road, we found our way to some food spots in Anarkali. I think it was safe to say that Kristeen had been born.

Puppets! I mean wife arrives!

My wife Kristeen was arriving. I picked up a few things for the room, then ate breakfast. Our friend Parmod ji was so kind to take the early morning train with her from Chandigarh to Amritsar. From there his wife Pooja ji’s brother Aditya would arrange to take her the rest of the way to the border. I remember that journey myself from five years ago. Aditya had taken me the rest of the way to the border as well and it really eased my mind.Parmod ji called me once they arrived at Amritsar. I hopped on a rickshaw and made my way to Laria Adda, the big bus stand on this side of town. From there I found a small bus or wagon that was going to the Wagha border. I squeezed in and waited for it to fill up. Eventually we were on our way.It turned out I was the only one going to the border. About 9 km from the border, the wagon dropped us all off. From there I had to take Qing Chi the rest of the way. Another bumpy ride, and I was there. It looked completely different than five years ago. You could not actually go all the way to the border. I walked to the checkpoint and gave my name and my wife’s. They told me to go wait by a roadside dhaba. I got a juice, but did not see any taxis, so I asked around. I was introduced to one guy who had a car. He called in to see if Kristeen had arrived.She had, and we walked over to his car, went through to a little post and after six months, there she was sitting under a little canopy with a few other people who had come across and security folks. It felt surreal to see her, not on a pixelated computer screen, but just sitting there. I got out and we got her things from the porters into the car and we both sat down. After all we’ve been through, working on our projects, it was hard to believe we were finally sitting next to each other in the same car.The drive along the canal was nice as we head back from the border. Eventually, we got back to the hostel and dropped things off. I offered to grab some food, but being the adventurous food loving woman she is, Kristeen came with. We got some delicious aloo (potato) stuffed nans and daal (lentils).Kristeen took a nap, and I dug through her suitcases and pulled out piles of puppets. They were even more beautiful in person than in the photos. Now I have to figure out this part of the project. It’s all a bit overwhelming.

Preparing

Preparing to get my wife. I picked up some things at the general store to make sure the hostel room would have all that I could think of that she would need. It had been six months since we had seen each other, besides skype now and then, all because of this one border. This one border that will stay impassible to most, so long as people profit from arms and enmity.

A walk through Lohari

I went for a morning walk through Lohari in the walled city with my friend Imran. We had some nihari. I wanted to be a bit adventurous and ordered the brain nihari. Ok, never again. It was kind of rejuvenating to walk around the city. Afterwards, I head back with Imran to his place and we discussed possible approaches to the puppetry in “Risalo”. There are a lot of logistical and artistic decisions to be made.He offered me a room in his home to shoot the film. Not only that, but he called up several of his friends who work in film to assist me in this project. It really helped to boost my own energy levels to get some outside input and begin the process of connecting to more ideas and possibly resources here in Lahore. There are so many possibilities. Time to explore.

Back to the NCA Hostel

I shifted to the NCA hostel, to be closer to resources that I need to work on. My relatives were very sweet, and things like food and laziness were very easy for me there, but I need to get things moving. I walked all around Mall road and the surrounding areas. At one point it started to rain and I kept going. It felt good to be out. I walked until my legs shook with exhaustion. Then I stopped at a dhaba that served only daal and rice by where all the movie theaters are. It was fun to see all the movie billboards. Perhaps one day “Risalo” can screen here.I needed it the walk and the physical exhaustion. I made my way back to the hostel, filled with observations, and ideas from which new stories grow. I was ready for a good nights rest.

On and on it goes

Butts are peoples too.

There are many days where I sit and bide my time. I can’t make things move faster, nor can get things to happen without a constant effort. Many days pass, weary in the heat, just trying to keep myself motivated. I need to constantly look for that next piece that will bring the next step in this process a bit closer.I knew this would not be easy. I did not know it would be so difficult. Butt, I do enjoy that Butt is a name here and you see it everwhere. Yes, I am still 5 years old.

Reading and waiting

I’ve been reading some great Sindhi short stories translated to Urdu in a book gifted to me by Najib sahib. The short story tradition here is very rich. I see a gold mine of material waiting to be adapted in various mediums. Other than that I am waiting to get on the other side of town and begin looking for resources needed for the next steps on “Risalo”.

Mini DV dilemma

It has been several days here in Lahore and while resting and editing has been mostly what I have been up to, I also need to digitize about 30 mini DV tapes of recordings from Jamshoro. Once again, I am told over and over that this is an obsolete format, and most places don’t have equipment to work with it. Those that have equipment, don’t use it as the machinery is long worn out.I called up a shop that sells and rents audio and video equipment here. I found them online and they even had a VTR listed. They really did not want to talk to me. I asked about renting a VTR and they asked me where I was from. I told them the city I was in. They obviously wanted the name of some large production company. After that they hung up on me. The equipment is imported, expensive, and not easily replaced. I understand that, but it’s also a pain that there is no legitimate way for me to pay and use equipment unless I know the right people or am part of a large production company. If I was working at a large production company, they would not care about doing a project with traditional puppetry and Sindhi music. This is why I have to beg for help and contacts at every step of the way. I am nobody. I don’t want to be any body either, but wish I could get proper information and access to services instead of being shut out.A couple of contacts suggested some shops on Hall road could digitize the tapes to DVD. That is really the only option I have right now. Now I have to go there, and convince them to give me the files on a hard drive and with the settings I want. I am already dreading this a bit, because asking people to do something even slightly different than what they normally do feels like asking them to move mountains. This is certainly not unique to here, but I am dealing with a lot of this right here at the moment.

Parts and arts

I spent the day visiting relatives. Along the way we stopped at the auto parts bazar behind Data Darbar. It is a fascinating spot where apparently a lot of stolen cars end up as untraceable parts. There are stalls full of transmissions and all manner of other parts, each in its own shop. People hand refit and refurbish parts that are no longer available using all manner of tools. It’s quite incredible.With the relatives, it was sweet to see some of my cousins who have grown up over the years and are really into drawing. I shared what advice I could, and enjoyed seeing the creative murals they had made in their home.

Not from here, there or anywhere

I had spent the better part of two days meticulously editing music. I needed a bit of a break. I spoke to my wife in India. She asked if I had read the news. I had not. I checked and after a bit of searching, read about an attack on a police station in Gurdaspur, Punjab in India. As always it is saddening and frustrating to read about violence anywhere and particularly near the Pakistan and India border.On top of that there is a lot of fear that I have to dissuade. My wife’s relatives tell her all the reasons why she should not go to Pakistan and to not call on the phone any more. Then, here in Pakistan is the other side of things. There are bigoted ideas flying around on both sides. It drives me mad. I feel like we play into these ideas of people of different religions and countries having particular human characteristics or flaws. I have not found it to be that way, but this is a popular narrative and to speak against it is absolute heresy.When people make bigoted statements, it is difficult for me to remain silent. Uncorroborated hearsay is treated as sacred fact. Dare I laugh at someone’s statement or question it, I am quickly cut down to size as not being Pakistani, or not being Muslim or if in the US, not being American. It is a tiring game to be told when convenient that you do not belong and have not association or validation in a particular context, not by strength of argument, but by cutting you down to size via your identity.Patriotism isn’t blindly following the status quo of your military establishment. Nor is it like cheering on a sports team. To me, it is about justice and not jingoistic nationalism. Justice for one people is not at the expense of another. If we gain from the subjugation of others, then realize that the system that mistreats one group today is unlikely to grant the rights of others tomorrow.It was a frustrating and disappointing day. At times like this, I just want to leave, but there is nowhere to go, where you are not followed by bigotry and people’s blind support for their country’s military it seems. All I ask is that people question. Your enemy is not a particular race or religion. It is those who take advantage of the masses with lies meant to divide us in the pursuit of power and profit.

Editing music

I continued editing music, this time going deeper into splicing out mistakes in the performance. When a singer messed up a line, they would wait for the next beat cycle and then repeat the correction. This way, I could splice out that beat cycle. It seems to work well. In addition, I needed to edit down a few pieces. For the most part, I was able to get the musicians to follow some of my timing cues, but there was one singer who did not follow any timing cues and two singers who despite repeated pleadings to sing each line a single time, could not manage to do so after several takes and so I had to just record the way they sang.Checking over one particularly beautiful piece of music, I noticed that two lines had been skipped. It had been sang out of sequence and with much repetition and was in Sindhi, so try as I did while they sang, I got completely lost in the script as I was following along. There’s nothing I can do about that. Thankfully it is a very beautiful piece, and people sing these verses in that manner too, so it should be all right. The other challenge is that I need to really edit the pieces for that section of the film down as much as possible. With all the repetition of verses, I can get beautiful pieces for music albums, but some of these scenes would suffer a great deal if they were stretched out so long.This takes a lot of meticulous care to find the right spots to cut and splice sections together and check if it all flows well together. On top of that, once I get the Sindhi version to a particular length, I have to get the Urdu version matched to that. Sometimes that means cutting out an introduction or taking out 25 seconds of instruments playing. It’s all a big experiment as I come up with the workflow for getting pieces to work as I go. Things seem to work pretty effectively thanks to editing on the sum or end of the beat cycle.

In the mix

Once I started, I just kept going, working on editing footage from the music recording sessions that I had managed to digitize before leaving Jamshoro. I started mixing tracks I had organized previously, starting with the dholak (percussion) tracks and working my way up to vocals, then adding just a touch of harmonium to sit under the vocals. It is interesting to bring out a subtle instrument and fit it just between other elements and listen to how the whole piece comes to life.

Friday

I spent the day resting and then thought about what I could do on my project. Every new setting takes some adjusting. Each time I have to refocus my mind on the tasks that I can readily work on. It was friday and I head to the mosque here which is part of the shrine of my relatives forefathers.Regarding work, I have to assess what tasks can be worked on at the moment, what blocks are keeping me from working on additional tasks and how I can balance all of this to get the most done concurrently.

Sunrise in Punjab

I didn’t sleep much on the bus over night. Between dosing off for bits here and there, I caught the sunrise over crops in Punjab. It felt good to be back in Punjab. The hours past slowly, with bits of Indian movies playing on the screen in the bus.We stopped off at different spots, where passengers could leave if this was their destination, or stretch their legs and use the bathroom. There was not much else to do. The good thing about the bus is that it takes only the time that it takes to actually drive the distance you are going, whereas I have been on slow trains that seem to stop forever or slow down. You can’t walk around on the bus, but if it takes 16 hours to get there, that is what it will take.After what seemed like forever, we got into Lahore. We passed alongside the canal on the outskirts, and the sky looked ready to burst with rain. My cousin’s driver was waiting for me at the station. Ali helped me load my things and we were off to my cousin’s place.

Aapi!

After days with cute, but hard to handle children, I was ready to step back into an adult filled world of hard to handle, childish adults. Of course there was an adorable toddler in the seat ahead of me on the bus, who kept turning back to look around. I couldn’t help but smile at her, cringing at the thought of her turning  like the other children had.Poor kid had a bit of a cough. The stewardess was very sweet, taking her to hang out in the front for bits here and there. The little one started calling her “Aapi” (big sister) and you could hear her call for “Aaapi!” up and down the aisle.

Daewoe

It was another lazy day in Nawabshah, spent with the little cousins. I went over to visit an uncle. Other than that I rested, ate good food and cleared my mind more or less. At night, I was taking a bus out of town. The bus left from Moro, which was about 80km away from Nawabshah.We had arranged for a my uncle’s in laws to pick us up and go early. As usual, things got late. My uncle ended up renting a car and driver to load up my things and we were off. Somehow we got there in an hour. I had booked my seat as usual in advance over the phone. As I walked in to pay for the ticket, the man at the counter told me it had been cancelled and even if I had come much earlier that would still be the case. I already had one ticket cancelled by them via text message and now this?Daewoo has been pretty reliable in the past, so I don’t know what happened here. I bought the next available seat for the day after tomorrow. We got some water from the store, then made the long journey back to Nawabshah.