Destination unparalleled

I want to travel. I want to travel to the end of civilization. I want to travel to the remotest of locations, inhabited by people of almost the same genetic makeup, who took a different path when migrations and invasions were the order of the day, and were separated in history. I want to travel to the land of my forefathers. I want to travel to Afghanistan and Pakistan.

My grandfather left stories, images and visions of a time when our folks used to dwell in places like Lahore and Peshawar. These, of course, were passed down to him, from his grandfather. He used to boast of the untouched landscape, snow on the hill-tops, the famous Peshawari Chai, and the tough but soft-hearted Pathans- almost as if he were one of them.

I am not a Pathan. Genealogical records maintained by the community I belong to, establish that we migrated to the Indian subcontinent from an area near Kandahar, during Mughal times, and were absorbed in the Indian mainstream culture. I do not believe this, neither could I care less. What matters now is, what has become of those places. Stalwarts like Chomsky have already declared Pakistan a failed state. Afghanistan has been bombed by the West. There is religious intolerance. Our country is always at loggerheads with these two most beautiful neighbors (I speak from a traveler's perspective only). The future is, most definitely, bleak.

I might not be able to witness the pristine beauty of places like these. But what I have right now is, photographs and footage, courtesy the media, of towering mountains, passes, flat and barren plateaus, rivers along the shores of which one of the greatest civilizations of the world flourished, confluences of many a rivers, rapids and cascades, gorges and valleys, slippery ravines, trees growing on the mountain slopes and sinewy trade routes - stuff that dreams are made of.

But then, sometimes, dreams do turn into reality !