"Dragons Along The Royal Route"
Lahore, Pakistan
December 4, 1984
Dear Folks,
As long ago as the fourteenth century B.C. the road along which I'm walking from Peshawar, Pakistan, to Calcutta, India, was known as the Royal Route. It was for thousands of years the principal route over which many of the Indian subcontinent's dynasty-makers directed their armies, and perhaps even their worshipers. Millions of pilgrims trekked over its congested potholes to pray at the sites where the Buddha had dwelt during his many reincarnations.
Today the former imperial roadway is simply known as the G.T. (Grand Trunk) Road. Yet, while the royalty and mystics, together with nearly every one of their hundreds of forts and monasteries, have crumbled back into the earth, there remains, as vibrant as ever, the masses. Rudyard Kipling, in his story Kim, perhaps best summed up that throbbing, ever growing vestige when he described this west-to-east artery of energy as a "a river of moving life, such as does not exist in any part of the world."
Since continuing my journey eastward from Islammabad over two weeks ago, I have entered into a fertile plains region known to some as "the land of five rivers." Here I have found very true the words of the many who've told me that everything I see and experience will greatly multiply the deeper I progress toward Calcutta, the very womb itself. As the land grows more productive, so too shall mankind and all its trappings, good and bad.
It is in this same area, what is now east Pakistan, that the Chinese pilgrim Hsuan Tsang wrote in 630 A.D. of one of the rivers, "The Sin-tu (Indus) is extremely clear and rapid. Poisonous dragons and evil spirits dwell beneath this river in great numbers. Those who embark carrying rare gems or celebrated flowers find their boats suddenly overwhelmed by waves."
Hsuan Tsang spoke from experience. On his return journey the Indus claimed 50 of his manuscripts and all the seeds of exotic flowers he hoped to grow in China. The pilgrim, however, was spared: He crossed over on an elephant.
Toward the end of these past 30 days I've spent crossing Pakistan, I've wished often that, like Hsuan Tsang, I had some sort of indomitable beast of my own to ride upon and keep me from the deepening poverty I am traveling through. At times like these walking can be a curse in that it brings me too close, for too long, to the elements of a lifestyle that is anything but healthy. Anymore, the dragon of overpopulation has reared amongst its litter so many things totally contrary to what my American mind considers civilized, or even sane, that I can't help feeling trepidation and much anger at times.
Accepted practices, like having the homeless old and the crippled begging on the streets for money to survive on, the overlooking of flagrant corruption among the police and civil servants, the government not providing even such basics as garbage collection and sewage facilities, the right of men to have several wives at the same time (resulting in incredibly enormous households), the division of persons into caste rankings, and the widely practiced marrying of one's cousins (to keep the family's holdings intact) make absolutely no sense to me. Yet here they are as much a part of daily life as the crows scavenging through the garbage dumped unashamedly upon the streets and walks.
As I stare incredulously at the uncontrolled pollution, the animal corpses, the millions of flies swarming over uncovered food and the people (who take no notice), I worry about my own health. There comes a point at which a society's clinging to the practices of the past goes from being exotic to being decadent and dangerous. Such has happened here.
By nature I look for the goodness in people, and I completely dislike writing of ugliness. But when the ugly has become of such magnitude as to swamp all of my senses, I can no longer remain silent. Furthermore, there has reappeared the most consistent and maddening aspect of all that I've found in every underdeveloped nation I've crossed: the continual military presence. True to form, the soldiers, their rumbling convoys, and their weapons are everywhere. Many mornings I awake to the pounding of drums and of soldiers' boots marching crisply to the beat, the soldiers' voices drifting to my ears from some nearby compound. Then, for much of the day, there is the dust choking me from all the passing trucks and jeeps piled high with battle-ready figures and various implements of death. It has struck me that there are a lot of persons roaming about in search of a war.
The main culprits, or "evil spirits," as Hsuan Tsang might have said, have been the same in Pakistan as in the many Third World nations I've journeyed through: overpopulation, illiteracy and just plain not thinking past one's own interests. I have noticed on my walk that one unmistakable characteristic of an advanced and mature nation is that its members, from the common man to the government, are always thinking ahead, always planning and building and researching, not so much for themselves as for their children and the unborn for centuries to come. That is why the controlling of such things as nuclear weapons and pollution of the environment has become so important in the policies of the developed societies.
Some of the men here have told me that if they practice restraint, or purposefully have fewer babies, Allah would be greatly displeased, might even deny them entry into paradise (where, for sure, they will have several wives!). These men's thoughts are reflective of perhaps most of the others on the streets. They are of the opinion that any changes in their lives are totally up to fate. As I look about and see the very, very poor quality of life their way of thinking has brought them and their children, I wonder if perhaps Allah hasn't already passed judgment.
What, I wonder, is to become of such societies as Pakistan's, which is a mirror image of the majority of the world's nations. Why do most still refuse to stand up and face directly the complexities of the twentieth century? Surely part of the reason behind their fear is a lack of the necessary education. Here the illiteracy rate is a shocking 70-75 percent. And yet the government, which is headed by the military, continues to allocate less than a handful of percentage points of the national budget to education, while over half goes to armaments. Even worse, General Mohammed Zia, the president since 1977 when he assumed power through a coup, is trying hard to gain ownership of a force even more unpredictable than his own subjects: nuclear weapons.
Bad governments, poverty, and overpopulation are nothing new, of course. Undoubtedly these faults of mankind will always be around, for as we are imperfect so must be our societies. Still, I can't quite understand why in some parts of the world those things are allowed such free rein. I suppose some things are never meant to be solved entirely.
Sometime ago, a housewife from deep in the Midwest wrote to me to tell me that the more I saw of the rest of the world, the greater my appreciation of being born in America would become. You know, I think she knew life pretty darn well.
Steven