On travel
It has long been a dream of mine to travel and now that I'm writing about it, I feel amazed at the immense capacity of this six-letter word. From the back alleys of my city to the ruins twenty miles north-west of it to a highway snaking its way down the map, southward-bound, cities upon cities unfurling alongside, plains, deserts, all flowing down, towards the inevitably mysterious sea, all this can easily be encompassed in this tiny word: travel. And if you feel a bit dissatisfied by my claim, you're always welcome to add a little (s) at the end because it doesn't end there. Beyond the sea, another country, another world beckons! From a hike to a journey, from a trip to an adventure, the associations are numerous and their effects, often, indelible. Entire legends revolve around travel. 
To me, travelling is about experiencing the hitherto unknown, understanding the history and diversity of the places you visit and confronting life with a sense of unbridled amazement. It is also about freeing oneself or perhaps getting lost, (accidentally or on purpose, one may argue!) like Ibn-e Insha wrote:
نگری نگری پھرا مسافر
گھر کا رستہ بھول گیا
Although if you're not interested in any of the above, it can be equally boring as well. Don't get my point? Imagine Daewoo on the motorway to Lahore! yaawwwwnn!
For the most part, I have lived in a small city that only upgraded from a 'town' while I was growing up here and is still looked down upon by those bullies among cities, those metropolitans. Had it not been for the planned serenity, beautiful even if dead and receptacle of political abominations, our beloved Federal Capital, my city would have just been another dusty stop for tourists on their way to one hill station or the other. So, maybe my wanderlust derives from living here, from the need to expand my horizons beyond what I could grasp from my rooftop. 
I came upon this quote a good time back while watching a slideshow that boasted of winning some kind of award. It read,
"The whole object of travel is not to set foot on foreign land; it is at last to set foot on one's own country as a foreign land."
I didn't really understand it until one day I stumbled upon a part of the city that I had never been to before. The narrow streets, the oddly built houses exuding certain shabbiness reminiscent of impoverishment and strange looking shops oozing out of every corner were quite resemblant of the general scheme followed elsewhere in the city. To top it, the area was quite polluted which indicated that it was yet another neglected locality. But despite all its commonness the fact that really struck me was that just moments before it had not even existed for me and now here it was, in its entirety, and this was simply fascinating. I realized that this place wasn't alone. There were countless others like it that I had over looked and ignored as I went about the city. Perhaps they were unimportant, perhaps they still are but they made me understand the quote.
When I saw our country, I never really saw it with the eyes it deserves to be seen with (and I'm only talking about the geography, although it might be true for the sense of denial on our political scene as well). I didn’t see it with fascination and I feel there are many who don’t either and it's probably only natural to take it for granted. I don't really count it as a fault but to develop that fascination and curiosity towards our land is definitely a feat worth applauding.
Some would argue, however, that we have our fair share of local tourists flocking up to the northern areas, we all admire and know about our landscape, however little that might be, we all brim with an otherwise missing national pride when we read about the arts, crafts and culture of our country, when we marvel over our folk music. But all this has never compelled us, at least not me, to go visit these places. What compelled me were a sense of adventure and happiness that came with travelling and the stifling smallness of my city. Now, that’s exactly why the Northern areas are the prime location for tourists, and not Multan or Thatta with all their fascinating sights and sounds, because the scenery in the North just cannot be associated with anything bad in our minds unlike Multan’s heat or Thatta’s remoteness. The mountains are relaxing and beautiful, the weather makes you happy and all vacations spent up there become fond memories. Despite 'Destination Pakistan 2007' being an epic fail, the historical monuments all over Pakistan attract considerable attention each year but I have always seen the sense of discovery missing from the Pakistanis visiting these places. Besides, travelling for the love of travelling and vacation tourism, although under the same umbrella, are somewhat different in nature.
Travel is about experience and just as we humans tend to steer clear of bad memories similarly while imagining or dreaming, we associate only the ‘positively grand’ with our plans. That's exactly why when someone like me dreams of travelling, they picture exotic foreign locations in HD and not the dusty broken roads that lead to enchanting but forgotten villages and the strange wilderness in our own country, not even the smaller cities we have so often heard the names of but never bothered visiting because all we ever truly believed was "Jinnay lahore nai takya, o jammya nai" and lest we forget, Tariq Tafoo considered it thoughtful to remind us, as he walked down Trafalgar Square one sunny afternoon:
So only recently, I realized that I hadn't even completely discovered my city yet and since then, although I've retained the original reasons for my love for travel but the places I have been wanting to visit have grown more diverse and real.
These days, I take a different route to work each day and try and explore different parts of the city I didn't know before. Trying to look out for their peculiarities and uniqueness, something that would let them stand apart; as distinct as the well known commercial centres, if not as famous. I'd like to really document them one day, pretty soon I hope, but all that for another post.
*Rawalpindi's aerial shot courtesy of Saad Asad Cheema
