Professional Journeys’ Narrative – 13

(An account of journeys exclusively based on true picture of areas and the people there. No poetic or romantic false expressions are included, Excerpt from a book in process)

Next morning we finished a hurried break fast, loaded the camels and started our journey towards the unknown place called Manzil. Our eyes were ambitiously searching for something which did not appear. Camel riding for hours together was not a luxury at all. With gradually rising sun, heat of the atmosphere was also rising. Weather continued to be more and more hot. All this added to the worry about the drives and his helper who had limited amount of ration and could not carry on accept for one or two days at the most. We had an estimate of two days tour in all, whereas, it was already fourth day going on and there appeared to be no sign of Manzil. I started blaming the camel man for all that trouble and a fit of yelling overpowered me. It was an exceptional quality of camel man’s personality that every time I yelled on him, he politely requested me to be patient. A smiling face that had no reactionary sign of my odd behaviour existed on his face. Some times he simply kept silent with angelic smile on his face, as if it was the most reasonable answer to my misbehaviour. He kept leading the small caravan with his eyes at the horizon. He was more serious about his accurate direction and in no case wanted to deviate from it. He was a model of Baluch rearing and training of behaviour which left un-diminishing prints on my memory. It was the second Baluch gentleman to display unconquerable patience and forbearance. First one was the young teenager who gave me coverage from the expected firing by the smugglers, showing an outstanding sincere sense of responsibility at such young age. The incidence of his faithfulness has been mentioned in ‘Professional Journeys’ Narrative ­– 7’. His rearing and training spoke of some highly superior culture in which even children without schooling behaved so great in extra ordinary situations in which a boy from Punjab would have immediately run away. Now this camel man proved to be a model of exactly same sense of responsibility and duty. Later a series of Baluch boys and gentlemen proved that their behaviour and conduct bore a uniform and established mode of dealing with other human beings.

An American tourist while finally leaving Tibet for USA wrote, “…. it was difficult for me to decide whether I was returning to civilization or going away from it”. After concluding this journey, my feelings had been bearing the similar impressions.

Short while before sunset a high sand hill, with top resembling the camel hump was ultimately in view. Below this sand hill was a location we wanted to reach. In the surrounding areas, this sand hill was prominently known for its conspicuous and particular shape at the top. This proved that our camel man had been traveling in precisely accurate direction. In other case we could have been missing in vast expansions of the desert. It was camel man’s first visit to this location. In their customary group meetings, before going to sleep, they talked of places, directions, landscapes, other cultures, various persons, etc. it was the art learnt by our camel man that proved to be effective. Thank God and thanks to the camel man that our direction of journey was absolutely correct.

We outsiders got very happy to see the sand hill. The camel man did not give even the slightest gesture that he had been unfairly scolded a few hours before. Moments before sunset, we reached the western foot of the huge high sand hill. In the evening twilight it was a seen of absolute paradise that mesmerized all of us. The twilight created an atmosphere of dream. Foot of the high sand hill, with naked sandy top, was covered by dark green bushes, three to twenty feet high. Very different from the rest of the desert, the sand here was of brown colour scattered in gentle undulations of the area. Tiny sparrows and colourful birds, never seen by me before, were continuously singing and jumping from branches to branches and bushes to bushes. The whole atmosphere clothed in dim light and dim dark was a true copy of the atmosphere of paradise explained in Holy Books. Nobody can claim to posses a power of expression to justify the depiction of true picture of sceneric beauty there. Viewing such scenes, everybody forgets his difficulties and problems. We all forgot the pains of the tough journey during the last two days. It was exactly similar two feelings of the people in paradise, as stated in Holy Books, that they will forget the difficulties, problems and hardships of life on earth. Thinking myself to be among the first persons to see this earthly paradise surrounded by vast naked sand dunes, made the situation all the more beautiful and attractive. We had been blessed with the site of this paradise after difficulties of two days of continuous journey in the desert. Procurement of paradise after an honest and fair struggle of life seems to be a doubtless reality. ——— To be continued…

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Tags: Baluchi boy, Baluchistan, desert, desert journey

Category: Travel