Professional Journeys’ Narrative – 16

(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)

Geographical location of the area started showing up the effects of scorching summer heat. By the middle of June, one of the surveyors got disabled due to continuing the field work. Routine diet for mere survival could not empower him to continue to work. Another surveyor suffered from mal functioning of kidneys resulting in urinal troubles as a result of which he had to be moved to Quetta for proper medical treatment. Still another surveyor suffered from continuous stomach trouble and inspite of young in age, his hands were shivering and he was unable even to talk properly. A team leader suffered from gums trouble. Another team leader seriously suffered from sleeplessness as a disease. Many helpers got victim to bleeding nose. My own self could not be qualified as healthy. I got sleepless for all the 24 hours for most of the days. I always kept closely in touch with headquarter duly informing about sufferings of the personnel. Ultimately the higher authorities agreed that the workers may be granted one month leave each, in groups, tern by tern. Fresh workers were moved to area to report me for duty at site. (Here are some personal remarks with due apology to the readers). Anybody reading these lines can easily assess the prime need of requisite administrative ingredients beyond authoritative command. I think similar atmosphere prevails in all low literacy poor but corrupt states and there is nobody to take notice of it. Citizens ill-treating their own fellow citizens with stiff necks and raised chins is considered to be matter of command. People suppressed by authorities who got power out of the people. Verily all this happens in states called ‘independent’, in this civilized era.

Lands of Baluchistan are filled with all types of natural resources. (due to this very natural wealth the whole area was included in the serials of hit list operations by Ex USSR during 1919. It is now on the hit list of operations to be explored by America for which lot of reconnaissance appears to have been accomplished during a puppet regime of the dictator during first decade of this twenty first century). Among these natural wealth items, Copper, Sulfur, Iron Ore and varieties of marble can be seen straight on the surface of ground and on slopes of hilly areas. One can imagine the depths to which these might be going underneath. Copper purifying kilns hundreds of years old, still show up the remains. Apart from that gems and beautiful natural stones are found here and there, especially in many kilometers of rainy water courses. I spent a few hours under a hillock near Iran and Afghanistan border, complete structure of which is made up of tiny gems. I collected a few gems of naturally shaped in various shapes and cuts. At some places precious stones like Pukhraj and Feroza can also be found. Chances of coming across raw diamonds in courses of rainy hill torrents, can not be ruled out, because these hill torrents come down splitting and sweeping a bit of the inside of the hilly slopes.

One day a local villager was telling us the story of a man who got a shinning piece of stone, after sunset, when he had been walking back home through a tract of land covered with tiny pebbles. After showing it to various persons the stone piece was confirmed to be precious. According to the story teller the man managed his travel to Bombay (now Mumbai) where he got a lot of money as price of the stone. Some precious stones that we came across were found to be naturally transparent in original. Everybody was surprised on account of this story. Locals and non locals had been sitting on the floor of a clay hut, forming a circle. After hearing the story of Bombay expedition, one of the locals walked over to the adjoining room and returned with quite a volume of something in his hand. Coming close to me he pointed to the mass on his hand and eagerly asked my opinion about it. Controlling my smile and laughter I told him that it was Sulfur. Our driver Wahab managed to search a transparent whitish stone of the size of an Almond, with the help of a local man who was not our team member. We all examined it again and again. In my opinion it was the rarest of all attractive pieces of stones that we had collected so far. ——— To be continued…
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Tags: Baluchistan, copper, gold, Recodik

Category: Travel