The Good Earth of Thar
By Asif Farrukhi

If I were to imagine the story-book town At The Edge Of The World, the last place on earth I would think of is Naunkot. It begins just like any other typical dust-and-flies, gulab-and-ganderi towns on the roadside anywhere in Sindh, and it ends just as abruptly too. Before we could decide if this was the best place where we should take a tea-and-pee break (minding my Ts and Ps are the only precautions I take while travelling in Sindh), we were almost out of the town. It was one of those towns one notices afterwards. The abrupt change that was soon upon us, defined for us the town that we had left behind.

By the time we were on the road crossing the fort and trying to speculate how old it was and what it looked like from the inside, the desert was upon us. It was then that we understood that Naunkot was the edge of the desert, the beginning of the end of Sindh. The road swings and curves up and down. The vegetation was reduced to thorny shrubs. Cows moved silently, hordes and hordes of them, dumb and patient, tinkling cowbells around their necks, and doves fluttering in front of the moving vehicle which had changed to the four- wheeler gears. Fine waves of sand with bright silvery particles were sparkling in the sunlight, so sharp that for a painfully bright moment I had to close my eyes.

The fortress at Naunkot must be one of the spookiest monuments in Sindh. It stands as a haunting guard at the edge of something which would be terrifying if it were not so vague. Does it stand guard against the desert encroaching inch by inch towards the town and the village? Or is it to protect the desert from the onslaught which is already there? If that is the case, then the fort has not been doing its job properly. All manifestations of a booming town and a comparable lifestyle are there to be seen in Mithi, and the pace of change is rapid.

Every time I go there, I am surprized by the number of new buildings that have cropped up. Buildings meant for offices and the like have come up between small dwellings and houses made out of wood, mud and stone, both equally out of place and lost in each other's company. Mithi seems to be in a hurry to get going. But to get where, I don't know. If it keeps at it, then the only typical Thari chaunra, the round mud dwelling with a thatched roof of the Marvi Guest House will be left. The only thing which I found unaffected by the rapid change was the sense of being literally at the edge, strong as ever in Thar. "We are not the ones who are seated on the camel's back," the fiery Shankar said to me with an innate native wisdom, discussing the sense of being alienated from the mainstream. "We are tied to the tail," he said and began explaining the meaning of 'sitting on the poonch.' It is a feeling most Tharis would share. Everybody has the feeling of being at the bottom of the heap, not even the underbelly but the rump.

Even the basic infrastructure necessary for development is a distant dream for a large number of people in Thar. The deprivation has been immense and long drawn. Whatever development has occurred in the other parts of the country, has bypassed Thar. Another person in the group of people I was talking to began telling me how certain parts of the Thar had become the scene of battle during the previous war with India. The army had asked the local people to help in the war cause and supply recruits and food to help the country. One of the local people shot back that they had nothing. "How do you people survive?" asked one of the Pakistani soldiers, who later on took back the area occupied by the Indians. "The greatest contribution of us Tharis is that we have kept the place inhabited for Pakistan."

Almost in the next instant Shankar began asking me if it was true that Hawkings' A Brief History of Time had been translated into Urdu? And as I looked out into the star-studded night out there, I felt almost certain that it had. We drove out to Gaddi, the bhit from where we had a view of Mithi-at- night as a series of lights. We tried to guess which of the lights represented the town buildings that I knew. Haloes of iridescent lights glowed around half deserted lanes with semi-pucca houses. "This would be the place to come and take a look on Diwali nights when earthen lamps are lit to mark the festival of lights," said Khatau. I peered into the distance. It was hard to imagine Mithi as a city with a past. But Mithi has a past, one with a woman in it too. Mithi was named after a woman, like Karachi. This was the name of the woman who had dug a well and found sweet water here on the trade route. Much later the stop-over watering-hole became a town and it carried her name. Water is as precious and the trade routes are still Thar's life-line. The four main towns in the district are trading posts with their counterparts in the adjacent areas of Sindh. Chachro, up in the north, is the trade route to Umerkot, now a separate district. Chelhar is connected to Kunri, now a big hospital town as well as a trading post. Diplo in the east leads to Badin. Mithi itself, where once caravans stopped, is now connected by road to Mirpurkhas. Nagar, which once was on the road to Ahmedabad in Gujrat, now leads nowhere except itself and has suffered more from a lack of attention than any other area in this region of overall neglect.

Nights in Mithi are cool and beautifully dark and the sky is like a beehive with stars buzzing and flying. Morning in Mithi is honey-hued, golden and sweet. Bright and crispy, a cow-mooing and crow cawing good morning! Very well, thank you, and the same to you, Mithi. There's no hurry to start the business of the day. There's no use being impatient in Thar. In a little while we were also to acquire the characteristic sense of time that people in Thar have. They do not move with deadlines. Life does not have a fast lane. They think of time in days, not in hours. But why complain? Perhaps we, who come from Karachi, are all displaced Prufrocks, used to measuring life out of coffee-spoons. The day was upon us. And as soon as we could make a move, the first stop had been reached. In a house like any other in Mithi, there lived Nathoo Ram, the block printer. He uses traditional methods, we were told but was this the right place, we wondered, since it was like any other small home. But soon the man took us inside and as he began unfolding his thaans, the swirling colors of Thar were upon us. "My colours are permanent", he said assuring us. I noticed his blue-black nails and any further assurance was unnecessary. "This is Manik Chowkri," he named a beautiful and intricate design. He displayed colourful ajraks, chadars, prints and gave us his life story in the bargain. He had stopped working since there was no local demand for traditional things that he made. His daughters restarted the business with a small loan from the Orangi Pilot Project, which he has managed to repay. Now all his daughters are educated and his business is flourishing. He does not involve middle-men in his business and has brought back traditional prints. He was already speaking the language of development, which we were to hear in many places.

In many places that we visited, we heard the desert speaking a new dialect. Nowhere was it more loud and clear than the Marvi Grammar School, the only private school in the area, which proved that all it takes is a handful of dedicated people for small miracles to be achieved. The school has been made by pooling meagre resources and adding a class per year, but has stopped at the 9th class since more money is required for building laboratories and classrooms. Even the shortage of funds has not affected the dedication and spirit. "We want to make an Aligarh in Thar," Khatau said. With the rest of the country fast becoming an educational desert, who can say these words were out of place?

The other place which surprized me was Shivratan Ka Tar where a modest experiment in grafting has resulted in ripe bair being grown. Protected by a small thorny hedge, were the trees thatyield a juicy, munchy cash crop of bair. This, too, is a project of the Thardeep, an NGO which has now completely indigenized itself and has developed a number of schemes for the economic upliftment of the area. But that's another story and as Scherezade used to say, that story too if the king permits me to live until the next dawn (no pun intended!)

Not only the good earth of Thar, but some of the people also leave an unforgettable impression. There was Faqir Mohammed Muqeem Kumbhar, president of the Thar Historical and Cultural Society, stamp vendor by day and local historian in leisure time. He is well aware of the rapid change Thar is undergoing and feels powerless to do anything about it. He liked the idea of recording oral histories to document the ways of the old Thar before they are totally wiped out by erosion of another kind. We heard Priya Darshni Ashok talking of spirituality and repeating the lesson of Oneness. Originally from Mithi, he has spent thirty years in London and was on a short visit to his hometown. "There the streets are clean but people have garbage dumps inside them," he said. And most unforgettable was the lilting voice of Sadiq Faqir who sang the evening out.

As the pleasant night-chill disappeared, morning came dripping with sunlight and honey. There was honey on the breakfast table, wild honey straight from the desert. I must have looked more than usually astonished since Sono kindly explained that there are wild bees in droves and pesticides or some other problem must have driven them here from neighbouring Badin. The honey had a faint tang of bair, a beautiful, lingering taste for the road. In three days we went from where the metallic road ends in Mithi to Islamkot, then to Chachro and came back via Chelhar, cutting a rough circle in the sand. Sand dunes, shrubs, huts, rough tracks, camel-drawn wells and villages, we saw them all. Thar is supposed to be the most densely populated desert in the world. After all, it is our national poet who said that 'Dasht to dasht, dariya bhi na choray hum nay' but before we could be further moved by Iqbal, we decided to go east, across Karonjhar, to the town of Nagar.

The jeep bumped up and down the sandy track, giving us fleeting glimpses of a rougher, more elemental existence. A village passed by, with trees surrounding it and peacocks strutting on the branches, like crows on a rainy day. "This must be a village of the thakurs," explained Khatau. "The Rajputs don't migrate so they are careful with the trees. They don't do carpentry and artisan work saying that other communities have been created for this work." He pointed out a number of trees which bore a local mark indicating that they are 'protected trees'. A bit of khip was tied around the bark indicating that this tree may not be felled for fodder and firewood, a route many trees have taken in a place where every tree is precious. People have been taking short term measures to ensure survival that they have ignored the long term devastation of the area. A short distance from the village we saw camels being broken in. They were covered with brightly coloured camel-bags and were being walked around by the sawar, the only drab bit in the colourful scenario. Sono was egging the driver on so that we wouldn't have to spend the night in Raylo. Raat na kate Raylay main, he quoted folk wisdom. "Raylo people will not let you sleep in peace nor offer you dinner," he explained. "Somebody will come after every five minutes to pour his heart out to you." Somebody must have passed a night on an empty stomach and since then the taunt has stuck. We drove on, since we were not inclined to test whether the people in The Village of the All Night Chatterboxes deserved their reputation or not.

The scene, too, was set for a change. "Now we are approaching Loonia Samma," I was told and another village drifted into view. An old abandoned building was visible on the bhit and I was told that there used to be a fort here, now destroyed. But we did not stop to look for the dismantled fort since we realized that this village marks another edge. A sign alerted us that we were going out of range from the Islamkot Thana and entering Nagar. We made a diversion to go to Gorhi and passing through the village we caught a fleeting glimpse of a white camel, mysterious and outstanding in the number of camels contentedly munching. It almost prepared us for the surprize of the Gorhi Ja Dera, a temple lost in the desert. The silent and intricately designed stones seemed timeless. We entered the ruins and went from one dark room to the other, with only the wing-flap of the bats to mark our intrusion in their domain. The half-eroded paintings inside and the crumbling ceilings seemed to invite speculation: who or what was the Gorhi? Was it Khatau or Sono who half- recalled reading somewhere that the word gorhi referred to a swelling, a fibroma. There used to be a cave here, we were told by a no-less mysterious guide who materialized from thin air.

The cave was a site for meditation and was connected to Paras Nath Ji Marhi. The old man got a meagre stipend from the Auqaf Department for taking care of the protected site but the department's warning sign asking visitors not to touch or mark anything seemed too much a desecration itself of the abandoned, dilapidated ruin, left for peacocks to dance and snakes to glide.

My sense of outrage was intensified at Bhalwa, Marvi's village. Just on the periphery of the village was a shack where it appeared that a tea-stall had been set up during Marvi's melo. A few steps away was the old well where Umar had caught a glimpse of her and had become so enamoured that he abducted her. Lost in the royal palace, Marvi's homesick pining for her native terrain gave birth to one of the most poignant legends of Sindh. Marvi should be credited for being the first Sindhi nationalist. A mela is organized here in her name, but we have treated her in as rough a manner as we have done with other national legends. There was nothing lyrical about the village. The old well had been plastered over and totally replaced by an unmarked cemented structure, a cheap thaikedar's odd job, dusty and drip-dry - not a drop of water for any Marvi to ever come here and have her fill. It was as if instead of the well, we were being given dhoro, the dust that some old woman cussedly and proverbially wishes your mouth to be filled with. The Government of Sindh, a worthy successor to Umar, has finally caught Marvi and cemented her, like Anarkali. I can swear by the Bhit of Bhalwa that as far as I could see, all that was left of Marvi was her eternal thirst and yearning for what is no longer there.

The sense of desolation warned us about the wasteland that was soon to be seen. The runr or the Run, as it is inscribed in English, was a frightening prospect, too empty to be imagined. Only dry ground and miles and miles of it everywhere till the eye could see. Mercifully there was the Karonjhar on the horizon, steel-blue-and-black hillocks that looked promising. Soon crossed over the strip of the Land That Was Once the Sea and acme to the Bhodesar Mosque, was a small and beautiful 15th century structure. We entered the protective wall, crossed the tiny courtyard and stood in the small prayer area. A new sign in English told us that the Gujrati and Arabic inscriptions in the wall record the legend that 'it is imperative upon the ruler of the age to repair and maintain the mosque' by order of Sultan Mohammed Shah Bin Taimur Shah. A board put up by the Deputy Commissioner told us that these repairs were done on the orders of Honourable Farooq Leghari and Honourable Abdullah Shah. We could make the connection between the legend and the repair. The new kings pay heed to the wishes of kings of old.

Stepping back we realized that the dome looked like an earthen-ware edifice and its distinct architecture had an air of nobility. We came out and saw a caravan of Bheels who had journeyed to the mosque and were making their food offering there. Nobody seemed to care if they could not pray there. After all, the mosque was there just as the Karonjhar stones were at a near distance. A few steps behind the mosque, was a surprize, as you go up and encounter a dam with blue-green water from the jabal. I rubbed my eyes to make sure that it was water and not the shimmering mirage that we were sure we had seen in the 'Run'. A few doves hovered in the air and a dragonfly lazily flitted past as it caught the evening sun on its wings.

From the bandh, open space would swim into view and one had to zoom in for the temple perched on the edge of Karonjhar. It stands tall and erect, unconnected to anything else and swept by the winds of time. A single structure, it seemed to have emerged out of the naturally formed stones and the carved stones of the temple were nothing but stone upon stone. It seemed as timeless as the rocks at a distance. There was an eerie silence all around, as if we were intruders and in a little while the devdasi would come out, with her ankle- bells tinkling. The Jain Temple at Nagar seemed to have fared badly also. The age-old mysterious paintings have also had their faces broken and features distorted by the zealots. Stone carvings in the ruins tell a sad tale of decay, loss and merciless vandalism of a past which still conveys its proud sense of glory.

History in Nagar is no dumb series of stones. It is as vocal and mobile as Ali Nawaz Khoso rightly called chalti phirti tareekh. Hard to stop when he had once begun, he brought alive the whole area in one extended conversation. "This time you are in a hurry, but the next time I may not be here. My passport is already made and I am waiting for the visa for the long, final journey," he said calmly. His invitation was open and too tempting: "The Karonjhar is 1100 feet above sea-level. It has twelve streams, out of which the bigger ones are eight and I will take you to see each one of them and all the villages in the area so that you can get an idea of the sorry state people are living in." He talked of the days when Bhodesar was a seaport thousands of years ago and the days when Baanhn Beli started its activities almost at the same time.

Time seemed to me to be a greater mystery in Nagar. The whole town had the air of being in a time-warp, lost and with its fibres still connected to some bygone era. This seemed intensified as we crossed Karonjhar and went to Kasbo to sit in the chowpal and chat with the village elders. We seemed to have strayed in an old Indian movie from the 1950s. Even the looks of the people were different with very obvious Rajputi styles. Somebody pointed out to the wood in the ceiling and said that it came from Ahmedabad, which is where people headed for before the partition. Ahmedabad was a shorter distance than Naunkot is today and there was a daily bus service. Now the only connection that they have is through the radio. I wondered if the area had strayed into Pakistan by mistake. But there was no Toba Tek Singh and the border was only five kilometres away. Outside the village, it was green as far as the eyes could see and it was Pakistan, beyond the horizon was the runr and then India. The demarcation was complete.