PAKISTAN: Gulmit

The Karokaram Highway....the blinding white of snowy mountains rising steep all around. The road has literally been cut, blown and blasted through this tough rock. They say the mountains are still echoeing with the blows...they say for every 1.5km of the Highway, these imobile gods of stone claimed a life....and the road is long.

And so on a bus, through late October running, we bump and crash our way down the narrow path. At times the mountain edge opens to mock us-this little road of human acheivement is nothing in this world of white magnimanity. The mountains watch our slow descent. The mountains watch as we cling close round blind corners. The mountains watch....

Gulmit is the yellow of Autumnal orchards, lazy in the light breeze. Gulmit is the white of the watchful mountains, ringing close all around. Gulmit is the dust of narrow, windy paths climbing amidst the low stone houses.

Wedding Season has arrived in Pakistan, as food that takes almost four days to prepare lasts longer in the cooler weather. Drums pounding, horns blaring and wheeling through tuneless noise... here come the men to dance proud in the dust road. The flash of colour and the jingle of bangles...here come the women to sit and watch.

Elder men dance first and at the front of the line as a sign of respect, whilst young girls, still far from womanhood, run freely through the social boundaries. Their older siblings look on with longing at the lost freedom and eagerly await the all women celebrations where they will be able to dance.

But Ismaili Muslim communities are dramatically more liberal and open-women and men both pray together in the prayer hall. There is no call to prayer as it is believed it is up to the individual if they want to attend. Also, amidst the loosely worn head scarves, there are many women's development programes and employment centers.


Outside the house is a cobbled pile of stone, lying low amidst the apricot orchards and dusty courtyard. Inside, in a harry potter moment of unbelievable proportional inversion, the house opens to a spacious wooden center. Around the central hearth we gather for tea and chapati lessons- men on the right, women on the left. Intricate wood carvings amidst home woven bright woolen decorations. Despite the lack of windows, it doesn't feel claustrophobic. The feeling is one of being burrowed in the earth, the wood all around gives a sense of the earth being part of the home. The bodies of small children lie curled and hidden amidst piles of blankets in the corners. Different generations and multiple families all in the same space. Yet again, it is not a feeling of crowdedness so much as warmth, a feeling of connectedness and sharedness. It makes me wonder how much my private bedroom is really worth...and is it natural for humans to live in such isolation? Amongst earth's creation, what a freak of nature the moody teenage bedroom must seem!



Mr R. was born in 1934 in Gulmit but spent his early life touring across Pakistan with the Pakistani army. In his face I saw my own gentle grandfather the fisherman, smiling back at me again. I lost him before I had a chance to know him properly. It is only as I have grown more into me, I realise how much of him I would have loved to listen to. But sometimes we are given the chance to see lost faces in the living once more... a moment of illusion we cling to, catch and fold away, precious in our purse.

So at his feet, we listened to his life story as he sat grand, aged, exuding a calm and strength like the mountains he had grown up amidst.

He donned his white woollen cloak, embroided with pink and green flowers...his wedding dress from 1956. His wife had worn the traditional dress in red silk. They said their vows in the prayer hall...and the celebrations began. Four days of meat prepared by the men and bread and rice dishes prepared by the women.

Mr. R. always believed 'education was the key to peace' and he worked on committees and volunteer groups to bring the first school to Gulmit. He also believed that 'men and women were like two feet; without either, you fall' and was on the committee that brought the first women's college to Gulmit. And when given the chance to ask us about life in the UK, he was most keen to know if we really lived in separate families? The notion of the family is central to life in Pakistan and providing your identity. He could simply not conceive of elderly people living in homes alone...

The soft 1, 2..3, 4..4, 3...2, 1 of the traditional drum. The quavering, wavering, soft wail of songs of old. The strong, lumpy cheese of traditional wedding food. A night of culture, music, dance and stories.




Tales of love lost. Tales of friends gone. Tales of sadness with a rhythm that is still of joy. It is a music that is often about the harshness of life, but a music infused with a realists' optimism- the song will keep singing, the music will keep playing...life goes on and so we keep dancing.

Lucy Wrote:

love for Pakistan, for the mountains is up tight in my throat as I read this.