Reporting Pakistan

by Meena Menon

  I got to know a few people really well and was invited to their homes. The first thing that strikes you when you enter Brigadier Mohammed Ayaz Khan’s flat is a framed photograph of a handsome, blue-eyed young man: his son Salman, a police officer, who was killed while nabbing kidnappers in an operation some years ago. It is a wrenching loss that the family tries to bear with dignity, but in their eyes, you can see a deep sadness which overshadows their lives. Brigadier Ayaz drove from his fort in Swabi to bring fresh vegetables to the weekly farmers’ market in Kuch Khaas, a café and arts centre much favoured by expats, which has a huge front lawn where the market takes place. That’s how I met him. A tall, burly man, he was cheerful and friendly like the rest of his lovely family, especially his two grandchildren, Suleiman and Momina, who would stand behind a small table with fresh produce every week at the market. I was a dedicated customer for the large, golden Lisbon lemons, honey, oranges and fresh vegetables. Soon I would phone Brigadier Ayaz every week before he set off for Islamabad with my weekly order and he would bring it home to his flat. He often regretted the hostile relations between our countries and the fact that he couldn’t read Indian magazines; he really liked India Today. Once I showed him how to read it online on my iPad, but he still wanted hard copies.

  Suleiman was an ardent fan of Imran Khan and he asked me to get an autograph for him from the cricketer-turned-politician. Khan obliged after a crowded press conference by signing a piece of paper. Suleiman said he would frame it and hang it on the wall! I used to meet Brigadier Ayaz at think-tank meetings and he would often despair about how India and Pakistan couldn’t get on better. He often invited me to Swabi, but there was little chance of my being given permission to see his sprawling fort—but at least I could see the photographs.

  In his flat in Islamabad, there would be a large tray of dry fruits on the table in the centre of the large hall and I found this was quite the norm in many houses I visited. When some friends came over, they would bring quantities of pine nuts which were cheaper there and other lovely stuff. I got addicted to munching dry fruits and always had a bowlful on my dining table after that. We used to go to the local Aabpara Market to buy dry fruits which were cheaper and of excellent quality.

  There would always be some excuse for a get-together, and a farewell for an Indian diplomat, a very popular one at that, in charge of visas, led to a large round of farewells. Some Indian diplomats who were given repeated farewells and stayed on, provoked statements on the lines of ‘now no more farewells for this person’, but inevitably there would be a few more parties.

  A friend of a former correspondent invited me for a lavish brunch on his return from the USA after surgery, and often at these gatherings, there would be newspaper editors, retired army or government officials. The hosts would sometimes carefully select people who could be important and useful. Journalists and sometimes politicians also would invite us over, and once I went to a friend’s house where the table groaned with many dishes, even though to begin with it looked as if there would be nothing to eat. Food was top of the agenda and it was delicious. Another friend told me about a restaurant which had an ‘all you can eat iftar’ during Ramzan, and people ate it all up, prompting a hasty closure.

  Unlike in Mumbai or even Karachi, there was not much of a nightlife in Islamabad. On New Year’s Eve, there was a private party in a restaurant we went to for dinner, and that seemed to be the norm. While a few of the Indian high commission officials’ parties were dry, the EU and the USA had elaborate parties; the EU national day was hosted on the lawns of a five-star hotel, complete with drinks, music and dancing, and very good food. Many parties were held at the Indian high commissioner’s house and in the extensive grounds. The only time I was invited to the US embassy deep inside a walled, secluded area was to the home of the then US ambassador, Richard Olson, when a delegation of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) and its trustee, Kati Marton, was visiting. The precautions and high security seemed doubly necessary after the rampage on the old embassy in November 1979, coinciding with the Iran hostage crisis which must have left some bitter memories.

  Anita had kept a stack of takeaway menus for us, and in the first week of our stay while settling in, we would order from a new place every day. Pakistani food was meat, meat and more meat, and even chicken was considered vegetarian. A friend once asked me what was for dinner, and when I said cabbage, he made a face. Obviously, it was fodder! Once at a restaurant when Ruchira ordered a vegetarian dish, it had chicken. When she pointed this out to the waiter, he looked shocked. ‘It’s only chicken,’ he said, as if it was a common vegetable! While the kebabs and naan were great, the Chinese food was a disappointment; the noodles were thick and oily, and the gravy very Punjabi and red. The restaurant scene in Islamabad is limited, though there was Japanese and Chinese food as well, and not being a great meat eater, I didn’t really go to the lesser-known and tastier joints. There was a popular eatery for biryani, kebabs, and it had nice kheer as well. There was one named after Bombay but it had very little of the food from the city. We met the owner once who was keen on learning how to make dosas. Later, we found that some enterprising Chinese had opened ‘undercover’ restaurants with delicious food and secret bars. The long, green beans with sesame were a particular favourite. It was one more memorable birthday in Pakistan, this time, dinner with Snehesh and Ruchira at one of these Chinese restaurants, with Ruchira generously baking an orange-flavoured cake for me.

  There was a huge controversy over one of these open secret restaurants, La Maison, run by a Frenchman which disallowed Pakistanis, and put up a board outside saying so. The Frenchman said he didn’t intend it that way and it was because he used pork or ingredients like wine in his cooking that he had put up the board. But the outrage from Pakistanis closed his restaurant for a while, though I think it opened again. It was rather crude of him to put up such a notice, however fine the dining may have been. The Chinese restaurants were quiet and didn’t have signboards; the one we liked was a house where a few tables were set in two rooms. The owner’s child would sometimes wander into the rooms. It was like eating in your own house; often, we would get an entire room to ourselves.

  A favourite haunt was Kuch Khaas (where, as I mentioned earlier, the weekly farmers’ market took place), with its secluded Lime Tree café on the main Margalla Road owned by Poppy Afzal Khan who sadly passed away later. It was a centre for arts and performances, and had many events, apart from being a good place to meet people. The lawns were framed by dense bushes and trees all around, and the café was cosy inside. The food was good and the coffee, particularly, was excellent. On winter evenings, electric fires kept you warm while you ate the delicious barbecued meat. The place was managed by the feisty Khaleda Noon who was always fretting about ensuring the quality of food and service.

  I also discovered a neighbour who made wonderful jams, bread, couscous and hummus. Then there were large-scale farmers, some of them ex-military men, who had farms on the outskirts of Islamabad that sold cheese, milk, fruit and crisp vegetables. One was owned by a couple whose daughter was married to General Musharraf’s son. I didn’t mention that I knew this to the couple who were friendly and sold some really good dairy products and vegetables. In fact, I had bottled milk delivered to my house every morning. When the tempo driver realized we were from India, he asked my husband to get him some hair oil he had read about which had magical restorative properties. Every time he met me he would ask, has your husband come back, where is the oil? He was probably the most distressed of all Pakistanis to learn I was going away. His dreams of having a lush crown of hair disappeared with my expulsion.

  At Kuch Khaas, I was delighted to find bagara baigan, and even the South Indian murukku made by a charming lady who lived in Madras (Chennai) a long time ago, and had learnt the recipes. But things can be overpriced; once a farmer from Peshawar tried to sell me a lemon tree sapling for Rs 500, sparking outrage from a chain-smoking army officer’s wife who had a stall
there. Then there was a friendly woman who made pink Kashmiri tea, and even gave me a free bottle once. You had to boil this concentrate with milk and add nuts and bits of biscuit—it was a meal almost, and I had it as often as I could in the cold evenings. Columnist Zahrah Nasir with her trademark sun hat and myriad bead necklaces drove down from her farm called La La Land every week. She made the most delicious jams, even rosehip jelly, among other exotica, which she brought all the way from the hill station where she lived, which was cut off in winter. I also planted apple mint thanks to her, and it thrived in the cold weather. Ordinary mint grew wild in my garden and I felt a little foolish when, after buying a large bunch soon after I arrived, Sajida showed me what a little forest I had at the back of the house.

  Sometimes Ruchira hosted fabulous lunches and dinners; at the farmers’ market, she would cook using the ingredients sold there, and soon became very popular with her innovations. Ruchira also introduced me to shakshuka—a Mediterranean dish of spinach, vegetables and poached eggs—which became my favourite since it was so easy to make on Sundays when Sajida had her day off. A neighbour made the most delicious couscous and once I gave her some dosa batter which she liked, having lived in New Delhi. I was sad to learn that Kuch Khaas and the café have now been closed.

  It was at Kuch Khaas that I first saw Indu Mitha when she was teaching dancing on the lawns, and wondered who this youthful grey-haired lady could be, as she moved gracefully on the grass, dressed in a cotton sari with a white churidar beneath. When I met her, she groaned and said you are not interviewing me again—since she had already been profiled by Nirupama in a charming story. She ran the dance class discreetly in a house, and didn’t advertise it. I chatted with her and her students for a while. Later I got an invitation for a performance by her students but, sadly, I couldn’t make it. There were quite a few who learnt Bharatanatyam from her and it was wonderful to know that despite all the extremist tendencies, an ancient Indian dance form, could—if not flourish—at least have a presence here, and it seemed quite popular. (Kuch Khaas also had classes in Indian classical music, but there was no time for me to attend them.) Indu Mitha came from a ‘well-known Christian family from Lahore’ and always dressed in her favoured cotton saris. Her father, Professor Chatterji, was with the famous Government College in Lahore before Partition, but later lived in India. Married to the late Major General A.O. Mitha, who was from a wealthy Memon family which once lived in Lands End in Mumbai, Indu still teaches Bharatanatyam to enthusiastic Pakistanis. Maj. Gen. Mitha’s book Unlikely Beginnings8 is a riveting account of his life in the new country of Pakistan, which he adopted in 1947 while his parents remained in India.

  The Centaurus mall was a place to meet friends and it was usually full, with people eating burgers and pizzas, a favourite activity of families. Just as in India, it was fast food that everyone stuffed their faces with. I once had a dosa in a Karachi mall and regretted it; but I hate fast food and that was the only option. Served me right, I guess. The best nalli nihari (lamb slow-cooked for a long time in gravy) and biryani I had was when a friend dragged me to an all-male lunch, a weekly ritual into which I gatecrashed. I didn’t regret it but I don’t know about the poor host. The food was fabulous and there was some awesome kheer to round off the meal. That was the first time I had the huge Afghan naans, and vowed to get them often. The chapali kebab was a favourite and in Khiva restaurant, you could sit in the open under heaters while the staff served you cinnamon tea and kebabs on a platter. The different breads, some with raisins, were also a treat. There were caged birds though, which I tried hard to ignore but otherwise it was a warm place to visit. The ice cream place Hotspot, which I was told was also a favourite of Benazir Bhutto’s, had many fruity flavours which I enjoyed.

  We often went to Karam Lebanon for the excellent Mediterranean food there. It was a house done up warmly in red and wood panelling, and was quite close to where I lived. The Kohsar Market, with its upscale cafés and outdoor seating, was another hang-out, and they even had ghostly pumpkins for Halloween! Very unreal. The lovely handicrafts shop-cum-café Behbud had nice food, and the person who ran it would always ensure you got exactly what you wanted. It was run by a collective of women and had the most attractive crocheted and hand-embroidered table linen and clothes. It was here I attended the first of journalist Mariana Babar’s famed chapali kebab parties, this time a farewell for a rather popular Indian diplomat. She would get the kebabs, large, flat, crisp and spicy, all the way from Peshawar, and there were strict rules for the party. You just had to add salad and bread, nothing else, or no one would eat the chapali kebab, she would say. Once when this took place at another friend’s house, he had the audacity to make some sarson ka saag and makki di roti, and the sparks flew. Mariana herself didn’t eat these offending dishes, but had it packed up for her dinner. The only time I had a formal lunch for friends was also a chapali kebab event, and Mariana warned me to get only the naan and salad, which was easy. She even heated the kebabs her way as she didn’t trust anyone else. That was the fag end of the kebab parties season since it was difficult to get them from Peshawar in summer. The indomitable writer and poet Kishwar Naheed, like Ayesha Siddiqa, author of Military Inc.,9 threw a lot of parties which were informal and warm gatherings. Complete strangers would invite me for brunches or dinners, and it’s not for nothing that the Punjabis and Pashtuns are famed for their hospitality. They treat you like a long-lost friend and lavish every attention on you. Often at Kishwar’s place, the food was brought by various people. My friend Shandana sometimes took me to the Islamabad Club on Sundays for swimming and brunch—and that’s how I spent my last day in the capital. The club was well laid out and lush green, and had two pools, a large outdoor one (with a Ladies Time specified on a board outside) and an indoor one for women. It was superb and on that last day, it rained while we swam. The brunch was a huge spread of all kinds of food imaginable, and people turned up elegantly dressed to savour it. We ate without guilt; all that swimming can make you very hungry.

  The markets in Islamabad are big, glitzy affairs, with glass-fronted buildings and huge shops. Apart from the Centaurus mall, there was another obscenity which was opening just when I was leaving, rather airily called Safa Gold Mall. There was a lovely mithai shop near the OUP Pakistan outlet in Islamabad’s central ‘Blue Area’ which sold hot gulab jamuns and carrot halwa, which my husband loved. Often he would go straight there while I bought books. I liked the smaller places, samosas at Bengali Market, and especially Kabul restaurant run by Afghans. It had a superb bakery where the man at the counter would prevent me from buying the tempting baklava, saying it was 2500 calories a piece. It has the best cinnamon bread in the world, among other delectable stuff, like the large ‘skateboard’ Afghan naan, which my friend Anila learnt to bake in Kabul. ‘Skateboard’ is her term. That and the delicious chicken kebabs with blobs of fat stuck in the heavy iron skewers made for a most appetizing meal washed down with golden kahwa and little, round sesame sweets. In fact, I ended up buying the big naans often since I found the wheat in Islamabad inedible. I thought this was the Punjab with its large wheat fields, but the flour was like chaff. Sajida used to knead the dough and freeze it, but the result was cardboard-like chapattis. Hers tasted better because she made them thick and fat. I got tired of the wheat, and ended up eating brown rice or breads. I suspect some of that wheat was imported. Also, like in India, we couldn’t buy wheat everywhere and get it ground. In the market near my house, there was one chakki (flour mill), but the guy had only one type of wheat and you didn’t have a choice. The ready-made wheat flour was a disaster.

  The other difficulty was finding coconuts. I wasn’t very fond of coconut-based gravies, but after a few months in Islamabad I craved for home food. That’s when I learnt to make aviyal (a South Indian dish with vegetables and ground coconut), but buying coconuts was not easy. I hate cooking but I was hungry for something familiar. Soon I made dosas and even sambar. My mother-in-law had given me packets of
all kinds of home-made powders. The Indian diplomats’ wives were all very good cooks, and some of them were South Indian; so I was very grateful for a regular dose of some of my favourite food. The Kashmiri vendor near my house would promise to get coconuts, and inevitably delay it for several days but I found a supermarket where they were available. I also bought ready-made bhel, something which I detested, but I found myself eating it with great relish, and papad too.

  I didn’t find freshly ground coffee or fresh milk in any shop, as everything was in Tetra Paks. The market nearby had milk imported from Austria or Australia, and we had to wait till evening for cow’s milk from some faraway country to arrive. The fresh supply from Simli farms was life-saving. Kohsar Market had some expensive shops full of imported stuff, and I mainly went there for the sesame oil—again hard to get. Olive oil was available in plenty. Locally they seemed to be using canola oil, which I didn’t like at all. There was a lot of brown rice and noodles which I often bought, and organic wheat flour, a slight improvement on the local stuff. There was some local brand of butter which didn’t taste good, so we often had to rely on imported brands for butter and cheese, of which there were plenty. Imported goods filled the shops for those who could afford them.