On being overtaken by events, and personal danger

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Writing about Pakistan, one is always being overtaken by events. This is one of the reasons I prefer writing books to writing topical articles that all too quickly become yesterday's news, and why my instinct is to hesitate to opine on Pakistan. There's plenty of opining out there already - too much, in fact.

When terrorists attacked the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore on March 3, who could have predicted that less than two weeks later the situation in Pakistan would be so (provisionally) encouraging, the mood so (cautiously) jubilant? If you're not familiar with what happened in Pakistan on Monday, read this article.

I intended to write and post blog entries about our visits to Hyderabad (Deccan) and Delhi, but those can wait. In fact, I've already decided that I'm going to post weekly after this trip, drawing on the material from this trip for the blog even as I rework and repurpose it for the new book I'm writing. The book, by the way, is blossoming nicely into a fully-fledged, full-length sequel to Alive and Well in Pakistan.

In the meantime, I'll do my best to blog as often as possible while traveling, though practical considerations sometimes make it difficult. I'll try to post frequently, rather than composing formal 700-word essays, until I get back to Seattle in mid-April.

In this post, I wanted to comment briefly on the concern that many Indian as well as American friends (and relatives) have expressed for me and Pete Sabo as we get closer and closer in both time and space to our border crossing into Pakistan. I don't mean to sound high-minded, but I do feel a moral, or at least personal, compulsion to bear witness, to be there, to show up when a place and - more to the point - people I care about are being affected by the vicissitudes of contemporary history.

I don't think this is something everyone needs to do, or should feel compelled to do, but somebody does need to do it. If no one did it, we who live on the safer side of the looking glass would never have any direct, or even credible second-hand, knowledge of what actually happens in countries we consider "dangerous". Allowing the mere possibility of personal danger to keep us from ever visiting, say, Pakistan would be tantamount to expressing indifference to the fate of those who have no option but to live there. And I'm not willing to do that.

Plus, believe it or not, many people who live in Pakistan actually like it there, for many good reasons.  :-)

I took the photo that accompanies this post. It's Pete Sabo, my friend and traveling companion who is taking most of the photos on this trip, with a camel in the background, in Agra near the Taj Mahal last Sunday. I thought you'd like to see the face of the guy who's usually behind the camera.