My journal records that Mobashir woke me up at 6.30 since he could hardly contain his excitement. I was to leave Pir Mahroof's residence that day and go on to Lahore. I'm not sure who was to accompany me on part of the journey but they wanted to take me via the mazar of Nausha Ganj Baksh. I had cornflakes and mango jam for breakfast and I left RS40 for Imran, the young man who had been serving me so well each day.
The time was 8.55 and I was just waiting for my 2 salwar kameez to be spin dried and ironed. The taxi for this long trip was scheduled to arrive at 9.00am. Apparantly Mohsin was trying to get one at a cheap price for us. Mohsin would be coming with us on the first leg of the journey from Dina to the mazar of Nausha Ganj Baksh then return in Pir Mahroof's Toyota Corolla.
The time had moved on so that at 11.40 there was still no taxi. It did eventually arrive. I paid RS 600 for petrol and the fare was supposed to be RS 800 so that would be RS 1,400 all told - quite expensive at that time. We got to the durbar just in time since my 'runs' were not getting any better. I managed to take a couple of photos of the durbar from a distance before rushing to the toilet PDQ.
My journal states that after that we ended up in Mohsin's sister's house and it was there I saw the biggest wad of RS1000 notes all from the murideen. We looked round the shrine for a short while and I recorded that, whilst there was no doubting the sincerity of the simple village folk praying there, these practices would be regarded extremely unfavourably by other groups of Muslims. One of the greatest sins in Islam is that of 'shirk' or assigning partners to Allah.
I recorded something about the collection of money by a pir from his murideen suggesting that the process might no always be transparent and therefore open to abuse. I never saw this directly but other Muslims in Bradford had spoken to me about it prior to this trip.
The taxi driver we had on that day was even faster than the others. People drive like complete lunatics on the GT Road. We stopped first to get a puncture fixed and then, later on, the brakes needed bleeding! It was just one thing after another, with nothing appearing to show planning or prior thought at all. My journal records very negative feelings especially on this Lahore leg of the trip. I could not believe how backward looking everything appeared to be. 'Everything is so utterly chaotic,' my diary says. I recorded that Pakistan was not the kind of place 'ordinary tourists' or western women would feel comfortable in. At that particular point I had recorded some Anglo Saxon expletives to describe how I was feeling about Pakistan.
Prior to the trip I had cultivated some totally naive notions that Pakistan would turn out to be a wonderful country where Islam and the people were in harmony together in common belief and practice. I had been struggling for years with all the questions people ask themselves when they are not certain about who they are or where they belong. I was looking to Islam as the solution and desperately searching for it at that time. My illusions were completely shattered by the realities I was seeing around me as I realised that Pakistan was mired in corrupt practice and vicious sectarian hatreds leading to assassination and murder on the streets of Karachi and Lahore.
I was actually searching for evidence that Islam could provide the answers to all of man's problems and that I somehow might find it reflected in the comportment, demeanour and moral integrity of the people. The reality was just the opposite. The country was turning out to be a harsh, unforgiving and intolerant land.
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