The Apricot Road to Yarkand

Is there anything more beguiling than a true tale of high adventure well told? Stories about places like Pakistan and China sides of Muztagh Pass, braving difficult odds under overwhelming conditions in far flung locales, relating to people of Pakistan and Chinese Turkistan who had been in the area centuries ago, can keep anyone glued to The Apricot Road to Yarkand by Salman Rashid.

The Apricot Road to Yarkand is a spellbinding tale of journey from Shigar Valley to Yarkand in the North, over the glaciated Mustagh Pass by Salman Rashid. The author is master of conveying what seems to be going on in his heads in gripping prose that is never clichéd.

First, a word about the author. Salman Salman is Pakistan's foremost travel writer. His passion for writing is matched by his passion for photography. His research, range of visual subjects and narratives make a remarkable combination. In addition to eight travel books, his work appears in leading English language journals. In The Apricot Road to Yarkand, Salman Rashid has also told how he switched his career in the army to become a full time researcher and a writer. (I keep thinking how Salman Rashid would have been in appreciating tactical situation on battle grounds if he was still in army?)

Salman Rashid is a historian in the truest sense. He writes from a knowledge standpoint as opposed to a position biased toward the dominant paradigm and its conquests. A moving writer, Salman reminds the heart of its search for power in a world which has forgotten its purpose for existence. As usual, Salman Rashid, 54 when he undertook the journey, delivers a ton of current information all based on historical research. No one else seems to have half the energy of this man. What is more, Salman Rashid is currently translating the book into Urdu language.

In The Apricot Road to Yarkand, Salman Rashid recounts his journey from Shigar Valley to Yarkand and he does so in frank and honest terms. Result of sixteen years of dreaming about everything that sits on the historic route from Baltistan to Yarkand, The Apricot Road to Yarkand is an epic to the essence of exploring mountains, but it is also about of the cultural, geological, and biological make up of mountains, people of that area, human behavior in difficult situations, and history and about joy of about watching purple-gray clouds spreading out like an atmospheric ocean in all directions as far as the eye can see.

Alan Hovaness once wrote, "Mountains are symbols of mankind's search for God," and Allen Ginsberg told us, "Things are symbols for themselves." In The Apricot Road to Yarkand, Salman Rashid allows the mountains to be symbols of the seeking soul and at the same time symbols of themselves - they are encountered as we internalize them in our quest, and they are encountered as they really are: cold, hard, lonely, mighty and sometime hazardous.

The Apricot Road to Yarkand inspires its readers to explore the less explored areas and experience for themselves what only a few had the fortune to discover. Well-written and wonderfully presented, the book is a must read for anyone remotely interested in mountains, adventures or for those who want to find out why a chunk of land was handed over to our best friends. I highly recommend it.

Fellow of Royal Geographical Society, Salman Rashid is author of eight books including jhelum: City of the Vitasta

Also at Doodh Patti,  Logic is Variable and  Light Within

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Type of hobbies – Reading

Reading is perhaps the most widely adopted hobby the world over. One may find people in waiting at airport or bus/railway terminals reading books or newspapers. The hobby is equally popular in school children when the start o read smaller books, and from here their love for reading takes a start. As one grows in age, the habit of reading also matures and from romantic novels, one turns to serious reading.

I remember my school days when reading the famous Readers’ Digest was our passion and within a couple of days of its arrival, we would have completely read it from one end to the other. Besides Readers’ Digest, comics and classics were our favourite pastime. I still remember the poor Sad Sack and his brute Serge, the Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, Pluto, Goofy, Little Lotta, Archie, Richie Rich and many others that abounded our bookracks. Since in those days TV had not come to our part of the world, our entire leisure was comics based.

When I grew up, James Hadley Chase, Harold Robins and Sidney Sheldon became my regular reading and I read almost every book of these authors that was available. Good days of reading and enjoying. AS life went on, newspapers, magazines and tabloids were added to my reading list. Thorn Birds and Alchemist became my favourite readings. Once as a young man, I was posted at Skasar, an isolated hilltop station near Sargodha. While on duty, I used to confined to a dark room with big radar screens for eight hours, the beauty of my duty was that every third day was a complete day off. Since there wasn’t much to move about, I would visit the small library and take as many books as I could. I read a lot of Agatha Christie and James Hadley Chase stuff there for three months and I really enjoyed reading.

Reading as a pastime introduces one to the history, the world of literature and art and a world of romance. It goes by you and follows your shadows in many forms as I discussed above.  Reading is perhaps the best pastime readily available at all times and anywhere. One doesn’t have to specially get ready to read – it is just the matter of picking anything and reading. Reading the same subject written by different authors gives us an insight as how the same matter can be presented in a different way and in different words. And this also helps us to shape and reshape our own thought process and perception of life and existence.

The paperbacks are very common as these are cheaper and lighter to carry. One would often see tourists and passengers carrying paperbacks and enjoying their reading and thus passing the travel time which may otherwise become hard to kill. Even when one is on vacation, a favourite book in a candle light out in wilderness is a treat and delight long not to be forgotten.

Internet provides a much wider, easily accessible and perhaps the cheapest source of reading. Internet is loaded with so much of knowledge and information that keeps a large number of people glued to their screens and find whatever they are looking for. From trash and junk to science, technology, art and literature, there is a sea of knowledge hidden in this tiny iron box – waiting to be explored and made use of.

Libraries and internet provide a basic source of reading. But roadside stalls also sell second hand books for those who cannot buy new books or do not have access to libraries or internet. But whatever source one may explore, reading has its own fun and joy. It is not wrong when people say that book is a man’s best friend.

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