Mast Qalandar

I must have passed by this place countless times on my way to Abbottabad and back, and was always intrigued by its name. Khota Qabar! Donkey’s grave, that is. Why, I wondered, so much reverence for a dead donkey?

Khota Qabar lies on the Karakoram Highway, about 60 miles north of Islamabad and 7 miles short of Abbottabad. It is precisely where the road starts climbing into the mountains of Mansehra and beyond, into the picturesque Kaghan valley and the Northern Areas. I always knew it as a place where truck drivers coming up from the planes stopped to let their engines cool down, and to top up the radiators with cold water from a nearby stream, to ready their vehicles for the climb ahead. Because of the presence of trucks, several khoka restaurants have sprouted at the spot and are doing a brisk business.

Khota Qabar is so small a place that you won’t find it on any map of Pakistan. However, to my pleasant surprise, a Google search turned up the following information on the place: latitude 34.09; longitude 73.17; elevation 3,251 feet. I was impressed — with Google.

Adil Najam

Today is Mother’s Day. All days should be mother’s days.

While some of the crass commercialism that such occasions fall prey to can be disingenuous, it is good to take out the time to appreciate that which we should always be appreciating, but which we often do not. Silly discussions about whether Mother’s Day is “Islamic” or not or whether it is “Pakistani” enough or not are, at least to me, exactly that. Silly. Affection for mother is a human emotion beyond religious or nationalistic constraints. If anyone has doubts, this picture should remove them.

Adil Najam