Hanna Lake: A drowning

The Shashmaina of Hussainabad, Quetta

Hanna Lake: A drowning

It is mid-summer in early or mid-1970s in Hussainabad, Quetta. I am sitting on a charpai in the shade of our old, gigantic shahtoot tree eating my share of the freshly picked shahtoot (mulberries) from that tree. The doorbell rings and I run to see who it is. I open the door and see our neighbor’s youngest son standing with two uniformed men, army people, sentry types. One of them asks, “Is this Sikander and Sadiq’s house? Are they home?” I reply, “Yes, it is. What’s the matter?” The other uniformed man picks up the conversation from there and says to me, “There has been another drowning in the lake, in Hanna Lake. We have failed to retrieve the body after three hours of search. We need the swimmer guys to help us find the dead body. We were told to ask for Sikander , Sadiq, Kako, Saadat and Jaffer in Hussainabad. This young boy brought us here. Are they home?” I ask them to wait and rush back into the house, to my uncle Sikander who is busy washing and waxing his car. I quickly explain the situation to him and he runs with me back to the door. Within minutes we are on our way to Hanna Lake: the two army men in their old Willy’s jeep followed by my uncle Sikander’s Toyota Mark II with four people inside and behind it another car, a jeepster, carrying the other young men from Hussainabad.
  

Hanna Lake, Quetta

We reach the lake, that iconic landmark of Quetta famous for its colorful pagoda like gazebo perched on a hillock and jutting out right in the center of its turquoise water, visible from miles away. It is the very first image that comes to mind when one thinks of Quetta. What Big Ben or London Bridge is to London, the Statue of Liberty is to New York, or Champs-Elysees is to Paris, Hanna Lake is to Quetta. Anyway, we reach the lake and see a small crowd gathered near the water. There is murmuring and even some wailing. Eyes turn to us as we all run to and then through the crowd to the water where some more army personnel are standing, two of them in swimming gear. My uncle and the other Hussainabadis---shash mainas as they were called then---quickly strip down to their over-used, faded Speedos and jump into the water. Some get on the small motor boat with the army men and are quickly taken to the exact spot of the drowning. Others don’t bother and quickly swim to the spot. Jaffer, Saadat Agha, Kako, Ramzan, Mohd Ali, Shaukat, Ishaq, Nouroz and some others from Hussainabad and Hajiabad are part of the search party (see note below). In and out and in and out they swim and dive as everybody waits and watches. There is a young boy standing not far away from me who just keeps on crying as another man tries to calm him down, saying things to him in Pashto. But he just keeps on crying, calling out the name of the drowned man. Faiz Muhammad? Faizullah? I think, or some such name.

Hussainabad, late 1970s or early 80s

Some thirty minutes pass. The army men constantly talk on their walkie-talkies, most probably updating their superiors. The weather is hot and dry, the usual Quetta summer. The shadows of the surrounding barren hills keep stretching on the ground as the afternoon progresses. The orange glow engulfs the whole place and the light on the calm surface of the water seem to dance to a hidden and mysterious tune that is not audible to the human ear. I gaze at the gently undulating waves, now moving in and then peacefully receding. Soon it will be sunset time, will be dark. And then it will not be possible to continue the search for the unfortunate guy, for Faizo, I contemplate. I quickly look at the boy whose wailing has now turned into whimpering, and pray that the search is successful. As I am doing that in my heart, I see Kako coming out of the water and our eyes meet for a few seconds. He says to me, “We will find him. This is not the first time, after all.” I just look at him without saying anything. He returns to the water after a few stretches.

Indeed, it is not the first time, after all. I don’t remember how many times these Hazara swimmers from Hussainabad retrieved dead bodies from Hanna Lake. Often it would be the body of someone who had strayed away from the shallows and drowned in the deeper sections of the lake where the dense and deadly underwater weed usually grew in abundance. Once a boat had capsized and more than ten perished in the lake.

It was at Hanna Lake where these boys and young men first learned how to swim. It was either the lake or the “Panj Foota” (five feet deep) in Baleli (or was it in Samungli??), a small talab or pool that stored irrigation water for the orchards of the local growers just outside Quetta City going in the direction of Pishin. I learned to swim at the lake, too. In summer, Hanna Lake was the place to be for us swimmer Hazara boys. I was lucky to have uncles and male relatives who were excellent swimmers. My uncle Sadiq, a smooth crawler (freestyler) and one of the better underwater swimmers, in order to break my fear of water, would first push me into the water and then come after me and help me learn to float and use my limbs. Although I learned how to swim, I never had the heart to dive, or even jump off the top of the high dam wall on the west side of the lake. When the water was high enough, all these swimmers, challenging and daring one another, would dive off the top of the dam embankment whose side facing the lake looked like a menacing barren cliff.

I hear something. Someone is calling out loudly, screaming, “Here, here. Come, come here”, in Farsi. All the swimmers rush toward that spot. The small army motor boat also speeds in that direction making a puny roaring sound. There is some noise among the crowd and, in the midst of it all, I can hear the small boy crying out loud again. The drowned man’s body has been found, at last. It is late afternoon and there is still light. The unfortunate man, Faizo or Faizullah, is a laddish twenty something. He is a handsome guy with a big, bony chin and thick black hair whose face is now pale blue, especially the swollen lips. He is dead. Completely dead. The small boy leaps forward and throws himself on the cold corpse lying on the floor in the gently fading afternoon light. He just screams and screams… 

Hussainabadis at Hanna Lake

Note: I may have got some of the names wrong in this blogpost. For example, some of the people mentioned here may not have been present on that day even if they were all swimmers and had been involved in similar searches at other times. I apologize in advance for that failure, for the unintentional act of omission and commission. Time, as we all know, is not the best friend of a man's memory.

For more, please click Hussainabad, Zari Gul, Regal Cinema

Quetta: A Lament, Underqualified in Quetta, Music Centers of Quetta

Illuminations #5, Harf e Dervaish#8, Harf e Dervaish#11 (Urdu)

Illuminations #4, Education: Old and New