Kailash’s tourist lament
The people of Kailash celebrate the festival of Ochal on August 22. Ochal is a festival of ripening and harvesting of fruits, Kailash prepares the month, sews new clothes, cooks food, performs traditional dances on August 22 and We sang songs in the language. We left Islamabad for Chitral and then Kailash Valley on August 20 to watch the 35th Khayal Ochal festival. The government of Pakistan is suffering from tourism fever. It keeps claiming to be tourism-friendly but Kailash’s journey has washed away all these claims. ‘It turned out badly at the beginning’. We had to go to Chitral by flight. ‘
Can you assess our suffering and when there are women, old people, and children in the group? We had no other option anyway. Why? Because we worked hard for this tour. There are no good hotels in Bamburgh. PDC’s motel is the best but thanks to Zulfi Bukhari it is locked. The rest of the hotels are also small and have basic facilities. So we took two weeks to find a suitable hotel, put a commode in it, bed sheets, pillows, blankets, and bathroom equipment delivered from Islamabad, sent a servant to supervise the food, arranged the staff. “We were supposed to stay for three nights but for precaution, we took control of the hotel two days ago and booked eight jeeps for five days so we had no option but to go there now. The people in our group are very nice. And they were old. They were ready for twelve hours of humiliation. We left Greeted from afar and came back. The river was flowing along the field and its noise was mingling in the air like music. The owner of the hotel was Kailashi. He came to see me on his return. He said, “We had a peaceful community. We were very happy in our siege. But then preachers started coming here.” They also followed us. They started forcibly converting us to Islam. In Kailash, when a person changes his religion, we expel him from our tribe. He can then wear our clothes. He can join any of our festivals. Nor can he reconcile with us. Kailash are born Kailashi. No one else can become Kailashi. “You are one and a half billion in the world. We are only four thousand. Why are you following us? If we also become Muslims, you What a benefit! Please leave us alone. We are very happy with our traditions. The second torment came upon us in the form of Telenor. We were cut off from the world till 2015. We were happy but then Telenor put a booster here. And the mobile phone started ringing in Bamburit and with that our peace was shattered. Please turn off our mobile somehow. I laughed but both his demands were genuine.
