Tapestry: Cash cows — How Pakistan's 'white revolution' is going astray | by Saad Sarfraz Sheikh
The year was 1974. Amanullah ran a tobacco-and-tea shop on the Grand Trunk Road near Shahdara, just outside Lahore. Around the bend of the dusty road where Mughal emperor Jehangir’s tomb lurked in the distance, he would pull up the shutters of his shop everyday at 7 am. As soon as the shop opened, his friend Tariq the milkman, would arrive with brass containers full of milk. He would leave two large cans of fresh milk at the shop and continue on his delivery route.
At the end of each day, Tariq would come back to pick up the cans and share a cup of tea with Amanullah, who couldn’t help but notice the amount of money the milkman had made during the day. One evening, he asked Tariq how his business was doing. “Milk is white gold. I am unable to keep up with demand,” came the response.
This was enough for Amanullah to shut down his shop and set up a small dairy farm on a piece of land he owned in a village called Jahman, about 30 kilometres to the east of Lahore. He spent all his savings on procuring buffaloes and buying utensils for collecting and distributing milk. Left with nothing to build a house, he turned an abandoned military bunker next to the Pakistan-India border into his residence.
Jahman also houses an ancient Sikh temple – Gurdwara Rori Sahib – which, like Saadat Hasan Manto’s Toba Tek Singh, found itself on the wrong side of a hastily drawn border. Desolate and decrepit, the gurdwara had witnessed the village grow into a major dairy hub in recent times.
This is an excerpt from a story published in Herald's May 2015 issue. To read more,subscribe to Herald's print edition.
Link: http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153053
At the end of each day, Tariq would come back to pick up the cans and share a cup of tea with Amanullah, who couldn’t help but notice the amount of money the milkman had made during the day. One evening, he asked Tariq how his business was doing. “Milk is white gold. I am unable to keep up with demand,” came the response.
This was enough for Amanullah to shut down his shop and set up a small dairy farm on a piece of land he owned in a village called Jahman, about 30 kilometres to the east of Lahore. He spent all his savings on procuring buffaloes and buying utensils for collecting and distributing milk. Left with nothing to build a house, he turned an abandoned military bunker next to the Pakistan-India border into his residence.
Jahman also houses an ancient Sikh temple – Gurdwara Rori Sahib – which, like Saadat Hasan Manto’s Toba Tek Singh, found itself on the wrong side of a hastily drawn border. Desolate and decrepit, the gurdwara had witnessed the village grow into a major dairy hub in recent times.
This is an excerpt from a story published in Herald's May 2015 issue. To read more,subscribe to Herald's print edition.
Link: http://herald.dawn.com/news/1153053