From the verge of Gojal Lake to the shores of Venice Italy

It was a unique experience of life, visiting Venice which is a sinking city of Italy; Venice attracts millions of visitors every year. This city is truly unique in a way that you will find boats and cruises instead of cars and trucks. There is no highway but narrow streets, footpaths, and bridges which connects mini land masses of the city.

Venice Italy  Photo Credit: Writer 

While passing through the narrow streets out of the blue, I was appallingly touched when I saw waves hammering the walls, which I have witnessed at Goze village in Gulmit but for me the case was different because my hometown was badly hit by a disaster which has paralyzed our normal life. Still we are suffering I don’t know how long it will take to come out of this trauma.

For the citizens of Venice life in water is not new they have got used to it and now they are earning millions of dollars.
What I missed while walking in the streets was the lure, the excitement, of life; which you can only find on a piece of land. I missed the real emotion of liveliness, the energy, the spark of life, even though thousands people of Venezia are living in old-color faded buildings but I couldn’t ignore the feeling of haunted. 

I was a bit tired but found a place to lighten up for a while and to drink some water. The thought was still in my mind and I was comparing (that what sort of unwanted changes it has brought and how it will affect people of the area in coming days) my hometown with Venice, indeed we have lost much after the disaster.

It was my first visit to home after the disaster and I really missed those mid-day or afternoon walks the chit-chat with friends on KKH through Goze Village, Mengshi or Lakhsh area the residents of these areas are now scattered everywhere, the days of neighborhood  has lost the charm now they are trying to manage things around with new neighborhood within their limited resources but the good thing is the sheer brotherhood, humility and love of the locals for each other (which you will never find anywhere on planet earth) they gave everything to normalize the life of their brothers and sister who lost everything in this catastrophe. 

 So far I realized that, the locals are trying to avoid too much visits to Gulmit Village (even people of upper Gojal are doing so) because of the worse road and highly risky boat services (I should not say “service” because those, who are in transport business are trying to suck the last drop of blood). I have witnessed many locals have celebrated their marriage ceremonies in downtown areas like Hunza, Gilgit, or in big cities like Rawalpindi, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi these little but unnoticed changes will modify the big picture one day, I feel.

I was also trying to justify the idea of people, turning the Gojal Lake into tourist spot. Being a student of Tourism and Marketing Management I was and I am still not convinced. I know it will magnetize some bucks but it will ruin our social setup, then I thought but we can take measures to preserve our social complex and cultural diversity. how effective it will be and for how long?  Still I am not sure and the answer is not clear to me ……..

What I have experienced about Europeans, they are more proud of speaking their native languages and practicing their traditions no matter how frequent but they do; even once in a blue moon, which I really like, but this is not the case of my area we are more exposed to external changes, majority of us don’t like wearing our traditional dress or even cap, we prefer conversation in Urdu or English language instead of our mother tongue.

I am not an anthropologist neither a student of any other aspect of social science but I can compare and justify my contemplation. These unnoticed changes have listed our mother tongue among the endangered languages, which means after few decades there will be only stories about our mother tongue. We have even forgotten about the beautiful cultural traits the traditions and the local games.

Now I am still confused about the business ideas, what would be the use of that income, who will get benefit from, and how will be the condition of our social circle and identity?

The reality is that we are self-centered; still we prefer living in our shells no matter how worse is the social injustice.