Gary BUTTERWORTH Online

LAHORE, PAKISTAN

This word Hindostan means “black place,” for in the Persian language “hind” is “black,” and “stan” is “place.” You may guess, therefore, that the people in Hindostan are very dark; yet they are not quite black, and some of the ladies are only of a light brown complexion.

What a large country Hindostan is! Has it an emperor of its own, as China has? No: large as it is, it belongs to the little country called England.

How did the English get it?

They conquered it by little and little. When first they came there, they found there a Mahomedan people, called the Moguls. These Moguls had conquered Hindostan: but by degrees the English conquered them, and became masters of all the land.

—FL Mortimer, “Far Off,” 1852

Once upon a time, in the mid-1800s, there was a children’s author in England named Favell Lee Mortimer.  She wrote a lot about other cultures and about Hell; ironic, considering that she reportedly only left England for two brief trips and actively planned on avoiding Hell at all costs.

Her books are long since out of copyright, so you can read some online for free here.  Check her out.  I didn’t quote any of the juicy parts.

Mortimer was a product of her era.  And, considering the era, her modern reputation of a laughingstock might not be entirely deserved.  She was remarkably well-informed for a 19th-Century homebody, and her audience was school kids.  But still.  She was an Orientalist in the Edward Said sense of the term.  She had, it seemed, the right intentions.  But she was a jingoist.  “Racist,” and “ignorant,” might also be apt adjectives.  But mostly, she was a homebody writing about the world.

Almost as absurd as the idea of Mortimer writing books about Asian cultures is the fact that I spent almost five years working on a Pakistani TV show without ever visiting the region.

It’s good to finally be here.

I’ve blogged a few first impressions, and hopefully my next post will talk about what I’ve seen and done on the trip so far and what my days have been like.
But in case you don’t know already, here’s the story of…

How I ended up in Pakistan

It’s actually a pretty standard story, and most of you know it already.  Boy meets girl, yada yada yada, Pakistan!

Despite having very little background in South Asia, I was recommended for a job at a new Urdu-language TV show that was launching in Washington, DC, in 2005.  I took the job and really enjoyed it for a year until I moved back to New Jersey to take care of my grandmother.  I was gone from the show for a year almost to the day, but people remembered me.  When they needed a part-time producer to work two consecutive days per week, the Executive Producer called me.  My mom and I arranged a Nurse’s Assistant to care for my grandmom the two days per week when I was out of town.

In the year I was gone, a new producer named Sarah joined the team, and we became cordial coworkers, but nothing more.

After my grandmom passed away in 2008, I decided I wanted to go on a big trip to clear my head and to devote some time to myself before returning to the workforce full time.  I had learned a little Urdu and a fair amount about Pakistan and India, so why not take the train from London to Bangalore?

My boss was behind me and green-lighted the trip…until a new project came along.  After that project, I got the green light again, and I had nearly finalized the plans for my trip: Pakistani visa, Indian visa, new camera, new backpack, and places to stay were all in my possession.  But another new project popped up and the the trip was postponed again.  Almost immediately after that project passed, I had an opportunity for career advancement with my show that I couldn’t pass up, and the trip was permanently scrubbed.

My job with the Urdu TV show would now require me to come into work at 4am.
Sarah was also assigned to the new 4am shift, and misery loves company.   Our colleagues on the morning shift would go home to their families at the end of the day, but we were both alone in the city.  1pm is an odd hour to have time to yourself in DC, so Sarah and I would often wind up coming up with a makeshift plan as we walked out of the office each day.  Wanna grab lunch?  Then lunches and museums.  Conversations. Movies. Finally, dinners.  Next thing you know, we’re engaged, and next next thing you know, I’m in Pakistan 29 hours away from being married.

It’s hard for me to see myself as a groom.
It’s also hard for me to believe I’m in Pakistan.  Yet it’s equally hard for me to believe that I’ve never been here before.  After so many years of working in a Pakistani office each day, nothing really feels that exotic here unless I really make my self stop and think about it.

In any event, I know that I’m VERY happy to be both a temporary Lahori and a (hopefully permanent) husband!

I guess the next step is to visit Francophone Africa, since that’s where my current show is aired!

—–

By the way, “gora” is Urdu for “white guy.”  “Gora in Lahore-a” just seemed like a cutesy title for the series of blog posts dealing with my time here.  It’s not really all that clever of a title, and I’m surprised no one has used it before.  In any event, it gets the job done.

Filed under: Life, Pakistan, Travel Tagged: | how we met, marriage