Pakistan_ A Hard Country - Anatol Lieven [194]
The dogs, so I was told, were a variety of lurcher: a cross between greyhounds and bull terriers, with ugly, formidable heads but graceful bodies. Each couple of hounds was held in leash by a huntsman, all three of the group looking with raised heads and fixed attention into the jungle, the huntsmen seeming to quiver with eagerness along with the dogs. The huntsmen, mostly young, looked intensely proud at being responsible for such splendid animals, and in the service of so splendid a lord as Sardar Mumtaz Ali Bhutto. They also looked markedly better fed than the ragged peasantry who provided the beaters. And indeed there was no pretence of egalitarianism about this hunt. As the guest of honour and provider of the dogs and huntsmen, Mumtaz Ali Bhutto sat directly facing the jungle. His younger son Ali and I sat some distance behind. Everyone else was firmly to one side.
However, in the subcontinent hierarchical organization is always only a step or so away from anarchy, whether cheerful or malignant, and it was certainly no proof against the mass excitement when the boar broke cover. This was especially so when one enterprising beast plunged into the Indus, pursued to the bank – and nearly over it – by a mob of yelling huntsmen and spectators, stirring the powdery dust into a maelstrom. Half-way over, a fishing boat tried to head it off, and a fisherman, whether overcome by excitement or in hope of a reward, actually dived into the river, grasped the boar round its neck, and guided it back to shore – a sight to remember. On reaching land, it shook him off indifferently along with the water and disappeared into the jungle. Four more boar succeeded in outrunning the dogs and knocking over or shaking off those that came close; so that in the end the entire bag for some five hours of hunting was one medium-sized female; which shows that the boar had a sporting chance.
The patches of jungle like the one in which we hunted are the remains of the great shikargahs (noble hunting reserves) of the past. They consist of low scrub and tall grasses, fertilized annually by the water and silt brought down by the melting of the Himalayan snows, and by the monsoon. This is the original natural cover of the Indus valley before human cultivation. In the past – and very likely in the future too – the ferocity of the floods and the frequently changing course of the river meant that the riverine areas themselves could not be cultivated, and so were never registered for ownership and taxation. Canals and dams have to a large extent reduced this threat, and landowners in recent decades have illegally encroached on the riverine areas, greatly increasing their wealth in the process – but still paying no tax.
However, some patches of jungle still remain, used as hunting reserves for boar and deer – and as the favourite hideouts of bandits; though whether with the knowledge and protection of the waderos, as is universally believed, I cannot say. One feature of the boar hunt, however (which I hardly noticed at the time, because it is so much a feature of the life of the rural nobility that you forget about it), was the bodyguards with their Kalashnikovs; not because most of the time there is any expectation that they will be needed, but as an insurance policy, and also of course as a source of prestige.
Not that Mumtaz Ali Bhutto apparently needed much to boost his prestige. The ancestral home in Mirpur Bhutto is one of the most magnificent that I have visited in rural Pakistan. More than 150 years old, it is also an example of how far local architecture has fallen since the days of the British, let alone the