Q UINTESSENTIAL

Truck art is unavoidable in Pakistan. Lorry drivers take the decoration of their trucks seriously. Everywhere you go you will see these embellished art museums on wheels with quirky street poetry. Such is the influence that Dolce & Gabbana first commissioned similar Vespa boutiques for roadside makeup ads in Milan and then infused it in their 2016 collection.

On my very first day of school, I brought home six girls from my class and demanded that my grandfather get each of us a bottle of ‘Shezan Mango’. I was six years old! Need I say more?

Another concoction, Rooh Afza lit. ‘Soul-refresher’, is as old as British India. A glass of this diluted red syrup is almost guaranteed if you visit anyone’s house.

CAPS! The Pathan cap goes wherever the Pashtun go. It is almost blasphemous not to wear it in the northern regions. A fact that Robert De Niro was well aware of, it seems, during his 2005 visit to Chitral. I’m sure the ‘you talking to me?’ line sounds stronger in this cap. Then there’s the Jinnah cap, made popular by the founder of the country and infinitely sexier by Jacky Kennedy in the summer of ’62.

The Sindhi’s have their own headgear with bright colors and a uniquely cut out front. They team it up with a blockprinted cotton shawl called ‘Ajrak’. Mark Ruffalo, the Incredible Hulk, recently posted a photo on Instagram with one around his neck, which was gifted to him by a Pakistani friend. The Ajrak is always atop everyone’s souvenir list.

After food and cricket, Pakistanis love cinema, especially of the pulp variety. Gigantic hand painted billboards feature an exuberant display of color so vivid that it can give the best 3D printers a run for their money. If there is anything that can outdo the truck art then it has to be this.

T R I VIA 1988 Hollywood blockbuster, Rambo III and 2007’s Kite Runner both featured crucial plot elements relating to Pakistan. Hence, both movies featured prominent scenes shot in the country.

The Tarbela Dam is the largest earth filled dam in the world and the 5th largest amongst all dams. Yet, the country cannot overcome its power outages.

Located in Jhelum, the Khewra Salt Mine is the second largest in the world.

Pakistan has won the world championship 14 times. Jansher Khan & ruled the sport throughout the 80s and 90s.

Hailing from my ancestral town of Jhang, physicist Dr. Abdus Salam was the first Pakistani and the first Muslim to win the Noble Prize. A proud Pakistani, he attended the award ceremony in traditional sherwani and turban. Sadly, Pakistan could not reciprocate the love. His belonging to the Ahmaddiya sect did not bide well with many, even his tombstone was altered to remove the word ‘Muslim’ and now it incorrectly reads ‘the first Noble Laureate’ instead of ‘the first Muslim Noble Laureate’.

Recently deceased Abdul Sattar Edhi ran the world’s largest private ambulance network and welfare services organization. Winner of the Lenin Prize and universally known as ‘the world’s greatest humanitarian’, he single handedly built the Edhi foundation from scratch. He famously stood on the streets of and begged for donations in the early days of his journey. Known for his ascetic lifestyle, he lived in a small apartment, never took a salary and owned only two pairs of clothes. The motto for the Edhi foundation is ‘Live and Help Live’ a variation on the popular ‘live and let live’.

The Karakoram Highway or the N35 that I’ve mentioned earlier in the Northern Regions section is the highest paved international road in the world.

More than 50% of the world’s footballs are made in Pakistan and the 2014 FIFA World Cup’s official football, the Brazuca, was also made right here in Sialkot, our very own Iftikhar Bhai’s hometown.