Dear Ananya,
Hope this letter finds you well, I’m Zeeshan Haider a Masters graduate from Rawalpindi. I’m hoping to finish my degree and move onto working abroad so I can gain experience and fulfill my dreams of travelling.
I like touring and exploring sites, especially since our usual family holidays consisted of us back-packing to Murree or Nathia Gali and the beauty of those areas always leave me in awe. My school trips also used to take us to various heritage sites like the museums, Faisal Mosque and the Pakistan monument- on one memorable trip we spent an entire weekend in Lahore and I can never forget entering the Lahore Fort for the first time. Definitely a moment where I marvelled at the construction and ingenuity of the past monarchy. I have a passion for learning about the history of how it was built and being amongst where people had walked thousands of years before us is an astounding and humbling experience. Coming back to travels, I can’t not include my wish to someday visit India and get to admire the unique and famous sites there as well. There’s the well-known Taj Mahal, the Agra Fort and the Tomb of Humayun; and these are just off the top of my head. I’d be most interested in hearing about any must-visit places you want to recommend to someone who has never been to India but has an ever-growing list of places to visit. So much of our past has been linked through sites and culture like these, it would be inspiring to tour them. My preferred way to travel is by train; even though buses have become more equipped over the years, there’s just something pleasing about a peaceful safar [trip] in a train carriage as the scenery moves around you. I for one cannot get aeroplanes to agree with me, only using them when needs must, and driving all the way intercity is more tiring than it is enjoyable. How do you prefer to travel and what places have you visited?
I believe talking about the weather is somewhat of a uniting factor, after all we also share the same unpredictable, and oftentimes inconveniencing, climate. Winter has well and truly hit, making it somewhat a nuisance to the general public, but for someone like me who has been witnessing these conditions since they were a toddler, I am well-prepared for it by now. These days I’m glad I don’t have to go to University or stay up late for deadlines as I fall into a more relaxed schedule, though I am glad pandemic related restrictions have lifted enough that vaccinated people can start to go about their pre-COVID routine again (for how long this time remains to be seen, it has been almost 3 years since the first wave and unfortunately there’s now new variants, but I try to be optimistic).
On the topic of uniting factors, I hope this exchange has been a nice, short way to get to know someone from another country. At the start of writing this, I didn’t know exactly what I wanted to say, but I realized I had to think about this as if writing to a fellow dost [friend], rather than treating it overly formal. Written expression gives a remarkable opportunity for so much, and it is great that we got to use it to have a communication between people who may have otherwise never met. That’s all from me then, take care!
Till next time,
Zeeshan
P.S: Attached is a photo of the Elelphant stairs at Lahore Fort.
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