🛤️ Mehboob, Aamir & Wasi: The 10-Mile Walk - Trekking the Railway Tracks Back to Lahore

Mehboob and Aamir visited me in Lahore from Peshawar in the late summer of 1987. They had traveled down to submit their college admission papers—Mehboob for the National College of Arts (NCA), and Aamir for the University of Engineering and Technology (UET). This trip was our very first in-person contact since my family had moved to Lahore from Peshawar almost two years prior.

Those were the days before cell phones. We stayed in touch entirely by writing letters to one another. (Yes, we actually sat down and wrote physical letters—that is a whole separate memory right there!) 😊

On the afternoon of September 17th, they came over to my house in Samanabad after wrapping up their business at their respective colleges. We decided to spend our evening at Gulshan-e-Iqbal Park in Allama Iqbal Town. We hung out, went pedal-boating, took a few of the local park rides—including the “Telecombat” ride captured in one of our photos—and just walked around, soaking in each other’s company.

The next day, we decided to visit Jallo Park. Back then, we didn’t have Ubers or any wheels of our own, but we knew how to have fun. We caught local van #10 from Samanabad to the Lahore Railway Station, and from there, we took the train out to Jallo Park. We spent a couple of hours exploring the park. By the afternoon, we decided it was time to head back because we had planned a highly aggressive itinerary for the rest of the day: we wanted to visit Minar-e-Pakistan, the Badshahi Mosque, and the Lahore Fort, which are all grouped opposite one another.

However, when we arrived at the Jallo railway station, we were told the next train back wouldn’t arrive until evening. We couldn’t afford to sit around and waste our precious daylight, so we made a snap decision: we would head back on foot.

The immediate challenge was figuring out which way to go. With no GPS, cell phones, or Google Maps to guide us, we decided the most reliable path was simply to follow the physical train tracks. And that is exactly what we did.

We walked almost ten miles. It was incredibly hot, but we kept marching on. We were young and naive, so we hadn’t thought to bring any water with us. (These days, I don’t even leave the house without a water bottle!) Along the way, we had to stop at handpumps to freshen up, pouring the cold water over our heads and drinking the sweet Lahori water straight from the source. Aamir had brought his camera along, and he captured our journey in pictures as we walked. Eventually, we found a road running parallel to the tracks, transitioned over to it, hailed a local van, and finally made it back to the city.

We headed straight to the Lahore Fort first because we knew it would close early, and then moved on to the Badshahi Mosque. I don’t remember with absolute certainty if we offered Maghrib prayers there, but we stayed well past sunset, so there is a very high probability that we did. Our final stop of the night was Minar-e-Pakistan. It was actually my very first conscious visit there since my childhood. When we were kids living in Peshawar, Abbu used to take us to the monument whenever we visited Lahore, but seeing it now as a young man with my best friends felt entirely different.

I have met many people and made many friends in the decades since, but the bond we shared as childhood friends remains eternal. It was truly the best.