The Year in Retrospect

Living in Kashmir 1979-80: A Year of People, Places and Memories 

Some events throughout that year that influenced our lives

Pre-Posting Events

Long before we set foot on Pakistani soil, the world had already begun to rearrange itself in ways that would strip away our carefully laid plans. We had been rather pleased with ourselves; truth be told. The scheme was elegant, fly to Germany, collect our newly ordered vehicle, and make the overland drive southward, through Iran, across to Pakistan, where we would spend our posting year before shipping the vehicle home to Sydney.

After twelve months back on Australian soil, it could be sold at a tidy profit, having neatly sidestepped the punishing import duties then levied on luxury cars. We were not alone in this thinking; it was a well-worn path among those posted abroad. 

Then history intervened, as it so often does, with indifference to our plans.

• 16 January 1979 – The Shah fled Iran

• 11 February 1979 – Revolutionary forces in Iran took control

• 14 February 1979 – In Kabul, Muslim extremists kidnapped the American ambassador to Afghanistan, Adolph Dubs, who was killed during a gunfight between his kidnappers and police

The road through Iran became first imprudent, then impossible, and finally unthinkable. The deposit was forfeited. The vehicle was cancelled. The grand drive south existed only as a might-have-been.

AI generated image in NotebookLM

After Arrival

We arrived in Pakistan instead by altogether more conventional means, stepping into a country that was itself poised on a knife's edge.

• 4 April 1979 – Pakistani Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was executed by hanging

A period of confinement in Flashmans Hotel in Rawalpindi as riots took place in the streets.

• 11 July 1979 – NASA's first orbiting space station, Skylab, began falling back Earth as its orbit decayed after more than six years.

In Srinagar, word spread that Skylab was tumbling from the heavens, and the city shuttered itself for two anxious days, uncertain what, precisely, to expect from a falling space station.

• 4 November 1979 - militants seized the U.S. embassy in Tehran, beginning a hostage crisis.

• 21 November 1979 – After false radio reports from the Ayatollah Khomeini that the Americans had occupied the Grand Mosque in Mecca, the United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan was attacked by a mob and set fire, killing four.

UNMOGIP personnel could no longer visit the US Embassy cinema or bar for entertainment as security there was tightened.

• 28 November 1979– An Air New Zealand DC-10 crashed into Mount Erebus in Antarctica on a sightseeing trip, killing all 257 people on board.

Two months later we were aboard a flight from Delhi to Srinagar when the pilot had aborted a landing on late finals, the aircraft pulling away sharply as the ground rose too close beneath us. The Erebus disaster gave that event a sharper edge than was possibly necessary.

• 24 December 1979 - The Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan.

The border closed. Kabul which we had imagined visiting, simply ceased to be accessible, sealed away behind the machinery of a new war.

In March of 1980, we departed with considerable relief, making our way home via Hong Kong. On our first night back in Sydney, we sat at Watsons Bay as the evening light softened over the harbour, a feast of seafood spread before us. The sky was clean and blue and startlingly clear. The streets were quiet and free of the particular odours that had become so familiar.

We enjoyed our food, looked out at the water, and we felt the relief of having come through it all. 

Finally, we were home.

AI generated by NotebookLM

This post first appeared on earlieryears.blogspot.com by CRGalvin