While travelling off the beaten track, not only do you travel in a soot free and serene environment but you explore new vistas too. Interesting things come in the way which normally remain hidden from common commuters in the area. The journey on the byways embraces you with lovely colours, atmosphere, people with bits and pieces of history. Also, there is no hassle anywhere in the way.
Set up in the foreground of the legendary Salt Range on the bank of River Jhelum, Mishri Mor Buss Adda (stop) is a wonderful place with a unique character. The passenger busses and wagons stop here and commuters get down to stretch their legs, have some food, do some shopping or to take another bus to a different destination. The Adda has developed into a shopping centre for the passengers and folks from nearby villages. Roads from Mandi Bauhud Din, Kharin, Jhelum and Cheri meet at this junction. Two unused railway tracks also pass through Mishri Mor: one on which a mad driven rail trolley used to play between Mandi Bahaud Din and other that was built to ferry material for the construction of Rasul Barrage. A washed up trail leaves from here for Till Jungian. Near the bus stop are Rasul Barrage Wildlife Sanctuary, a 'Siphon' where Lower Jhelum Canal passes under the Rasul Qadarabad Link Canal and shrine of Baba Noor Shah. People bring milk offerings to this shrine from far off places and the tradition is to leave the milk pot there at the shrine. The area around Wildlife Sanctuary remains alive with myriad migratory birds - chiefly coots, common teal and ducks.
Standing at Mishri Mor, let your gaze slip and you will find Salt Range hillocks smoking with mist defining the skyline. Across River Jhelum, landscape appears like a shore of another land altogether: a green belt dotted with trees and interrupted by the dawn's red and blue brushstrokes.
I have known this place all my adult life and have a cluster of memories attached to it. Legand has it that Mishri Khan of nearby village Kotehra opened up a small tea shop here in early 60s, hence the name. The place developed when Kharian Road improved and long route buses started plying by. This is my destination stop for going home and this is where I refashion my 'urban' attitudes before walking the remaining one and a half kilometres to my home village.
Every time, day and night, the shops play music. At times you even cannot hear your own voice. Each of the shops on the Adda owns a music system. Every one competes with the rest in loudness. Business sense dictates that the music be noisy enough to invite the attention of potential buyers. I do not know what it is about this place but everyone here seems to enjoy the noise. Without it, there would be no Mishri Mor," says Nawaz, a barber and proud owner of 'the Loudest Tape Recorder'. Despite being locally assembled and crude looking, his apparatus can outlast the rest. He has also placed a Public Address System with its speakers facing different directions outside the shop. His shop is adorned with the pictures of almost all of the famous faces of the Bollywood, Lollywood and some from Hollywood.
Though the buses stop here, the music does not. The digital revolution is affecting the way people listen, buy and enjoy music everywhere but not here. It may look like a strange choice but Mishri Mor is one of the best places to study the latest music trends in our rural culture in the Central Punjab. It has no warehouse or studio of some recording company. Rather, it is an open market complex spread over 700 square yards with 60 odd shops from a hotel to a barbershop to a music centre and a vehicle repairing facility. A vender Khushi sells Bhujiya Channa to passengers and earns anything "between rupees 100/- to rupees 150/- daily," he told happily.
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