Work finished early today – not something I should get used to – and I returned to the house and then went off on foot to the F-10 Markaz. F-10 is the sector of Islamabad that I am staying in. It’s a highly planned city so all the numbering makes sense, and there is a markaz (the city’s term for a bazaar or a market) in each sector. The old, expensive, tree-lined sectors are F-6 and F-7; they were the only ones I knew existed when visited from Lahore as a child. At the time Islamabad still felt like a new city, a city of bureaucrats, with some of the ugliest houses in the country. Today age has made it respectable and the trees have grown to hide the ugly houses from sight. Amazing how the city has changed – unusually, for cities in Pakistan, for the better.
It was a bit wet, but not too cold, so it was a pleasant walk. The F-10 markaz is very well supplied with street food, which made me quite hungry as I hadn’t had lunch, but it was that inbetween time of around 5 so I got some corn on the cob (roasted in salt) and that is all. I bought a few pyjamas – they don’t seem to sell shalwar these days – and some groceries, and returned for dinner. I was on my own so I ordered some extra food that I can have during the week – some Sindhi biryani, which I had for dinner, some mediocre okra, and a portion of haleem. It is so nice to have food from home again. I have missed it dearly in the past couple of years.