This post is generated from Swat Serena on 7th January at 2023 at 11 AMy, where I walked in after a long time for a cup of coffee . It was heartening to see the restaurant abuzz with foreigners braving the stringent security protocols and intimidating sign board displayed by police at the border of Swat at Landikai to prove their identity . On my futher probe, I discovered that these guests were from Holland who came all the way to attend the Dutch based Mazhar from Swat, who incidentally happen to be relation of my school senior Sikander Pir Dad, who served with the UN and is presently based in Spain .
I was greeted by one Muhammad Iqbal, a local from Saidu Sharif, who efficiently catered to the guests’s needs as a restaurant manager. He reminded me of another local legend w, ho acted as a waiter named Amir Sahab known popularly by his pet name of Tommy. He was always elegantly dressed and donned his typical Jinnah cap. The man was illiterate, yet he had excellent command over English and was an encyclopedia of who was who in Swat and what was what in Swat.
It is disheartening that the heritage of Swat was never protected by the incompetent successive administrators and so the knowledge of the legends never documented who took their secrets to the grave as Swat Hotel remained the landmark building that hosted many important personalities including renowned archaeologists. My late father related to me how a long haired mounted German was asked to leave Swat by its former ruler and how the foreigner confided to him of his rich discovery of the grave civilization in the valley of Swat. Though, no official excavation was ever carried out to discover these buried treasures that would have earned Pakistan international fame except that I hear excavation to be in progress at Barikot ( ancient Bazira) at the site of the Alexander’s fort atop the hilltop on the bank of river Swat. I am sure if the young archaeologist Dr. Abdul Samad the incumbent Director Archeology empowered he would have proven himself as the Pakistani version of Sir John Marshal.
Having said that I must whole heartedly appreciate the Agha Foundation’s immense contribution in conservation of local culture and heritage including protecting the historic building of Swat Hotel now renamed as Swat Serena, otherwise today it would have been replaced with ugly commercial markets that sadly dot the beautiful Valley’s landscape that unfortunately serve as the ugliest scar on the face of Swat and its rich historic past. With it I close my write up with my humble tribute to the incumbent CEO Serena Hotel, Honourable Aziz Boolani, for managing the entire chain of Serena Hotels, the only chain of Pakistani hotels that bring pride to Pakistan Internationally, other than the mess that we created transforming the creator’s gifted heaven into hell of which Swat is a glaring example for its criminal administrative mismanagement.