Even if you don’t believe in ghosts, come to Rawalpindi. You’ll see plenty walking around. In this sleepy town, two prime ministers died a violent death; one shot down, the other hanged. The distance between Liaquat Bagh and Adiala Jail, where the two were felled, is hardly a mile as the crow flies. The assassin who shot Liaquat Ali Khan crumpled to his own death within seconds of firing that fatal bullet. A bloodthirsty police officer cut him down. Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s hangman, General Ziaul Haq, who lived a few furlongs away from the execution site, too met his Maker in a violent way. When he left the Army House one August day, little did the dictator know that he was never to see his beloved Pindi again. His C-130 and all the generals got blown to smithereens. Divine justice served in the most ghoulish way.

When President Ayub Khan got a brainwave of camping his cabinet and the bureaucrats at Pindi while Islamabad got built, the only VIP in town then used to be the army commander-in-chief; the air force and the navy chiefs being in Karachi. Ayub got the leafy Murree Brewery, reeking of malt and draught beer, to part with its premises to convert them into the presidency and the president’s office. For his cabinet, he got requisitioned lovely homes around Pindi. For his federal secretaries, he got them to cross Murree Road and live in Satellite Town. They too were handsome homes.

It was biting cold when the capital moved. The Karachiites whose body temperatures had never weathered severe winter literally froze on arrival. Ayub Khan had sanctioned money to each officer for buying woolies for himself and his family. Federal secretaries were given the princely sum of Rs500 and most were thrilled with the booty. But the chill factor remained. “Whenever I feel cold I start pacing my verandah,” N.A. Faruqi, the then cabinet secretary would say. Sui had not been discovered then. People burnt wood and coal to keep their huge homes warm. They could not afford electric heaters as the cost of electricity was too steep.

Meanwhile President Ayub Khan was nicely ensconced in his new home and office. His sons and daughters attended the same schools — Saint Mary’s for boys and Presentation Convent for girls — like the rest of the ministers’ and officers’ kids. In the Army House lived his C-in-C, General Musa Khan. His children too went to the same schools. Ayub and Musa’s children (who were best friends) would arrive in black Chevrolets with the president house and army chief crests shining boldly.

The army and the civilians were like one large happy family then. There were no hard feelings from the GHQ guys about the civilians treading on their territory. Co-existence was the name of their fame. The generals, ministers and the secretaries teed off daily at the pine studded golf course facing the Army House. Ayub Khan was a big golf fan and played his 18 holes religiously. When Ayub began golfing, there was no wall around the golf course. Driving past on the GT Road, one would often see him on the greens with his putter or on the fairways walking from one hole to another, wearing his famous peak cap. Life was good for him and there was no threat from loyal Musa Khan that he would ever dare upstage the president in a coup.

Pindi soon became a hip town when the Intercontinental Hotel opened up its bar and dance floor. Boozing and dancing was already in full swing at parties held in private homes. The army brats mixed freely with the ministers and the secretaries brats. Love stories blazed gossip and fuelled fights among the young ones hungering after duels.

The war of 1965 was planned in Pindi GHQ. General Akhtar Malik was charged with infiltrating into Indian occupied J&K from Akhnoor. Malik almost made it but Ayub advised by foreign minister Bhutto and foreign secretary Aziz Ahmed called off the offensive. Blackouts and bombing by Indian planes had converted Pindi into a ghost town. One saw heavy movements of army vehicles and convoys take over strategic entry points and roads.

The army messes and the army houses of generals in Pindi are shining ever bright. Time nor the hoi polloi have been allowed to blot out Pindi’s cantonment

When Ayub lost his marbles, palace intrigues moved over to the nearby Army House, occupied by the then C-in-C General Yahya Khan. Pindi suddenly rose in revolt against Ayub and his idea of basic democracy hatched by brigadier F.R.Khan and domestically and internationally marketed by his information maverick Altaf Gauhar.

Too inebriated to run the control room when the 1971 war with India was being battled, Yayha Khan passed the baton to Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the only civilian chief martial law administrator. As president and CMLA, Bhutto moved to the presidency along with Nusrat Bhutto and her Persian cats. ZAB got General Zia lodged at the Army House, preferring him as his army chief over generals more senior than Zia.

It was April in Rawalpindi and the cherry pink and apple blossoms were adorning the Mall and all the swank army messes around it. ZAB was accused of rigging the 1977 elections and Lahore was ready to revolt against ZAB. At the Rawalpindi race course ground betting on horses was on, as was gin and tonic flowing freely at clubs and hotels. That evening, an embattled ZAB made the last ditch effort and announced on TV that he was banning alcohol and gambling.

That still didn’t work and Zia arrested ZAB, dumped him in a death cell and a year later hanged him. General Pervez Musharraf, the current occupant of the Army House, deposed prime minister Nawaz Sharif in 1999 and has since been holding two offices — Chief of Army and president of Pakistan. Is it something in the air? Is it the water? Is it the Army House, with skeletons rattling in its closets and hallways haunted by troubled prime ministers and presidents long gone? What does Pindi do to the psyche of generals? They never want to let go, why?

I drove past Satellite Town to see the house where I lived. Gone are the houses, gone are the roads and gone are the familiar landmarks. The place has become one big sprawling slum with open sewers, dug up drains and katcha roads. Had a general or two been living in this unfortunate area, Satellite Town today would have been alive and kicking.

Next I went to Civil Lines to see the house where Bhutto lived as Ayub’s foreign minister. The house is a disgrace. In the vicinity stood once the Rawalpindi Commissioner’s house. It’s been razed to the ground. “No more commissioner nor more house,” a man who served scores of commissioners as a dhobi for over 60 years said.

But the army messes and the army houses of generals in Pindi are shining ever bright even today. Time nor the hoi polloi have been allowed to blot out Pindi’s cantonment. The roads are wider and the brass on the officers’ messes burnished bright. The only place of neglect is the Flashman’s hotel. Why? Because the army wallahs would not permit PTDC (Pakistan Tourism Development Corporation) to sell it. The PTDC managed to sell its hotels Falettis in Lahore, Deans in Peshawar and Cecil’s in Murree. “Flashman’s is too close to the GHQ and we don’t want anyone snooping on us,” the generals feared. “But now we have been told by them that we can sell,” an employee told me.

Meanwhile, manoeuvres at the Army House and its coups have continued without a break for the past 60 years.