In the winter of 2017, I traveled by road and rail up the Indus River from Karachi to Lahore, following the thin strip of agricultural land that runs between the river and the edge of the vast Thar Desert. This entire region is renowned for its shrines, monuments, and ruins, but it is also rich in libraries and private collections of books and manuscripts. On this journey I was particularly eager to pass through the city of Bahawalpur. Once the capital of a princely state, I hoped it might hold unique literary collections like those I had found in other former capital cities like Rampur, Hyderabad, and Tonk. I was especially hoping to find a copy of a rare 1854 travelogue of England by a British-backed “native agent” to the princely state.

I was initially disappointed. The city is an active military cantonment near the Indian border and largely off-limits to foreigners. As an American, I only had access to the town’s main public library. This century-old institution is split across two buildings, a smaller one for “women and children,” and a grander edifice for men and, presumably, for more serious (and salacious?) literature. The library was open, but the older books were under lock and key, and they key-master had not been seen for a week. I spent several ineffectual days poking around town, waiting for him to reappear. On my final visit to the library, probably as a consolation prize, one of the librarians offered to show me a storeroom piled high with uncatalogued Urdu books. As we poked around, I described my research objectives to him. Suddenly, a cleaner working at the back of the storeroom who had been listening in interjected in Siraiki-accented Urdu: “Did you try Jhandir?” Jhandir? None of the librarians had mentioned this place, and it was not even on the map. I wrote down his directions anyhow; it was worth a shot.

Jhandir, it turned out, was a private estate a two-hour drive away, accessible by dirt roads winding through lush, irrigated fields. I doubted I would find anything in such a remote place, but I could not have been more wrong.