ASIM RAFIQUI—SIPA PRESS FOR TIME

CHANGE IS COMING: But Gwadar's residents worry whether they will get a fair share of the spoils of modernization

There is no electricity in my house as I pack my bags. A sudden windstorm has damaged a power transformer on my street in Lahore, so I am forced to hunt through my sock drawer in flickering candlelight. But I am excited, because I am embarking on a search for paradise, in a place called Gwadar.

Pakistan today is a country of enormous potential and enormous uncertainty. There is much to be hopeful about. Peace with India is being discussed. Property prices and the stock market are booming. On the television are a dozen recently launched local channels, ranging from news to music to fashion. But at the same time, Pakistan remains desperately poor. School enrollment is among the lowest in Asia. Militant religious groups remain a grave threat. And the fate of the country is tied closely to that of one man, President Pervez Musharraf, a regular target for assassins.

	I wondered if Gwadar was just a mirage, built on flimsy fundamentals

Like many Pakistanis caught between optimism and nervousness, I am constantly seeking sources of encouragement, signs that life here will continue to change for the better. Symbols are important to me, and my mood tends to brighten after each victory of the national cricket team, each announcement of improving economic data.

So I am thrilled to be going to Gwadar, a small fishing village on the Arabian Sea in Pakistan's largest but most sparsely populated province, Baluchistan. Gwadar is said to be Pakistan's great boomtown, a place of incredible beauty and unparalleled opportunity. Chinese engineers are building a $250 million deepwater port there with the potential to link all of Afghanistan and Central Asia to the sea. Newspapers are filled with articles predicting that Gwadar will become the "Dubai of Pakistan" and with advertisements trumpeting pictures of under-construction luxury hotels and residential communities.

As I leave my house, I step into a cool breeze, the pleasant aftermath of the day's storm. My flight to Karachi, where I will spend the night before connecting to Gwadar, is smooth and uneventful. But a friend who has come to pick me up from the airport tells me that Karachi is tense. A few hours earlier, terrorists attacked a Shia mosque in the city, killing 15 worshippers.

It is not an auspicious beginning to my search for paradise.

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