PEOPLE (A PAGE FROM THE OLD DAYS)
A PAGE FROM THE OLD DAYS
By: NASSER YOUSAF
In 2003-4, I developed a website by the name focusonfrontier.com with a view to serving as my own publication. As the title suggests, the website was meant to cover a range of stories about the land and people of the erstwhile Frontier as well as the tribal areas. It was a two-man show; I would write the text of a story or get a picture or one odd cartoon drawn by Zahoor, on my persistent requests, and a young man from Sirki in Peshawar, Arif, would post the same on the website for a paltry monthly salary of Rs. 1500. The website remained operational for about six years before I decided to call it a day.
The website had some key tags on its homepage like: Description, News of Substance, Tribal Truth, Future Perfect etcetera, under each of which I would write and then ensure that the page got updated at least once a month. Future Perfect was about people taking big strides in their early life and holding a promise of some kind in the future. One day a young man in green Edwardian blazer approached me with a request to be introduced on the website. I was a little flattered as regards the fame of my website. I thought that the days of my disillusionment were over, and word about the website had finally spread out in the town. Anyhow, I had a brief chat with the young man who introduced himself as Javed Afridi. He was a fair-complexined very handsome young man of cheerful disposition from a rich business family of the tribal area of Bara. I could easily discern a kind of urgency in his demeanour when I quizzed him about his distinguishing aptitudes and merits that I told him had to be emphasized to attract the attention of the readers. 'Why, of course, I have already dedicated my life to working for the dispossessed wherever they happened to be,' Javed replied confidently. 'Here is the altruist I was looking for all my life,' I thought to myself, and wrote down in similar vein that 'there lived in Frontier the quintessential young man who loved drinking milk of human kindness.'
Quite a few years passed before I came across a profile of Javed with a thick dark bushy growth of beard on his fair-skinned broad face. A little surprised, I inquired of Mian Arshad, then a budding artist and through whom Javed had found access to my website, if that indeed was Javed Afridi? 'Yes, of course, he has joined the Tableeghi group,' Arshad replied with a sheepish smile.
As if Providence was bent on introducing me to Javed in all his different garbs, a few years later I found him in western dress wearing fashionable sunglasses with heavily jelled hair and sporting a French cut beard. A fop, from the tribal land of Bara! By leaps and bounds, as they say, Javed had climbed to the top of international cricket as the owner of one of the most famous cricket teams in South Asia. Perhaps, that was what he was aspiring to be all these years, I was compelled to conclude. But not, I would say now.
Most recently, and out of complete wilderness, has emerged the name of a gentleman who is likely to act as the caretaker chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The chief minister designate is an uncle of Javed Afridi.
I have no love lost for the present-day soothsayers, but then one shouldn't be surprised if in a few years from now Javed Afridi is seen wearing the robes of chairman senate!
By: NASSER YOUSAF
In 2003-4, I developed a website by the name focusonfrontier.com with a view to serving as my own publication. As the title suggests, the website was meant to cover a range of stories about the land and people of the erstwhile Frontier as well as the tribal areas. It was a two-man show; I would write the text of a story or get a picture or one odd cartoon drawn by Zahoor, on my persistent requests, and a young man from Sirki in Peshawar, Arif, would post the same on the website for a paltry monthly salary of Rs. 1500. The website remained operational for about six years before I decided to call it a day.
The website had some key tags on its homepage like: Description, News of Substance, Tribal Truth, Future Perfect etcetera, under each of which I would write and then ensure that the page got updated at least once a month. Future Perfect was about people taking big strides in their early life and holding a promise of some kind in the future. One day a young man in green Edwardian blazer approached me with a request to be introduced on the website. I was a little flattered as regards the fame of my website. I thought that the days of my disillusionment were over, and word about the website had finally spread out in the town. Anyhow, I had a brief chat with the young man who introduced himself as Javed Afridi. He was a fair-complexined very handsome young man of cheerful disposition from a rich business family of the tribal area of Bara. I could easily discern a kind of urgency in his demeanour when I quizzed him about his distinguishing aptitudes and merits that I told him had to be emphasized to attract the attention of the readers. 'Why, of course, I have already dedicated my life to working for the dispossessed wherever they happened to be,' Javed replied confidently. 'Here is the altruist I was looking for all my life,' I thought to myself, and wrote down in similar vein that 'there lived in Frontier the quintessential young man who loved drinking milk of human kindness.'
Quite a few years passed before I came across a profile of Javed with a thick dark bushy growth of beard on his fair-skinned broad face. A little surprised, I inquired of Mian Arshad, then a budding artist and through whom Javed had found access to my website, if that indeed was Javed Afridi? 'Yes, of course, he has joined the Tableeghi group,' Arshad replied with a sheepish smile.
As if Providence was bent on introducing me to Javed in all his different garbs, a few years later I found him in western dress wearing fashionable sunglasses with heavily jelled hair and sporting a French cut beard. A fop, from the tribal land of Bara! By leaps and bounds, as they say, Javed had climbed to the top of international cricket as the owner of one of the most famous cricket teams in South Asia. Perhaps, that was what he was aspiring to be all these years, I was compelled to conclude. But not, I would say now.
Most recently, and out of complete wilderness, has emerged the name of a gentleman who is likely to act as the caretaker chief minister of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. The chief minister designate is an uncle of Javed Afridi.
I have no love lost for the present-day soothsayers, but then one shouldn't be surprised if in a few years from now Javed Afridi is seen wearing the robes of chairman senate!
posted by Nasser Yousaf @ 09:54
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