PEOPLE

JANA THROR

By: Nasser Yousaf

To my mother, and aunts, and my numerous senior cousins, she was simply Jana. But we would call her Jana Thror (aunt, purely out of respect than any consideration of blood relationship), whenever we needed to. Thror, we all Pashtuns know, is a familial title we use for both our paternal and maternal aunts.

Those were the days in the mid seventies to early eighties when we were in our teens. Jana Thror lived in a 'serai' in close vicinity to our house with her extended family. Now, a 'serai' (inn) in those days comprised many mud-built rooms. To the present generation of readers, such a dwelling could best be described as a slum.

Jana Thror's elder brother (Gula Jan) was a barber, and so was her father (Khan Gul). They both did their business under the shades of two odd trees on the road where they could be seen squatting on weather-beaten pieces of cloth. When not attending to customers, and chatting incessantly, the two would be seen reclining languidly against the slender trunks of the trees.

So they were a family of barbers, known by a less respected title of 'naees or Nayaan' in Pashto.

Barbers in those days also acted as messengers. It was in this capacity that Jana Thror and her brother Gula Jan became such household names.

Both men and women acted as messengers carrying invitations to their respective genders, be it a wedding or an engagement or some funeral rite like the 40th-day prayer to bless a deceased person. Sending invitations through such channels was a way of indicating the higher social status of a family as affluent families in those days were not many.

Jana Thror was then in her middle age though, honestly, then I didn't know how aging brackets were determined although I was advancing in my teens, and should have been all that wiser to know that. She was a little on the plumpish side with a complexion that could be described as brownish or dun.

Her mother, Attar Bibi, had a slim frame on which she wore a burqa while never forgetting to keep her face uncovered. She worked side by side with her daughter but one has little to share, with regard to how the elderly messenger would comport herself in her daily life. Perhaps, she died while we were too young.

Like her mother, Jana Thror always wore the typical Pashtun shuttlecock-type burqa though she too hardly ever covered her face. I dimly remember her entering our house in a state of breathlessness as if too much to and fro movement to several households had tired her. There would be a kind of a weary smile on her face as if she wasn't content doing what she was destined to do all her life.

On the designated day of a function or ceremony, Jana Thror would be seen leading a procession of ladies with a tray on her head and some other pieces of dowry under her arms. On such occasions she would betray obvious signs of joyfulness because the occasion could bring expected dividends for her including currency notes showered on the bride and groom.

It was the same with her brother and father who would be in charge of the events in the male sections. 

In fact, both her brother and father would be seen monitoring the cooking of festival food in addition to arranging the wherewithal of cookery. The twosome also acted as assistants to the undertakers by carrying baskets of food and clothing in the funeral processions for distribution among the needy and destitute. 

It was in whispers that we came to know that Jana Thror's younger sister had been married off to one of the most famous Pashtun singers as the crooner's second wife. It definitely did quite a lot to raise their family's stature  since the singer was no average singer but his fame was such that it has survived the vicissitudes of times and he is now regarded as the most popular Pashto language singer of all times. 

By way of the foregoing, we also came to know that the 'serai' where Jana Thror lived was a veritable nursery for the people working in the field of music. Such gossip was confirmed when a very young slim damsell from the 'serai' appeared on the PTV screen as a budding singer who achieved quite a fame with the passage of time.

I didn't hear more about Jana Thror and her inimitable clan after we moved out of the locality. She probably died not much thereafter of some kind of illness and so did the rest of her senior relations. She's survived by two sons who too have since advanced much in years. 

One is sometimes reminded of Jana Thror, her family and their multiple professions when one receives an invitation through the various sources of social media. In retrospect, the job that Jana Thror and her family members performed appear to be more lively and intimate than the lacklustre way of sending invitations through a tap or click on the Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp and what not.

Bless you, Jana Thror, you were quite a colourful character!