PEOPLE

A LITTLE EXPLANATION:

I wrote this story about 20-years ago for my website focusonfrontier.com; it is also included in my first book Frontier: fabulous and forlorn which I printed in the US. I am reproducing the original story for my blog with some little changes. I have shortened the paragraphs because I believe reading on the web is a little difficult than reading the same in a book. I haven't been to the monastery since I last visited it somewhere in 2012, when I still found it basking in calm. Sadly, I cannot vouch for the same calm to be still enveloping the monastery because ever since its takeover by UNESCO, the place is said to have become a picnic spot for the revelry-loving present-day tourists. No doubt, UNESCO has carried out some renovation and developmental work on the site, but in the process it appears to have lost its antiquity and privacy. On the other hand, the title 'Khan,' is becoming increasingly popular especially in the cinema industry where Indian and Pakistani actresses too have made it a part of their names. So it is an altogether different story from what I wrote two-decades ago.

MONKS AND KHANS

By: Nasser Yousaf

In the midst of where once Monks walked the lengths more than a millennium and a half ago, there now stands a sugar mill and a distillery in Takht Bhai in the nearby Pashtuns' heartland of Mardan.

Why the unassuming, rather submissive adherents of Buddhism from the North Western peripheries of India, undergoing the travails of uncharted terrains and territories, chose and settled in Gandhara, is easy to fathom.

It was perhaps the veritable solitude of the now predominantly Pashtun areas that beckoned the monks out of their meditation quarters in the mountainous hideouts of ancient India.

 

Partly clad in their unstitched saffron robes with their proverbial begging bowls hanging down their necks, the monks were also seized with planting the seeds of peace and tranquility, as preached by their benefactor, in every nook and corner of the then known world.

Deep introspection, it would appear, would enable one to concede that the peace and tranquility of the area still remained inviolable.

The emergence of a sugar mill in the twentieth century on the road leading to the Monastery and the ruckus caused by tens of trolleys loaded with sugarcane waiting for their turn at the incessantly moving wheels of the mill would appear to have failed to ruffle the enduring serenity of the area.

An astounding journey, one that must take one back in time, needs to be undertaken vicariously to bring to mind life in the area surrounding the monastery perched on a hilltop. Blurred pictures of bare-footed Buddhist monks

marching up and down the steep rocky ridge, while disposing of their few daily mundane chores, begin to unfurl.

By intent and for the purpose enshrined in the philosophy, the monastery was built far from where the noise of the world could impede the spate of meditation.

 

It was perhaps the force of the meditation that many hundred years thence the environs still stubbornly refused to come out of the spell cast by the desired calm. Bats have made nests in the cramped, dark and dank underground cells where monks would hide themselves from the last whisper of the human beings to attain Nirvana. Those out of the world cells, were people even in the twenty first century would try to tread cautiously.

The monks were also romantic in their own right. Since they were in love with the deity called "Quietude," they built environs for it befitting her exalted status. This they did by ascending a good five hundred feet above the ground level on a hillock in one of the most fertile regions of Gandhara.

 

As they suffered the pangs of the rigorous meditation, they feasted their eyes down below on the vast stretches of verdant fields, watered by numerous streams flowing down the outlying hills.

The monks, fastidious in eating and frugal in clothing, were the oldest recorded witnesses to the fecundity of the lands that they inhabited. In time, beyond the reckoning of the monks, the same green fields were to bestow the titles of khans on some of its dwellers, a legitimate reference to the famous landed aristocracy of the Frontier.

The title of "Khan" owes its inception to the times of the once invincible Mongols. A Mongol leader called "Temuchin," somewhere in 1230 AD was crowned Genghis Khan -Oceanic Khan or Ruler of the Universe on the banks of Onon River. The seat of his empire was Karakoram.

 

Initially the title of khan referred to kings and princes but it was debased over the centuries to local rulers and even chiefs. By the time it traveled down to the areas now included in the Frontier Province, the scope of the title seems to have shrunk down further to include in its sphere the present day khans.

Khans of the Frontier, notably those of Mardan and the adjoining district of Charsadda, live in their own funky little world. Although khan as a second name is commonly used in some particular regions all across the Indian sub continent even by some non Pashto speaking folks, yet the title as it is used in the Frontier bestows a coveted position on its holder.

 

A khan in the central districts of the Frontier must be the claimant of a hundred or so acres of land to be worthy of the title. In simple words, they are the genuine feudal lords of the Frontier as the term 'feudal' is used and applied in the neighbouring province of Punjab. The difference lies in the khans beng more affable then their counterparts in Punjab.

The Pashtun khans would do their maximum possible to keep their tenants in good humour, but with out at any cost allowing the former to take the liberty of scaling the class and caste wall built of solid rock.

It would never be known how the title came to be adopted all the way from the medieval or Central Asia in the Frontier. It must have been a cross-country phenomenon, since the title is hardly known to be used in the Pashtun dominated border areas of Afghanistan.

Khan rarely figures in the long list of Pashtun chieftains who ruled Afghanistan. King Zahir Shah, Sardar Daud, Noor Mohammad Tarakai, Babrak Karmal, Dr. Najibullah all came to be referred to and known so sans "Khan." Perhaps Amanullah Khan could be one of very few exceptions of his kind.

Gandhara was the playground of Buddhists. But the ostentatious khans of Mardan and Charsadda look nowhere near the true heirs of the ascetic monks. The difference in the living quarters and lifestyle of the two is amply demonstrated by the time lag.

The monks lived and meditated in cells not having enough space to stretch their legs and which they could enter only by crawling. Their descendants reside in bungalows with attached "hujras" (guest house for male guests) where ordinary mortals lose all sense of measurement and distance. 

In some of those houses the use of mini or cable cars to transport the dwellers from one extreme to the other would neither be considered a novelty nor an oddity.

Land holding and its concentration in fewer hands on such a massive scale is hereditary. Who exactly were the original owners? To some, that would seem one of many enigmas falling short of an answer.

But the khans have as many detractors as their tenants and camp followers. The objectors suspect this gross discrimination to be the handiwork of the British. The British when they ruled India with such unexplained impunity were, in addition to many other charges, also accused of proffering state lands on their quisling subjects - a charge that they never attempted to come clean on.

The British accounts of the times and events wherein praises of this and that khan have been sung with great relish testify to this fact with unmitigated intensity.

The lands owned by the khans give out bumper harvests of sugarcane, tobacco and maize, season after season, year after year. Since the lands are known worldwide for the best variety of Virginia tobacco, it is no surprise that the cigarette manufacturing industry has flourished in the area. Some of the world's famous brands of cigarettes are manufactured in Gandhara. 

In a country where it is next to impossible to separate grain from the chaff, the opportunity to come up with counterfeit brands was timely seized. The boom created a new generation of khans. The new make- believe khans drafted their own rules of the game to beat the old khans to their scheme of things.

The traditional khans, nevertheless, have not lost their pristine glory. They unfailingly continue to fascinate their admirers and observers alike. The old khans have styled their life in accordance with the age-old dictum of "as the Joneses do" and they unflinchingly cling to it.

So as the trend goes, the khan's sons must go to Aitcheson, no matter if they were subsequently thrown out on the charges of unrestrained revelry, and similarly the daughters must end up in the Convent of Mary and Jesus, for them to be eligible to be married to their peerage.

All khans, to be worthy of the title, must have in addition to their fortress-like houses in Mardan, a house each in Peshawar, Islamabad or Lahore and one at the hill stations of Murree or Nathiagali. 

Some of the more possessive khans would also ensure that their remaining houses were exact replicas -if not necessarily in terms of size, of their traditional houses in Mardan.

Khans revel in their culture and community no holds barred. Wedding galas among them are occasions that go down in the annals to be quoted. Dancing girls from Lahore -of considerable standing, make the partying that much fulfilling an event in conjunction with the free flows of booze and liberal disposal of new currency notes. The climax comes in the shape of a sumptuous feast that makes the aroma of cookery spread for miles around.

Funerals of the landed gentry are no less uneventful. A khan bereaved is a town of half a million bereaved, if not the entire Frontier and in fact far beyond. People who matter make it a point to mark their presence at the venue of the mourning in person. 

The clergy, in their long flowing robes, make their presence felt on the occasion in a manner that they otherwise would not confer on the lowly placed souls. Realizing the enormity of the moment, with the bigwigs from all around in attendance, and the prevalent solemn mood, a confident looking maulvi of considerable stature would all of a sudden rise from his position on a chair and start recitation from the Holy Quran.

This would be followed by an unabashed long sermon in which besides recounting the achievements of the deceased and his or her indispensability to the society, the maulvi would flatteringly call each and every khan present on the occasion by name and declare them as the saviours of the whole human race.

Mardan has since long been the hotbed of politics in the Frontier. It provided impetus to the movement launched by the Red Shirt leader Abdul Ghaffar Khan from the bordering district of Charsadda. Pashtun Nationalism has hence thrived here like nowhere else in the province.

Secular political parties did for quite some time held the sway in this region, with a smattering of support for the religious right, that the former could never really translate into electoral victory until the geo-politics in the country changed substantially after nine eleven.

Khans, otherwise never known for their political clout, have historically been asserting themselves in the political arena through the platform of one or the other secular political parties depending on which way the wind blows. But all the money that the rich khans had had did not stand them in good stead when they got a drubbing at the hands of the rejuvenated clergy in the first elections of the twenty first century. 

A flamboyant khan and scion of one of the most famous families of Mardan took a pause from his colourful life in the upscale fashionable districts of the country to woo the voters through the Midas touch. The lad failed in his endeavour despite parting with what must otherwise have been a mere droplet out of his goodsome fortune of billions of rupees.

What course is then left for the khans in the future? Political stature is what gives sustenance to their enduring glory. They are reassessing and reconsidering their political loyalties, but they are hardly ever likely to align themselves with the new players - the clergy, in the political game.

Khans would probably have to emulate their predecessors, the monks, by walking distances to win back the support and sympathy of their people.