FROM MY ARCHIVES

ALEXANDER FINDS HIS LAST BASTION IN DISARRAY 

By: Nasser Yousaf 

It is two thousand three hundred and thirty four years since Alexander, the Macedonian King, visited his last stronghold of the Frontier. He cannot help stop being fascinated by the myths and legends attached to his consequential invasion of one of the world’s most infamous pockets of resistance. And since Alexander is but a mortal, he still has some fond memories of his adventure that took him as far as River Bias in the Punjab at which point he was forced to tame his ambitious zeal. So in order to relieve himself of the lingering nostalgia, Alexander decides to undertake another visit to the area and know of its present dwellers.

The great conqueror is now too old but his sagacity and astuteness remains unimpaired. Since he no longer supports barging into foreign territories  unannounced, he decides to land in the Frontier through one of the European Airlines that operates between London and Peshawar. 

As the Airline touches the tarmac, Alexander asks a fellow passenger if the plane had in fact landed at Pushkaravati (modern Charsadda) that was the capital of Frontier when he last visited the area. Alexander is greatly disappointed when he is informed that the capital had since been shifted to Peshawar by the British when they ruled the area as part of their colonial expansionism. The Macedonian King suggests that Pushkaravati by virtue of being located on the banks of River Kabul would have been the best site for the capital. 

Alexander rests for a while in the arrival lounge of the Peshawar Airport. He finds the architecture of the airport quite mediocre and bland and politely suggests that the right team of planners, architects and builders would have raised a grand building. He is overheard whispering to himself that an area with such a glorious past deserved magnificent monuments to its enduring memory. 

The old Patriarch is then led to his lodging in a car. He requests to be driven through the main cantonment bazaar. The car slowly makes its way through the milling crowds. Alexander spots a shop with a signboard that says Persian and Afghan Carpets, Handicrafts and Antiques.” He requests to be taken to the shop where he takes keen interest in the Afghan and Persian products. 

By now the curiosity of the Macedonian is letting him down. He asks the Afghan shopkeeper, dressed in an embroidered shirt and shalwar, and how was it that the people of the European stock were quite conspicuous by their absence in the crowds. He explained that he had been led to believe that Peshawar was once the favourite hunt out of the westerners. 

The Afghan trader whose business was continuously nose-diving due to the same reason agrees with him but regrets that the Europeans were suffering from a state of self-imposed paranoia. The Afghan further explains that it was not true that the foreigners were not coming to the area due to the ban on alcoholic drinks imposed by the puritans as those willing to drink could still drink it to their hearts’ content. 

Alexander enjoys the jest and then goes to his hotel in the old city and is pleasantly surprised to see the decour of the old traditional house turned into a hotel by an Afghan and his Italian friend. 

He settles in his room curiously named as, ‘Topaz’ on the fourth storey, opens the window and is horrified to see men well past their eighties pushing carts laden with food grain weighing in tons in the bazaar. He bemoans the fate of these struggling old bones, shuts his window and keeps turning in his bed the whole night with out getting the proverbial forty winks of sleep.

Early next morning, Alexander prefers to travel the entire length of sixty kilometers on the Grand Trunk (GT) Road to the Attock Bridge in the public transport. He comes to know that the founder of the Afghan Suri Dynasty, Sher Shah Suri, had built the Road in the early 16th century with caravanserais, wells and trees on both sides of the road for the comfort of the wayfarers. 

He greatly admires the 16th century idea and its creator. The bus stops at a checkpoint at the Attock Bridge. Alexander asks the reasons. A fellow commuter tells him it was the police of another province within the same country. On hearing this Alexander starts gasping and falls unconscious. 

He regains consciousness with some effort and implores to be immediately guided to the Malakand Road. Alexander points out that it was at a point in Malakand where he had first set foot in the 326 B.C from the Kunar area of Afghanistan. Having overcome his frustration encountered at Attock, he greatly appreciates the view of the Malakand valley from the top of the hill. He is now overcome by a bout of emotions in memory of the good old days. At this point on the hilltop, a fellow traveler also offers him the famous oranges of Pallai area in the valley down the hills and Alexander is heard swearing that he had never tasted such sweet oranges anywhere in the world. 

He travels down to the Batkhela bazaar and goes to the hills across the River Swat in the Dir Lower district where he had entered and led his invading armies into the Frontier then under the suzerainty of Hindu Rajas. He stops at a point and recalls how he had sustained a wound in the leg at that very spot from a flying arrow aimed at him. He recalls how the wound had then bled profusely and had helped him convince his admirers that it showed that he was a mortal and not the Son of Jupiter, which many believed him to be with ichors running in his veins. 

He then notices the River Swat flowing thick with red fluids. He is dumbfounded and enquires the reason. The locals who have now gathered around him in big numbers tells him that a fanatical mullah in the upper Swat valley had declared war against his own people who were finding it hard to agree with the bigoted interpretations of the Divine Laws being preached by the mullah. ‘It is the blood of those innocent’ the locals tell him.

Alexander leaves the place and moves onward to Buner through which his armies had marched forward to River Jhelum. He spots a mausoleum. Locals inform him that a very pious saint Sayyed Ali Shah called ‘Pir Baba’ from Tarmez in Central Asia who preached benevolence 

and fellow feeling was buried there. Alexander wishes that the mullah in Swat fighting his own people would also emulate the lifestyle and mission of the great mystic. 

Alexander returns to Peshawar and takes a flight to Chitral. He then travels to the Kelash valley where some of his troops had strayed in the year 326 B.C. He instantly falls in love with the serenity of the area but as he moves forward he spots a massive multi storey stone and 

wooden structure. 

Kelash people inform Alexander that the visiting Greek tourists had built the building to promote Kelash culture in memory of the Greek and Macedonian soldiers. Alexander finds himself unable to appreciate the idea and thinks that quite contrary to that, it would have negative effect on the ancient culture of the Kelash people. 

Alexander gets frustrated with the Frontier. Two and half-millennium ago, he had left the area by sea. The pressure is now telling on him. He boards the next available flight for Europe and leaves with a heavy heart.

My Swan Song

Image courtesy chatGPT 

(Note: Chapter 55: The Lord of Mercy Verse 26: Everything on earth perishes. 

The following are my parting words. This tribute to the martyrs of Gaza, Iran and Lebanon ends my career in writing. I may translate a verse or two which I may find touching from Pashto into English and vice versa, and that would be that. I may also try to translate T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land into Pashto provided I stayed any longer on earth. But I believe this great poem will not lend itself easily for translation into any other language. 

Huge billboards announcing fastfood chains owned by Zionists dot the desert landscape in Makkah and Madina, the two holiest Islamic places. Day after day, pilgrims visit these places in millions. They consume these foods which feed the Zionist war machinery. So we need not look elsewhere 😞

April is the cruelest month 

Eight billion people inhabiting 

The Waste Land)

BARBARIANS AND A CONFESSION 

By: Nasser Yousaf 

Pakistan Studies used to be Social Studies. Some jingoist among us had other thoughts, and one day we were told it's Pakistan Studies, making it the butt of everyone's jokes. 

Poor Pakistan Studies 😊, even Afghans taunt their fellow clansmen on this side of Mr. Durand's Divide; they lift the book from the shelf to flog us with. 'O Gul Khana, lar sha hagha Pakistan Studies de ulasta,' (O Gul Khan, an epithet reserved for the Pashtuns of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, away with you, you have been taught only from the Pakistan Studies). Honestly, it amuses me, laughter is the best medicine 💊 🤩.

I have to confess; Pakistan Studies used to annoy me. But no more. No country in the world tells its children the truth, or the whole truth. Why single out Pakistan then?

You may face legal challenges if you spit on a road in Japan. Those having lived in Japan or returning from it as visitors consider this as a great hallmark of the Japanese system of governance and culture.

Since 1945, only 120 rape cases have officially been reported against the US servicemen deployed in Okinawa in Japan. Okinawans believe rape cases by US servicemen run into thousands but these are not allowed to be made public. 

Unfortunately, Japan has an unforgiving, and unforgettable, geisha-related legacy to contend with. Ironically, however , it doesn't appear to be too difficult for Japan to put up with the outrageous misconduct of the US soldiers.

Similar reports emanate from time to time from the Philippines and South Korea. But no Southeast Asian country would like their students to know about this insufferable ignominy. Southeast Asia is the favourite hunt out of American ideology. America has easily succeeded in convincing people of this region that in the absence of Yanks, communists will devour them. 

America has 750 military bases in 80 countries which includes the economically (not morally) most developed ones like Japan, Germany, South Korea, Britain, Spain, Turkey and several Middle East countries. Not morally, because these countries lack self-respect. All countries having foreign military bases shamelessly call themselves sovereign although any student of political science will know that this is not true.

Owing to its incredibly audacious stance on the Gaza genocide committed by Israel with the help of US, UK and Germany, it would be grossly unfair not to exclude Spain from the aforesaid infamous list. Spaniards also defiantly stood their moral ground like the Rock of Gibraltar when America and Israel waged a brutal and unjust war against Iran.

America has either through brute force, or by spreading fear of an imminent invasion by the defunct Soviet Union, set up these military bases. Soviet Union has never invaded any of these countries while Germany and France did venture to invade Russia but had to face humiliating defeats. Germany and France will never include these dark chapters in their curriculums. Only those Germans and French will know about this who read good literature.

Julian Assange, who is known for unearthing the dark secret world of America, says that more than forty military bases have encircled Iran. America with the help of the Gulf countries has literally done everything possible to strangulate Iran, and still complains that Iran had held the world hostage.

Since World War 2, America has waged scores of unprovoked ideological and illegal wars in many countries, fortunately losing most of these like those in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran etc. America has not spared even its neighbours in Central and Latin America. Nicaragua, Venezuela and Cuba are the worst examples of the US interventions and oppression. America steals the resources of its neighbours at gunpoint as we saw in the case of Venezuela.

America recently invaded Venezuela in broad daylight, killed a few dozen innocent Venezuelans and took away its democratically elected president, Maduro, as a capitive. Like a stand-up comedian, American President Trump told his thoroughly amused admirers that he was taking control of Venezuela's oil. Do we seriously believe American schools will include this macabre chapter in their curriculums, America stealing oil 😜?

Here is a good example of why America is so bereft of or poor in military strategm. Afghanistan's people and territory ought to be well known to all Americans. 

It was in Afghanistan where we were told America avenged its defeat in Vietnam. And yet to defeat a few thousand hardcore militants at the turn of the millennium, America piled up a mountain of weaponery in Afghanistan. 

America's arsenal in Afghanistan had left little to imagination. Who knows they might also have got nukes in a nearby tavern. After it decided to flee in disgrace, Taliban were left in charge of every single gun and bullet.

Had Afghanistan not been a landlocked country, Kabul would have witnessed Abraham anchored at its shores, chasing mullahs in the Thora Bora caves. America loves killing flies with cannons.  

We live in an age of lies. When I last tried to find out whether Bush, Cheney, Colin Powell (also Tony Blair) may ever face prosecution in the US and UK for telling the biggest lie of history about the presence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the answer was 'No,' because laws in the two countries granted them protection. 

France colonized most of North Africa and stole its natural resources through a mix of oppression, deceit and education. Germany and Britain armed Israel to the teeth in the latter's campaign of genocide in Gaza. The civilized world (sic)! Europe and America love listening to this phrase from a fawning audience in rest of the world, especially the libertines. Will this civilized world tell its pupils what it did in 2024-2026? 

For as long as one remembers now, some countries in Europe have been keeping tabs on Pakistan for the human rights violations. Britain, Germany, Sweden, Norway, Denmark are in the forefront. Pakistan might have committed many violations, but then who will throw the first stone?

Julian Assange hid in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly seven years to escape persecution in his home country Sweden. Sweden wanted him on the allegedly concocted charges of rape. But that appeared to be a subterfuge as both Sweden and Britain wanted to hand him over to America for leaking the endless details of America's evil deeds.

Americans may differ on whether abortion and same sex marriage may be allowed or not but otherwise all Americans are united to ransack the vulnerable countries and steal their resources. This is what lies at the heart of capitalist ideology, survival of the fittest. 

We have read about Halaku Khan, the grandson of Genghis Khan. Halaku, or Hulegu, lived for just about 48 years only to leave behind him a trail of blood that reddened the flow of water in Tigris for years. 

Halaku Khan's Mongolian hordes threw away all books in Tigris. For reasons of their instinctive bloodlust and carnage, Mongols of the 13th century are referred to as barbarians and their chief as the 'Butcher of Baghdad.' Since Trump had to go one up Hulegu, he bombed a school in Iran that killed 160 girl students. Incidentally, Trump's casualties outnumbered even those in the Army Public School Peshawar by the Taliban.

On the other hand, we do know how many hundreds and thousands of people America, Israel, Britain and Germany have killed in Iraq, Iran, Gaza, Palestine, Lebanon and many other countries during the last about 23 years. But we have never heard Bush, Obama, Biden, Trump, Netanyahu, Sharon, Olaf Scholz, Tony Blair,Rishi Sunak being called butchers or the people of these countries as barbarians. 

History writing, telling and reading is now reduced to an art in discrimination, practiced with finesse by the more suave among us. Diplomacy in the modern world has only helped wash the bloodstained hands of ruthless leaders. 

History would probably have been kindlier to Hulegu too only if he had learnt the true art of diplomacy.

Adieu!

DRAMA

Poppy snapped in our flowerbed. We had brought the sapling from a hotel in Chitral during our last year's visit to the Hindu Kush mountains.

IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF HIPPIES 

By: Nasser Yousaf 

The President had visited Yucatan, where the henequen plantations had been divided up among the Indians. They had taken him to see Chichen Itza. 'Mr. President, nowhere else in the world are such ruins.' But he turned impatiently away and said: 'They are nothing to the ones I shall leave behind me.'

The Lawless Roads by Graham Greene 

One Act Drama

Naseem Akbar: Chairman

Shamsul Huda: Deputy to the Chairman 

Imad Ullah: Leader of the opposition 

Sudais Khan: Chief of the ministers

Haibat Abdaal: Law Minister

Thor Khan: Food Minister 

Sabar Gul: Health Minister 

Gul Andama: Opposition member 

Sundry members and officials

(Chairman is seated on a raised seat in the round hall. Three officials, all in black robes and sporting grey flowing beards, are seated one-step lower on an ornate stage. Cops in official fatigues wait on the chairman behind his chair with a long royal backside. The chairman with a rumpled stubble speaks in a phlegmatic voice)

Chairman: Recitation from the Holy Scripture to begin. 

(A clerical official sporting a long grey beard in a knee-length sherwani appears at the dais and starts recitation)

Chairman: (somewhat struggling and appearing to be looking for a spittoon) Honourable members, let me first read the agenda for our today's special session.The Minister for Law will present the item on behalf of the minister in-charge of narcotics control who is on a tour to oversee the cultivation of hemp in the hills.

Haibat Abdaal: Mr. Chairman, it is an honour for me to submit the Bill before this august house. This Bill aims at the cultivation, promotion and consumption of hemp in our grand old province. 

(No, no, no, over our dead bodies, members from the opposition benches rise in their seats and start chanting slogans. The Chairman orders them in vain to sit down and listen quietly. Exasperated, he then asked the Minister for Law to proceed with his reading)

Haibat Abdaal: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not old enough to be a witness to what I have heard and read that our erstwhile Frontier was once on the world's hippies' trail. Hippies from all over Europe would converge on Peshawar after crisscrossing many countries including Turkey, Iran and Afghanistan. They came here to enjoy the best quality cannabis which our land and people had the honour of cultivating.

(What rubbish is this guy talking about, an agitated member rises and was joined by some others. But the Chairman snubbed them and ordered their mikes to be switched off)

Haibat Abdaal: Sir, these honourable members have no sense of history so we cannot expect them to appreciate and take pride in what our incredibly popular government wished to do for the welfare of our people. Sir, I was saying that older people talk of those glorious times with a kind of nostalgia. Both men and women strolled our bazaars and roads with gay abandon. They looked to be very innocuous younger people with long hair and dressed in ragtag pants and shirts. They came in droves to enjoy what we offered them very cheap and in abundance. That sent a very beautiful message to the world about our fabled hospitality. Alas! our present generations are unable to behold those spectacles.

One Elderly Member: But they brought with them lice, fleas and sicknesses. Who are those dimwit bureaucrats who have spun this ludicrous tale only to pile more misery on us. 

(Booing and catcalls followed this and continued like a hymn throughout the reading of the preface to the bill)

Haibat Abdaal: But we needn't despair as our imaginative founder has instructed us to work towards reviving that era. It is unfortunate that while we ignored the hippies, our hostile eastern neighbour glorified the hippies and made several movies surrounding the subject of hip-hop culture. I love that old song still ringing loudly: dam maro dam, mitt jaye gham. Imagine, my dear Chairman, what a stupendous boost would it give to our image once we succeeded in beckoning hash and hemp-loving folks from all across Europe and even America to our climes.

(At this point in time, Gul Andama left her seat and went across the aisle where she unfurled a poster which had the effect of showing a red rag to the bull. Many members from the treasury benches jumped from their seats to physically attack Gul Andama. Shamsul Huda who had since occupied the seat of the Chair in the absence of Chairman ordered the sergeants at arms to intervene)

Shamsul Huda: Ms. Gul Andama you must not drag soldiers to the house. You must apologize otherwise I will suspend your membership. We should encourage positive legislation, and this is one such legislation which our people in the mountains are looking forward to. I come from the mountains and I can imagine the dazzling panorama that poppy crop on our terraced fields would present for the visitors. It will boost tourism which our founder keeps saying can make us the richest people in the world. I know for sure that our younger people in the mountains love singing praises of hash.

(This further enraged the opposition benches and they started raising slogans against the Chair)

Gul Andama: Shocking! What I hear from the chair should be a matter of great concern for everyone. It is this mindset which has led people to taking pride in calling themselves by ridiculous names like Mr. Cannabis. And it is this attitude of unbelievable nonchalance and complicity that no action has been initiated against people like Thor Khan for letting wheat worth twelve billion rupees rot in the godowns. I now understand the reason for the scandalous silence of Sabar Gul as Haibat Abdaal is distorting facts to play with the health of our youth.

Thor Khan: An inquiry is underway and whosoever is held responsible for the wheat fiasco will be dealt with, so you better stop targeting me. 

Sabar Gul: Hemp has not been found to be harmful for health as we hear that it is being used as a medicine for thousands of years. But anyhow, if the consumption of hemp was found to be bad, our founder has already put in place a free medical scheme, hence you better not worry.

Imad Ullah: What we hear from Haibat Abdaal appears to be an affirmation of what people talk about us in whispers. People have long suspected that there were only two roads to riches in our land; drugs and forests. Do you seriously believe, Mr. Sudais Khan that our salvation lies in the cultivation of hemp?

Sudais Khan: Of course, I do. Our founder is the greatest thinker of all times. His thoughts are not without solid reasons. We are madly in love with him and his philosophy. Look at me, for instance, I come from the area that best knows the value of hemp. He wouldn't have selected me if he didn't know about the wealth that my constituency possessed. Now please let Haibat Abdaal conclude what he has to say on this subject.

(While the house presented a picture of fish market and resonated with slogans of all types, Haibat Abdaal rose again but before he could wind up, Gul Andama began screaming showing paperballs to the Chair which she claimed the treasury benches had thrown at her and which contained cannabis)

A treasury member: How do you know it's cannabis and how on earth should you know what cannabis is?

Gul Andama: Everyone and their aunts in this province knows what cannabis is and how it smells. Are you all not singing its praises? I will show these proofs to the media persons.

Haibat Abdaal: You may do what you want. Here I would like to submit that our chief has reminded me of our own valley surrounded by hills which were once famous for what attracted hippies from the west. I am a witness to how those hills would present a riot of colours in the fields during the peak poppy season. It used to be a spectacle worth beholding and the glow on the faces of both the landlords and the peasants would renew our faith in the fecundity of our lands. I can proudly say that it's not textbooks but the poppy fields that tell us what colours mean and how they should look like. Unfortunately, a propaganda was unleashed against poppy crop and poppy has literally become a forgotten subject. But we would not allow this to happen. We are strong believers in The Theory of Comparative Advantage presented by David Ricardo decades ago. This theory is a beacon for us as it says a country should ideally produce only that which best suited its land, resources, expertise and indeed even culture. So here I submit before this house the Bill for the cultivation, promotion and consumption of hemp throughout our land. 

Shamsul Huda: Those in favour of the Bill presented by the Law Minister Haibat Abdaal may please say aye.

(Amid total chaos, slogans and physical blows, Shamsul Huda announced that the Bill had been adopted and adjourned the house indefinitely)

Curtain

nasseryousaf@gmail.com

 

PEOPLE

Images courtesy chatGPT 

A HUMOURLESS OLD FRONTIER

By: Nasser Yousaf

Karl Beckson and Arthur Ganz have described a farce as a play which evokes laughter by such devices of low comedy as physical buffoonery, rough wit, the creation of ridiculous situations, and which is little concerned with subtlety of characterization or probability of plot.

Life in the land of one's existence is little more than a farce. One has to contrive alternate ways to humour or amuse oneself and be done with existence. It wasn't a bad idea, therefore, to read 'The Afterlife' by one of the greatest American storytellers John Updike.

Though not a collection of humourous short stories, 'The Afterlife' is a good companion to hold in hands as the biological end of existence approaches nearer with the rapidly ticking clock.

In the mid nineteenth century, Christina Rossetti, a British poet of Italian origin, wrote a touching sonnet. Undoubtedly, it could be termed as eponymous. Here are four lines from the sonnet:

Slow-speaking when she has some facts to tell,

Silent with long-unbroken silences,

Centred in self yet not unpleased to please,

Gravely monotonous like a passing bell.

We are witnessing one of the biggest exodus in the human history. Afghan refugees living in Pakistan and iran for decades are loathe to returning home. But they can now see the writing on the wall.

After an early dinner, one loves whiling away a few minutes in the company of an Afghan at his vegetable-shop. It has become a habit and habits like sins are inviting, succulent and stubbornly resilient to sermons.

A short walk to the shop, two fags with the magical option of changeover to menthol, and plenty of gossip to exchange as the Afghan requests for latest updates on the imminent repatriation or deportation. He is visbily disturbed now as news of the cops making hay in the streets and roads find its course to his little dwelling.

A Dari-speaker from Kabul and fluent in Pashto with a smattering of Hindko, one would surely miss this guy. He loves cooking a meal for himself in the shop and is literally mad about sharing it with whosoever bumps or barges into his shop. The shop has its plasters coming off, a dirt floor which must once have been cemented and a wooden divan with a carpet spread on it that hasn't been washed or dusted off ever since it was offloaded from the Noah's Ark.

Given his desperate circumstances, it would not be decent to share his name, and neither that of his newest helper, a teenage Dari-speaker. The young lad is perhaps the hundredth one on the payroll; they come and leave behind them fond memories and the kind-hearted owner could then be heard singing priases of the honesty and cheerfulness of each one of them.

The other night he fried greenpeas in minced meat with a screaming mix of green spices. Two roadside carpet-sellers, also Afghans who frequently visit the shop, were to partake of the food served with hot Afghani nans from the nearby shop. Unwashed and unpeeled cucumber lay in a plate on an old discarded newspaper. 

The young lad was cutting a raddish in round shapes with an unsharpened knife that had a noisy broken handle. Each time the young lad touched the hybrid raddish,  with a diameter of at least 10 inches, both the knife and the raddish produced gruesome sounds of complaining, whining and screaming. 

The high-point in the dinner came when the two carpet-sellers asked for raw onion. 'But it's a sin eating onions at night,' the young lad politely admonished the twosome. One couldn't help stop laughing heartily at the repartee, and proposed that perhaps serving spring onions to the two wretched souls might be a lesser and forgivable sin. But the lad had kept a list of all the minor and major sins in his breast pocket.

Being young, the helper rubbishes any mention of returning home to Afghanistan with an unbelievable display of nonchalance. 'man kamtareen muzahimat ra daram' (I am least bothered),' the lad quips in polished Persian before reverting to his TikTok account.

A subtle air of longing, melancholy and undiluted humour hangs in this lovely, dirty little shop.

In the earlier years of the present millennium, a government of mullahs took over the charge of our existential matters in the province which was then called the North West Frontier. Mullahs love wearing their faith on their sleeves. Hence, they decided to speedily dispose of the agenda they had set for themselves for eons. 

A farcical huddle of the clergy was urgently held. It was decided to ban the sale and purchase of alcohol in the province although Pakistan's constitution allowed it to the non Muslim locals on the occasions of their festivals and to the non Muslim foreigners whenever they liked.

Those were really ridiculous times in our land. Militancy was spreading its tentacles all across the country but its epicenter was in the land of Pashtuns. Pashtun tribesmen living on the borders of Peshawar were selling the choicest wines, beers and spirits to a discerning clientele with gay abandon. Cute mud-built pubs adorned the Line that divides Peshawar from the Khyber area. But the mullahs pretended not to know for as long as the pious teetotalers didn't know.

Pashtuns, and in fact people of all ethnic groups inhabiting the erstwhile Frontier, have got their timelines stuck in the month of fasting. If you ask one of us about the happening or occurence of a particular task or event, the reply would undoubtedly be: well, after Ramadan. It matters the least for them if the month of Ramadan is still months away. And as soon as one Ramadan ends, countdown for the next one begins.

This obsession with what is but plainly a ritual has given birth to a wisecrack of sort. With its roots in Punjab, it reverberates all across the country. It says: Ramzan janay thay Pathan Janay (let Pathans deal with fasting). Pashtuns are most obsessive about the sins of others which they have unabashedly inscribed on their own set of the Ten Tablets.

Our fashionistas and degrees-holders occupying top slots are dull, sullen, pretentious and arrogant to a degree. In unfortunate encounters with them, they tend to exhibit an attitude as if they have just returned to their places of comfort and luxury after overseeing the completion of the Pyramids. A ramshackle provincial infrastructure and a very poor delivery of essential services tell a most distressing story.

These nincompoops have a ribald sense of humour in comparison to the ordinary people. Their sense of humour doesn't travel farther than that particular woman tiktoker who has come to be known as Aleesha's mother. 

The said woman is trying to make some quick bucks from her social media posts in which she makes indecent gestures. She posts videos in which she could be seen involved in an imaginary brawl with a man and the man as the butt of her obscene gestures and unprintable abuses. 

One such post landed her in trouble with the self-righteous when she announced the opening of a dancing club in Peshawar. She was taken to a police station with her daughter and her recorded message put on the mainstream media. In the video, she could be seen recanting and pleading that she couldn't even think of polluting the sinless land of the old Frontier.

Everyone, and their aunt's, have now taken a sigh of relief that there was no imminent danger to their households. But they have enjoyed this farce to their hearts' content.

The woman in this episode is a lesser of the farce; society and cops are the biggest manifestation of the farce. Top cops, especially, because they get trained in the country's elite academies, at the taxpayers' expense. Do trainers need comics?

 

ANTHROPOLOGY

PASTICHE

By:Nasser Yousaf

I remember these words of some wise man from my pretty younger years. I read this in one of the older editions of the Reader's Digest: people who talked too much about their ancestors were like potatoes, both the potatoes and their roots always remained under the earth.

It was in another edition of the said Digest that I found this curious information about a particular high-altitude area in China. It said that clouds in that particular area hung so low that a few raindrops would fall from the clouds if someone yelled a little too loudly. When I shared it with my elder cousins they laughed it off as ridiculous and made fun of me.

He builds up the clouds heavy with rain; the thunder ⛈️ sounds His praises, as do the angels in awe of Him (Chapter 13 Al-Ra'd Verse 12)

Those copies of the Reader's Digest were from the library of one of my uncles about whom I remember little except that when he died I heard a howl raised by the women in our extended family. My grandfather, a leading lawyer of his times, died sometime in the mid 1960s. He was followed soon thereafter by my father and his brothers, all of heart ailments which had earlier taken the life of their fifth and eldest brother long before I was born. Huffing and puffing, they all went to their graves hurriedly as if they didn't want their father to miss them long in the unbeknownst world of the hereafter.

We lived in a joint family and used to get Pakistan Times and several Urdu-language newspapers. My elder cousins would read Pakistan Times only to check out the latest cricket scores. As I began to know the written word, I realized what a great treasure trove my uncle had left behind in the shape of a veritable library. He looked to be of a meticulous and artistic bent of mind which one look at his collection would instantly reveal.

Hundreds of copies of the Reader's Digest wrapped in solid covers along with books on every subject lay piled up neatly in the wood and glass almirahs awaiting to be read. I have read some of the great novels and histories in the oldest hardbound covers lying unnoticed in that fantastic library.

When I try to imagine how my uncle must have selected and touched these timeless classics, and which I have had the good luck of reading, an ecstatic sense of pride seizes me: The Lawless Roads by Graham Greene, Inside India by Halide Edib, Roads to Freedom by Bertrand Russell, The Rainbow by D. H. Lawrence, The Mayor of Casterbridge and The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy, Great Expectations by Charles Dickens, Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy and The Shape of Things to Come by H. G. Wells etcetera.

Those having lived in Peshawar a few decades ago might recollect Wahab Studio, squatting sagely in the relative solitude of the Mall Road. That photography shop too was set up by my books-loving uncle. He had named it after his elder brother by that name. One of our kin, a jolly and plumpish fellow with flabby cheeks had been deputed to look after the business which in those days was brisk. The shop had a wide range of wood and glass showcases which added to its rustic beauty.

People revisiting Peshawar after long absence still ask for that photography shop, and can't help stop wondering where in the concrete jungle, which is the present-day Peshawar Mall, has it disappeared.

Fate has battered me in several different ways. But in one particular case Fate has favoured me beyond my humble expectations. Divinity has, as if by hand, led me to the hidden quarters where books I could only dream of were waiting for me to be grabbed. I got an untouched leather bound copy of Brothers Karamazov from a secondhand knick-knacks shop in the Peshawar Saddar for just Rs. 200/.

Of course, Aldous Huxley couldn't reconcile himself to traveling in the company of Divinity. But, nonetheless, I recently found 'Music At Night' by Huxley in the long-ignored legacy of my late uncle. It is a collection of riveting essays written in the first quarter or thereabouts of the 20th century. It's a Penguin publication and my uncle bought it for RS. 1/ as the price scribbled in pencil on the first blank page indicates.

The following is from one of the essays titled 'Foreheads Villainous Low' by Huxley, which I need not emphasize how dearly I loved:

'If by some miracle the dreams of the educationist were realized and the majority of human beings began to take an exclusive interest in the things of the mind, the whole industrial system would instantly collapse. Given modern machinery, there can be no industrial prosperity without mass production. Mass production is impossible without mass consumption. Other things being equal, consumption varies inversely with the intensity of mental life. A man who is exclusively interested in the things of the mind will be quite happy (in Pascal's phrase) sitting quietly in a room. A man who has no interest in the things of the mind will be bored to death if he has to sit quietly in a room. Lacking thoughts with which to distract himself, he must acquire things to take their place; incapable of mental travel, he must move about in the body. In a word, he is the ideal consumer, the mass consumer of objects and of transport.'

Divinity had blessed Huxley with an incredible foresight although I am sure the late writer would have found it repugnant hearing me say this. His take on snobberies is a must read. The arrival of the cell phone on the scene must have brought a mischievous smile on his long-dead old face.

Snobberies have denied us the pleasures of this ephemeral life in many different ways. There are countless people in the well-off society who rubbish reading literature as showy.

To be showy must, therefore, be worth enjoying it. For how else could one have access to these splendid thoughts of Keats expressed in his letters to his dear ones. To Benjamin Bailey, Keats wrote:

I am certain of nothing but of the holiness of the Heart's affections and the truth of Imagination - What the Imagination seizes as Beauty must be truth - whether it existed before or not, and to his brothers George and Thomas, Keats wrote: The excellece of every art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeable evaporate, from their being in close relationship with Beauty and Truth.

And not having read about Don Juan by Byron, I would never have come across these words by Maurice Brown about the poem: His purpose was to expose the hypocrisy and the corruption of the high society which he knew so well, and in his hero to depict 'a vicious and unprincipled character, and lead him through those ranks of society, whose high external accomplishments cover and cloak internal and secret vices.'

In order not to be called a potato 🥔, I must now atone for bringing up my family in this discussion. Our family, as I had seen it during the days of my boyhood before my father and uncles left, has fallen apart. I would be the last person to shed tears for the aforesaid for that is how Nature works in its inscrutable ways. My grandfather and his wards were too vain to fear that Nature would dare attack their dearly-held unity.

It's degeneration, plain and simple. Most of my elder cousins too are no more. But I don't remember anyone of them talking about the books collected by the family. I can only see the younger ones fighting over the scraps leftover from my grandfather's priced property. I see decay all around me. My squeamishness wouldn't allow me to draw comparisons with omnivores.

'We died because our fathers lied,' thus wrote Rudyard Kipling in his poem 'Common Form' after enlisting his son in the military during World War 1, despite the fact that the boy had a poor eyesight.

nasseryousaf@gmail.com

WAR ON TERROR

By: Zahoor 

This Note may be read as an afterwards to the below given article that appeared in Dawn in June, 2009. Let me confess that initially I felt somewhat guilty after suggesting that the Durand Line may be fenced and converted into a permanent border. My guilt flowed from the fact that my family had always sided with the nationalist party of Bacha Khan. But being a staunch believer in Realism, I easily stopped chiding myself, long before witnessing the Taliban takeover of Kabul in August, 2021 and the subsequent events including the self-righteous mullahs' cavorting with a rabid believer in Hindutva. I atoned for my feeling of guilt by making the subject matter as the cover story of my collection of articles titled 'Fateful Line.' Zahoor, my favourite cartoonist and the most intelligent artist in Pakistan, favoured me once again by drawing the cover as seen above.

Luckily, I say luckily for I do not rate my foresight highly, the below given article contained every foreboding that I had warned against including how our zealous TV anchors, rollicking in a life of incredible riches and comfort, would call the Afghan mullahs as our last line of defense against India. These same people have now been joined by newcomers inspired by the idiosyncrasies of Imran Niazi that Pakistan should hold talks with the militants. Our army generals of yester years who created, nurtured and patronised the Taliban could also be seen siding with what Imran unflinchingly believes in. These people are trying to distract the common people from the real issue i.e. fanaticism, by claiming that the ongoing conflict is for the control of minerals forced on us by America and China. A recent notification by the University of Peshawar that it was closing down nine departments including geology and geography due to very low admissions ought to silence these bigmouths. This notification, as if by a stroke of Divine intervention, has arrived at the precise time to tell us of our poor comprehension of the intricate skill of extraction of minerals and their conversion into valuable goods.

I do not say that the fence saw the light of the day soon after the publication of my suggestion, but seeing it being installed I couldn't help stop drawing a sigh of relief. I strongly believe that Pakistan should now double down on the fence by making it into an unbreakable and unscalable wall even if it required diverting resources from other pending strategic projects. Pakistan may also consider granting the option of migration with ex gratia to Afghanistan to all those self-styled politicians and TV anchors who are calling for a dialogue with the terrorist outfits. Let these guys and girls play chummy in their bespoke dresses with the Taliban in Afghanistan. These people have not learnt that even refugees in Pakistan and Iran were loathe to going back to their country while the yoke of militancy hung over their heads.

Before I finish, I would like to make a correction that Mortimer Durand is not buried in Dera Ismail Khan. I had misreported this in the below given article after picking it from the social media. When I visited Dera Ismail Khan in 2016, I made it a point to visit the cemetery where he was said to be buried. It wasn't in fact a cemetery, as I found it to my surprise, but a vast compound of an old church covered with wild grass and furze. There was just one grave in the centre of the compound with a headstone identifying a Durand who had also served in the Indian part of Punjab. It was neither Mortimer Durand nor his brother Algernon. I offer my apologies to the readers.)

TIME FOR HOLBROOKE TO PLAY DURAND

By: Nasser Yousaf

THAT Sir Mortimer Durand was the statesman consummate, he has left irrefutable proof thereof. In the early autumn of 1893, Durand left Peshawar for Kabul and stayed there as a special guest of Amir Abdur Rehman.

He returned to Peshawar two months later with the priceless trophy of the 'Durand Line' drawn between the British and Afghan areas of influence in the heretofore no-man's Frontier region.

Those were not easy times either. British India had taken the railways into the heart of Afghan lands through the mythical Khojak Tunnel in the rugged Balochistan terrain. Amir Abdur Rehman was incensed and it appeared that the formidable Afghan emotions would be hard to cool down. Employing all the craft that he possessed, the Afghan amir had made stealthy arrangements to pen every single word that Durand, who spoke fluent Persian, uttered during their fateful meetings. But all such moves on the part of the Afghan ruler came to naught as an astute Durand carried the day through sifting and demarcating the respective spheres over which the two would have the right to exercise suzerainty.

More than a century later, Durand lies buried in obscurity in the Christian cemetery in Dera Ismail Khan. The area all around is up in spiralling flames and the world knows little about how to put out the raging fire. Although the sanctity of the Line is scarcely known to have been observed owing to the fact that the same people have for eons lived on either side of it, it had a symbolically sobering effect on relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan. But new actors or non-state actors — the Taliban — have since emerged on the scene. Britain has since been replaced by the US as the reigning power and Mr Richard Holbrooke has unwittingly been chosen to act as Mortimer Durand.

That the approximately 2,200 km-long Line still lacks the stamp of a border shows the level of social, cultural, political, commercial and of late religious sensibilities and motives attached to its extremely volatile state of being. Pashtun nationalist parties in Pakistan have for long loathed the idea of converting the Line into a permanent border on the grounds that it would deal a fatal blow to the dream of a greater Pakhtunistan. The most common nationalistic refrain until the 1980s and well into the mid-1990s, Lar o bar yaw Afghan' ('the Afghans of the highlands of Afghanistan and the lowlands of the Frontier are one and the same people') is still fresh in our memories although not really in fashion these days.

The sentiments on the other side of the Line have also been hard to understand and reconcile with as Afghan leaders have laid claim to lands far beyond where Pashtun demography has extended. Afghan President Hamid Karzai might not be of much credible use to his people but when it comes to unrestrained jingoism and outlandish chauvinism, there is no stopping him.

Mr Karzai would do well to step into the real world. The Durand Line is no more that same threshold through which Pashtun wedding and funeral processions would pass and neither does it merely serve as a conduit for the movement of Afghan transit trade. The passage is now a licit thoroughfare for Arab, Chechen, Uzbek and Tajik mercenaries and for the fulfilment of their macabre designs. In order to prove himself as a true heir to Durand, it is these concerns that Holbrooke would be required to convey to Karzai.

In a sense the US envoy would now be required to complete the job left unfinished by his predecessor by turning the Line into a permanent border and erecting an invincible fence along its length.

No doubt, fencing the Line, from its highest pinnacles in the extremities of north-western Chitral to Balochistan's south, would be a colossal job to undertake in these troubled political and economic times. But there is no alternative to it. It is a wall that the world needs in order to make life difficult for the militants prancing around its perimeters at will. It should, therefore, be built by the civilised world as a bulwark against the forces of terror.

The financial part thus settled, the racial, social, cultural and linguist costs of the project should not impede its urgent undertaking. A solid example exists in our neighbourhood. India has built an over 4,000 km-long fence on its border with Bangladesh that literally encircles the latter and to good effect. The fence divides the western Bengalis from the eastern and few seem to mind it.

Pakistan has learned the lesson the hard way. The kind of resistance being put up by the militants in Swat and Waziristan and the infrastructure that they built while we looked away should now serve as an eye-opener. It is indeed shocking to see and hear some defeatist ideologues on our television screens still referring to the Taliban as our last line of defence against our neighbour on the eastern border. These armchair ideologues wouldn't like to hear that Afghans as a nation — Pashtun, Tajik or Uzbek — consider Pakistan as their bete noire and responsible for their endless afflictions and trauma.

Here is a chance to put an end to these sinister misgivings. Mr Holbrooke must take a leaf out of Durand's book and redirect the course of his efforts. It shouldn't be a hard task putting Karzai on the right track. As far as the stakeholders on this line of the divide are concerned, their fickleness has already brought the nationalists to the verge of extinction while the tribal jirga and its simplicities do not offer solutions to the emerging complexities as has been repeatedly tested and proved. The Taliban threat, as for now, seems permanently settled and hence it needs permanent solutions.

nasseryousaf@gmail.com

PEOPLE

Image by chatGPT 

MY CARDINAL SIN

By: Nasser Yousaf

'The proper study of mankind, is man.'

Alexander Pope

Mohsin Dawar is in his younger years. He is from the North Waziristan area to the south of Peshawar. Dawar and Wazir clans inhabit the erstwhile Waziristan tribal area which is in the eye of the storm for pretty too long now.

Mohsin is clean-shaven and fair in complexion. He has big dark eyes under very prominent eyebrows which he pulls up in a way as if to touch his hairline while trying to make a statement with emphasis. His demeanour is authentically urbane. But at public places in his hometown, he has to adorn his head with the broad silky traditional turban to keep up with the Joneses.

Until some years ago, Dawar was one of the leading figures of the Pashtun Tahaffuz Movement (PTM) of which Manzoor Pashteen is the head. Several factors must have led to the parting of ways which saw Mohsin founding his own political party. The new party, as its name suggests, flaunts a progressive agenda. Not quite surprisingly, the elderly leftist of yester years, Afrasiab Khattak figures prominently in the new party.

Before long, it would be interesting to state that Afrasiab has fiddled with progressive politics for as long as one remembers. Now he joins this party and now that, and apparently being a restless soul, at times forms his own little party consisting of a motley crowd of fun-loving Pashtun leftists. Of him it could be safely said that his armchair is his handloom on which he could be seen weaving a quixotic communist fabric that his clansmen have stubbornly refused to wear.

There's absolutely little doubt that Afrasiab must have contributed in no small measure to the parting of ways between Pashteen and Dawar. The kind of ideological zealotry that Afrasiab has exhibited, and his trust in his Pashtun clansmen, compels one into believing that had it not been for the powerful establishment, every Pashtun would have been a sporting comrade.

PTM was quite the fad until recently. This scribe too empathized with it for some time by donning its symbolic colourful Kandahari cap. Fashionable women from the upscale localities of Lahore, Karachi and Islamabad would attend the public meetings of PTM because this platform looked to be enticingly liberal. Young Pashtuns presenting themselves as the liberal face of their conservative-looking clansmen attracted disillusioned socialites and dandies in considerable numbers.

One recently, came across a video interview of Mohsin in which he could be heard railing against Pakistan's powerful establishment. There's little new about that as the same is a popular mantra with the self-styled Pashtun nationalists of all hues. 

For instance, Mohsin says that militant Islamists both in Pakistan and Afghanistan were created so as to create a new identity in place of the 'Afghan.' One cannot take issues with Dawar on this count; Taliban indeed were the brainchild of the powers that be. But Mohsin doesn't elucidate and would not admit that Pashtuns did so of their own volition. As we say in Pashto, people do not throw pebbles in a house that doesn't have a berry-tree. 

Why didn't Sindhis, Baluchis and Punjabis follow the Pied Piper? The schemers must have read the Pashtuns' history and capitalized on their vulnerabilities. Pashtuns have proved themselves malleable to religious influences as often as possible, and have also as conveniently ignored religious injunctions as a toddler's little pranks.

Pashtuns of the elite and somewhat liberal class love to hide behind an absurd argument that 'mullah' is not a Pashtun. These people have certainly picked up this point from the British chronicles where the British civil and military officers posted in the erstwhile British India Frontier would broach this topic with the local khans in light humour. Considering mullahs to be of an inferior breed, Pashtun landlords and literati are given to ingratiating themselves with loftier claims in terms of race and class.

If the mullah is not a Pashtun, then who are those over a million students studying in the hundreds of religious seminaries spread all across the length of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa? Are these students Rohingyas, Biharis, Red Indians, Aboriginals or the Maoris? All these students are dyed in the wool Pashtuns born of Pashtun parents in our native land. 

Circumlocution doesn't help; the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. When cornered, Pashtuns take to expressing their ordeals in lyrics and songs. A common lyrical refrain could these days be heard as a background song to the all round killings and devastations in the Pashtuns' inhabited areas. It says: zama lweya gunah da da che Pakhtun yam (It is my cardinal sin that I am a Pashtun).

Saad Ullah Jan Burk is the putative king of Pashto drama. He is very knowledgeable and can express himself very eloquently even in these late years of his life. Sprawled on a reclining settee, he sounds like a pontiff. One recently saw a clip of one of his interviews in which he could be seen berating 'The Pathans' by Olaf Caroe as a very bad book. His main charge against the book is its title. 'Who are the Pathans, why does he call us Pathans,' Mr. Burk asks angrily.

The Pathan is indeed a very good book. One has read it end to end and loves referring to it again and again. Ostensibly, it was written to introduce us to the outside world and the title 'Pathan' was used as a generic name for the varying dialects of  'Pakhthuns' and 'Pashtuns.' An adjective or two more about the people that one is writing about doesn't take away from the worthiness of that work.

We tend to lose all sense of objectivity when we give in to emotions. Saad Ullah Jan tells the interviewer that we were the descendants of neither Jews nor Aryans. There's little reason not to agree with him; he might be in possession of genealogical evidence though he doesn't produce it. He believes that our origin is much older than that. Perhaps, we, the Pashtuns, were among those who had boarded Noah's Ark to safety, one may surmise lightly. Further hyperbole will take us to the age of apes. 

Both Mohsin Dawar and Manzoor Pashteen may be very earnest. And so must be all others of their ilk. But selected reading has hardly ever helped. Existential matters need thoughtful introspection. Harping on the same theme without substantial scientific scholarship has only helped exacerbate the ordeal of the Pashtuns.

True, Pashtuns have been very successful raiders and conquerors, but they haven't proved themselves as good rulers. We, Pashtuns, cannot hold on to what we acquire. 

Two very pertinent examples about the present era would suffice in defence of this argument: Afghanistan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province in Pakistan. 

Taliban were announced to have broken the shackles of slavery when NATO left in 2021. But the Irony is staring us in the face as none of the nearly four million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran is willing to return home while the educated among those in Afghanistan are eagerly awaiting to board a flight out of Afghanistan to the west.

Back here, a political party made three straight electoral victories in the name of 'change' but all that we have seen and experienced is a total and complete chaos and indeed breakdown of governance in the province.

The last two hundred years' history of the Pashtuns should provide us some food for thought, provided we need any. Sikhs and British in turn ruled us in what is now the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. On the other side, Afghan Pashtuns had to wrestle and contend with the Russian and German factors in addition to the typical machinations of the British. 

We learn from our history that Durranis, Yousafzais, Khattaks, Bangash, Afridis, Mohmands, Khalils, Arbabs etc always busied themselves with selling their loyalties now to the Sikhs and now to the British. In return, some of them got unimaginable stretches of lands or 'jagirs' as gifts both from the Sikhs and British. This indeed was the state of affairs even during the time of our 17th century warrior-poet Khushal Khan Khattak.

Khushal's voluminous poetry should serve as a veritable treasure trove for those who doubt the accounts rendered by non Pashtuns. Khushal had to contend with the Mughals under Emperor Aurangzeb, but he found his own people hobnobbing with his enemies.

Ghani Khan, our most popular poet of the 20th century, had his own reasons to take on the mullah. His rich and vastly popular poetry is replete with taunts directed at the mullah, both in humour and seriously. He made fun of the mullah's gastronomical pleasures while calling his bluff to unsheath his sword.

This is exactly what the Pashtun mullah appears to have done. It's a convuluted situation, one that is not going to correct itself. The least we can do is not to be denialists. Facts are facts, as Wali Khan said. Pashtuns are the second most influential class in civil, military and judicial bureaucracy in Pakistan. 

nasseryousaf@gmail.com