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           A severe blow to Pakhtun culture

                                           By Nasser Yousaf

Kidnappings, extortions and the slitting of throats have forced many singers to give up their profession.

Since nothing remains sacrosanct in the land of the Pakhtuns, except the will of bigots, the tomb of Amir Hamza Khan Shinwari located in the Landi Kotal plateau could be yet another target of the present-day marauders.

Hamza Baba, a Sufi in his own right, was considered the ‘father of the Pashto ghazal’.Referring to the all-pervasive muddle, Hamza had versified: Na da mazhab charta nishaan pathey sho Na za Hindu na Musalman latawum Da mustakbil pa thareeku ke za Ka latawum faqat Afghan latawum

‘Neither is any trace of religion left; nor am I seeking to locate either Hindu or Muslim. In the darkness of the future do I; seek merely to locate the Afghan (Pakhtun).’ Hamza’s lamentations keep reverberating as one struggles to locate the original Pakhtun and shades of his pristine culture in the haze. The quest becomes even more desperate on the Mardan-Nowshera Highway that somehow appears destined to be perennially serene. Decades of development that have seen the emergence of a massive Pakistan Air Force Academy and the Pakistan Railways Locomotive Factory here as well as the recent opening of the motorway have apparently done little to violate the relative quiet of the scenic road. Perhaps the environs continue to be under the spell cast by the calm of monks over a millennium and a half ago when Gandhara was the centre of the world’s civilisation.
 
A wedding motorcade travels on the road. Youngsters perched perilously on the rooftops of the speeding vehicles can be seen clapping, dancing and laughing, being encouraged in no small measure by jubilant womenfolk in the wagons. It is reassuring to see people laughing in these troubled times. Laughter and cheer was once an essential part of the Pakhtun character and culture.

Unfortunately, since the unceasing appearances on television screens of the resurrected Pied Piper from Dir, who led thousands to their death in the aftermath of 9/11, very wrong signals regarding the general disposition of the Pakhtuns are being sent. The Pied Piper and his followers are observed wearing sullen and ferocious looks during their numerous interviews to the media. These are definitely not the archetypal Pakhtun looks but those nurtured by foreign influences.

Not since around the seventh century, when Qays is said to have travelled to Arabia to bring the message of the Prophet (PBUH) to Pakhtun lands, have the Pakhtuns been so roundly denounced. But that this universal ridicule followed the arrival of the 20th century’s guests from Arabia to Pakhtunkhwa is no secret either. These guests, who were welcomed with open hearts, not merely dispossessed their hosts of their ability to laugh but also made them pay a heavy price for their hospitality. Hospitality extended in hujras (guesthouses), and denied not even to enemies, was an intrinsic part of Pakhtun culture but we might finally have seen its last vestiges.

Hujras had a sobering effect on the Pakhtun psyche. Listening to the rubab and enjoying the chillum (hubble bubble), here young Pakhtuns would learn to laugh before growing up to face the world. The sanctity of both the hujra and jumat (mosque) has been trampled upon with impunity since the appearance of suicide bombers in the Pakhtun milieu. Gudar the village well and the equivalent of the hujra for womenfolk also lie deserted. Pakhtun girls have stopped laughing and singing ‘da Jalala uba khwage di’ (‘the water of the well in Jalala is sweet’). 

The Pied Piper’s brigades have also dealt a severe blow to the rising popularity of Pashto music. The new generation of Pakhtun singers were doing wonders taking their music to new heights through innovative experimentation. Kidnappings, extortions and the slitting of throats have forced many singers to give up their profession. Pashto music was not merely melodious; it was the most potent and effective source of conveying to the outside world the beauty of the Pakhtun culture.

The avenues and occasions might now be fewer but Pakhtun men have never stopping loving the attan and performing it to their hearts’ content. Pakhtuns, young and old, bearded and turbaned, have for centuries been telling the world through the wild beat of the drum and the mesmerising movements of their bodies that dance is not the preserve of the feminine alone. Whether it was the juniper valley of Ziarat or the apple orchards of Quetta, the pomegranate groves of Kandahar or the chilghoza forests of Waziristan, Pakhtun-dominated lands were not too long ago ricocheting with the attan beat and pounding feet.

Suddenly death alone seems to be dancing in our valleys as we see thousands of Pakhtuns abandoning their homes and hearths. This exodus is the single-most lethal blow to Pakhtun culture. Pakhtuns are never known to have abandoned their villages in this fashion. Even during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, only women and children were forced to migrate as the men would go back and fight the invaders. How come a few hundred gun-toting elements have bludgeoned the Pakhtun culture?

In the 1990s, news reports emanating from Afghanistan told us of the Taliban takeover of one godforsaken town or another. As we encounter the reckoning, a poet can be heard wailing: ‘bya pa kali aur ulagedo; na e attan, na e chillum, o na e pagrai pathey shwa’ (‘then the village was set on fire; neither attan, nor hubble bubble, not even the turban were left’). Dawn.Thursday, 07 May, 2009