For the love of India and memory of Tirah

by Saba

Qaimganj/Kaimganj through My Eyes…

One of the things that still fills me with amazement is when people from outside India express surprise that there are Pashtun tribes with their roots in different parts of India flourishing even today. Well, I want to announce to the world that I am proud to be an Afridi Pashtun who can trace back her family’s ancestral roots to the Tirah Valley which straddles the Kurram & Khyber Agency Nonetheless, I am equally proud to be an Indian and a diehard patriot. This may raise eyebrows but it is important that this fact is acknowledged. This country has given me everything that a person can strive or dream to have.

Brought up in a typical Muslim Pashtun household and fed on the stories of chivalry, bravery, knighthood & valor about our grandfather, great grandfather, ancestors etc. I always felt this underlying closeness towards Afghanistan its people and my heart till today weeps at the plight of Pashtun brethren that are living in such dire circumstances in that part of the world. Though I have never been to the country nor do I know much about the place, yet I feel that there is an eternal connection with the people, place and culture.

Kaimganj is a small village in district Farrukhabad, Uttar Pradesh in North India; this is the place where my father was born and had spent his early years. Though I was neither born there nor spent my initial years in my paternal house, summer vacations were nevertheless something I always looked forward to. It meant spending time in the green fields with cousins, talking, playing, long strolls, taking a dip in the tube-well learning to swim and almost getting drowned, plucking mangoes from the orchard and spending loads of time climbing trees. But equally the most fascinating thing (which is crystal clear and engraved in my mind) is seeing older cousins, my father and his cousins cleaning their guns, practicing their aim, and listening to hoary tales from yesteryear. About how his uncle fired at his nephew for a trivial matter, how one of the dacoits came to our house and how my father jumped with a gun in front of his dad and fired back at the dacoit, and perhaps the most important thing (for me) how my grandfather’s mother known as “Captani” (because her husband was a captain in the Gwalior army) used to rule the house.

All this just had an overwhelming affect on me. And by the time my vacations were over and I came back to Delhi I used to be full of pride and vanity that I belonged to such a warrior tribe. My young mind found immense satisfaction in the fact that we were fighters and we could fight anything and everything. This is how we were brought up. I remember even at school I was quite arrogant about my connection with Afghanistan and Pashtuns. Despite being a slight young girl I did not fear anyone and it is so strange that now when I look back, I realize that even my classmates and other children at school used to look up to me as a very strong protective person who could stand up for herself and protect others. I remember standing up to a few guys in my school much senior to me, and to my absolute astonishment when the incident was reported to my father, instead of scolding me, or questioning me he was apparently quite proud of the fact, that I had stood up for myself. In a few days the story of me standing up to bullies was public and all of a sudden I became a “hero” in Kaimganj. Next summer vacation when I visited my ancestral village and met relatives this was one story everyone from all age groups wanted to know about. I made them all very proud keeping the true warrior spirit of an Afridi!

This was just a one off tale of the many years that I spent growing up amongst other Indian Pashtuns. Years have passed by, and now when I look back I feel it was like another era. As I was always interested in finding about my roots I started reading and found that the structure of houses, traditions and culture are still the same in Kaimganj as it is amongst the Afridi clans of Tirah. All houses are built with a baithak or dalaan (Hujra) where the men gather and then there are open verandahs followed by the living area for women. Women in Kaimganj are not oppressed but like most Eastern cultures are objects of pride & modesty. They are the ones who carry the burden of “ghar ki izzat” on their shoulders. They are supposed to wear a “chaddar” if and when they are going out of the “dehleez” of their premises; however I could never understand the concept because men standing out and gazing at women in “chaddars” always knew who they were and where they were going!

Another very vivid memory of my childhood is of marriages that used to take place in Kaimganj. It was such a big affair the festivities would go on forever. Of the many traditions my personal favorites were playing with colors, which happens in the groom’s house. All the girls of the family apply color to the white head cloth (sar ka salloo) for the bride and then this is presented to the bride, whereas, there is no religious significance for this ritual what I came to understood is that as colors are a way to express love & prosperity, this ritual is done to bless the bride with all happiness and colors for the new married life that she is stepping into. After the head cloth is colored the girls start playing with the colors amongst themselves. This tradition has a close resemblance to the Hindu festival of Holi. Other than this, what I really found strange was that there was no dinner or meal provided on the day of the Nikah ceremony. It was only the next day that guests were invited by the groom’s family for reception (dawat-e-walima). Instead the girl’s family would host a dinner a day before the Nikah. But these are not the only two occasions where large feasts are involved in fact the day the guests start arriving the feasts start. Instead the formal marriage dinner, (which is not so formal), which may occur on the day of the Nikah elsewhere is considered as if for these two days. There are large tandoors set up in the open area, there are no banquet halls or hotels for the ceremonies everything is done within the house and if required the nearby fields are made ready to accommodate a large number of men by covering the area with a nice marquee.

Another interesting tradition, which was practiced in Kaimganj and is supposed to be an Afghani tradition, is of tying multiple hair plaits for the bride which the groom has to untie. Quite fascinating! The dress worn by the groom is also something that is an old Afridi traditional dress called the “Jama” the tradition of which, with the passage of time is now dying down. The dress is made of fine muslin chikankari cloth usually white in color.

The language spoken in Kaimganj still has some Pashto words. As a child I used to pick up these words but I didn’t know at that time that these are words from the Pashto language. It was much later that I discovered this fact. Sadly, the language died three or four generations ago and now there are only few words here and there left of the Pashto language.

Times have changed, as have the traditions. People nowadays do not have enough time to invest or think about our long lost culture and roots. However, few things will remain alive in our memories forever. The closeness that I personally feel with Afghanistan and the people is just platonic and cannot be well expressed in words.

Passage to India: A Pashtun in Guwahati

By Aneela Z. Babar

Guwahati is characteristic of small town India caught in the struggle of coping with rapid globalization and still not able to successfully shrug off the time warp it has been living in for the past few decades. For years it has existed as the ‘gateway to India’s North East’ and tried to live down its reputation of being a violent little dot on India’s map suffering from insurgency in the 1980s and the all too famous Assam bandhs. However today it exhibits what Pankaj Mishra in Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India discovered of similar former ‘unremarkable places’. These small towns ‘have shed their sleepy, half apologetic air’ and ‘modest’ is not an adjective that one can use for it’s inhabitants as they pursue their ambitions, appropriate brand names and ‘create a whole new pan-Indian culture’ (Mishra, 1995). So the city is caught in the chaos of gawking men from nearby villages trying to make sense of the Van Heusens and Tag Heuers on display in the shiny new malls, a constant influx of brand new cars jostling for space on dusty broken down roads and the traffic police bewildered by motorists who leave their cars parked on fly-overs. The expansive wetlands near the airport soon give space to the concrete jungle the city is turning into.

My second day in Guwahati finds me in the midst of the notorious Assam bandh. My host family is not sure the evening before whether it will be a ‘complete’ bandh or not and a flurry of telephone calls are exchanged across the apartment building. The barometer of a ‘complete’ read successful bandh is if the buses don’t ply early morning or the maid doesn’t turn up for work. The residents of the city are reconciled to bandh culture and take it in their stride. Though the city loses millions of rupees in revenue every month, no one seems overly concerned. It has long been a feature of their relaxed existence and it is only the burgeoning business class that is making polite noises now. The day goes by peacefully and in the late afternoon I decide to visit a local monument that gives a birds-eye view of the surrounding valley. Billed as Gandhi mandap, though everyone is unsure whether Gandhi ever visited the city, it is a research centre set up by a Congress government trying to build a profile in Assam’s heartland. The state had earlier been cool towards the Congress party post a rueful Nehru who apologized that mainland India could not do much to protect the region.

This was as China threatened to march through during the 1961 Indo-China war. An Amitabh Bachan who came garnering votes for his best friend Rajiv Gandhi was sent away garlanded with shoes by an incensed city that was still harboring its hurt. However, today the Congress sits comfortably in power. The Gandhi mandap has a surly Gandhi with his back to the city as he gruffly views the city’s young who find it a convenient place to escape the moral police in the valley.  

The Kabuli Wallah

I am eager to explore the city’s Pashtun population, they are the progeny of former money-lenders and fruit sellers who traveled frequently to the region. Many of them still carry on their ancestral profession of lending money and what is politely called ‘debt collection’ (Truant children are still cautioned of the Pashtun who will carry them off). Guwahati Pashtun form a fascinating microcosm of an immigrant population that has kept its ways in a city that is so different from their earlier homes. Saleem Khan who welcomes me to his home is in his late twenties and he says his family moved here from Ghazni. Saleem is one of the ‘settled’ families of the city, there is also a sub-class of transient single men who travel through the region. His living room seems out of a baithak in Quetta , though he says he was born here and has never been home. Afghanistan is a mysterious land which he tries to fathom through B-grade films and his parent’s tales. As I settle down on the floor cushions, he takes a mock interview of the intermediary who has introduced us. He explains it is ‘close to election season’ so these times make it necessary to be sure of who I am. His concerns allayed, he is quite the eager host, calling up assorted uncles and aunts on his mobile to make them speak to the visiting Pashtun. One uncle is quite sure that he has visited relatives of mine in my village. Saleem attempts to brief me about his life here, where we are sitting now are rooms attached to his ‘public life’, it is here that he conducts his work and entertains guests. His family lives in a separate Afghan colony some two hours away. He jokes that people in Guwahati claim that their community is very ‘cruel’ towards their women. Though women in his generation remain uneducated and live in seclusion, he assures me that the younger generation of women has started going to school. His parent’s generation stay in touch with family back home in Afghanistan through exchanging audio cassettes, I picture his mother recording our conversation today in an audio-letter home. Saleem speaks in the classic Pushto, unlike me he doesn’t speak a hybrid dialect. Perhaps over years it will be only the ‘first generation’ of Pathan diaspora like his that will speak the uncontaminated Pushto of earlier years. I am curious about Saleem’s money lending business and whether it has been effected by the budding finance companies in the region. Saleem says that he works with the low end of the market, with those who cannot afford the collateral that the organized financial sector requires. However, his services come with a hefty interest. Don’t borrowers default? He says he has a ‘scientific assesment’ process, the ‘applicant’s’ home is first surveyed for items of equivalent value which can be easily hauled away if anyone defaults on payments. And he says he can judge people in a manner the anonymous financial companies don’t. I inquire whether he gets into trouble with the police due to his high-handed tactics. It’s the first time in the afternoon that I see the arrogance that comes with his genes expressed in his conversation. ‘They know me, and no one messes with us. Everyone knows who we are’. Our interview done, Saleem struggles with being a good Pashtun host. I had come on short notice and he fears that he has not accorded me the welcome that demands my ethnicity. There must be something that I would like to take with me, he gestures towards his house. Could he arrange a loan for me he inquires after he has exhausted ideas.

Outside the Assamese Muslim families that neighbor his house are eager to invite me for a cup of tea. Like others in the city they ask me to make a list of ‘Pathan’ (read Muslim) sounding names for their children. Similar to diligent city officials and their love to ‘rename’ roads, schools and buildings I take a perverse pleasure on meeting the Wahdanas, Palwashas and Zaraks of the city ten years on.

Originally published in 2006

Aneela Z. Babar (Pindi/Delhi/Melbourne). When she is not busy being the bane of her three year old's existence, Babar works on gender, culture, religion and militarism (with a heady dose of Bollywood trivia).