North by Northwest


	Symbol of faith

	Of hats and hospitality

	Burqas, not billboards, for women in theNWFP

y first and all too brief taste of the ancient outpost city of Peshawar had just that tinge of medieval romance that I had hoped for. I had wanted to tie up with some Syed Ali Shah Bokhari family members, but had arrived without any contact information. In true Pakistani fashion, however, a cousin – or rather, a third cousin of a second cousin – spotted in my features some family resemblance and consequently, she guided me through some of the bazaars .

Peshawar’s bazaars specialise in different wares, and the Kar Khano bazaar is the place to go if you’re looking for printed or patterned fabrics for women’s clothing. My cousin explained that this was one of the few places in the city where unaccompanied women were free to wander – because the goods on sale did not attract men to these shops. So there we were, surrounded by yard upon yard of colourful material and women in fashionable headscarves picking through an assortment of the inexpensive cloth that Peshawar is famed for. I was introduced to my cousin’s favourite merchant, a beautiful green-eyed Afghan; and I couldn’t help but reflect that the Punjabi prejudice against Pushtoon men must inevitably be underscored by an inferiority complex – or perhaps jealousy – regarding the latter’s fair complexion and taller stature. Skin colour is, after all, a rather misplaced and unfortunate measure of beauty in South Asia. My Peshawari cousin, meanwhile, joked that Pushtoon women shopping here would often flirt – sometimes unconsciously – with the smilingly handsome shopkeepers, and thus men had good reason to confine the mobility of “their” women. I, however, couldn’t help but question this assertion of sequential cause and effect.

I also couldn’t help but ask the most obvious question: what was it like being a woman in the MMA-governed Peshawar? “It’s good,” she told me, perhaps out of loyalty to her adopted city. “Men stare at women in Lahore, but in Peshawar men have a lot more izzat (respect) since women are the ‘objects’ of honour.” This mind-set carries with it a certain set of societal problems, such as limited mobility (my cousin was the only woman I saw driving a car) and the far more extreme practice of karo-kari (honour killings). Yet it certainly contrasts with Lahore’s gratuitous objectification of women, which is readily apparent in television and bill-board commercials (images of women on bill-boards have been banned by the ruling MMA party in Peshawar). In the more ‘liberal’ cities of Pakistan, a woman in any public space endures protracted and nauseating gawking as a matter of course.

As an unaccompanied young man, the hospitality I received in Peshawar was far more sincere than I have enjoyed in Lahore. Not once did I feel as though I was being treated well because my host gained status from honouring an outsider such as myself, or because he wanted a favour. Izzat is an integral part of the proud Pathan tradition, and this was readily apparent in even the manner in which rickshawallahs (rickshaw drivers) and dukanwallahs (shopkeepers) received and reciprocated my gratitude and salutations. This is something that Lahoris are taken aback by, accustomed as they are to behaving either like masters, or obsequious servants in the Punjab’s feudal and colonial culture.

Shopkeepers of the Qissa Khwani bazaar shared sweet Peshawari kehva (green tea) as we spoke about Afghanistan under the Taliban and the current regime, about their attitudes towards the American public versus the American government, and about their work. One elderly gentleman told me that his son was about my age, and “was a good boy because he had returned after his studies in England,” where, his son had told him, one couldn’t keep one’s deen (religious faith). “You don’t have a beard, but you’re a good lad,” he told me as he stroked his own impressively adorned chin in starry-eyed contemplation. “I wish you could have met my son.”

I especially enjoyed talking to the Pathans because they are accustomed to speaking Pashto, their own, very beautiful 4000-year- old language. Even when they speak in Urdu, each word is enunciated with care and deliberation; I was quickly able to pick up their pleasant accent and not sully my ears with my own terribly English accent.

After socialising with the dukanwallahs of the women’s fabrics shops, chappal (sandal) shops and waist-coat shops, I came across the antiques stores in the Cantonment area, which cater to rich Western customers who stay at the nearby hotels. I was particularly delighted to spot a stone carving of a ram which was similar to ancient works I’d seen in San Francisco’s Asian Art Museum and London’s British Museum. I entered the darkened shop and as he switched on the lights and fan, the store owner told me that it was a “new artefact.” He then unlocked a box and produced two stone carvings – apparently of the Buddha and a Greek god – which he claimed were 2000 years old. I was understandably sceptical, but he nonchalantly told me that a number of very ancient pieces could be found in the area. The selection of antiques was as broad as I could have hoped for – from swords and daggers to 100-year-old clothes once worn by peasants in Kaffiristan (peopled by fair-skinned, blue-eyed tribes which are descendents of Alexander the Great), rugs, hats, hukkahs , glassware and pottery, even the remnants of abandoned Soviet army uniforms from Afghanistan. The shopkeeper’s lament? That foreigners no longer visit the city as they once did.

To conclude the night, I joined an eclectic group of Peshawari and Lahori activists for dinner in the famed Namak Mundi, where one is surrounded by men, most of them bearded. I met Salman Abid, who speaks at 700 words per minute and was once a charismatic spokesperson for the right-winged political party, the Jamaat-e-Islami. Later, he spoke as a sensitised women’s rights activist, and is now the National Coordinator of the Citizens’ Campaign for Women’s Representation. Another Pathan companion – a charming man, albeit a few chromosomes shy of handsome with his asymmetric cross-eyes – delighted in telling me proudly (and, in parts, incorrectly) that Pashto is older than Sanskrit, that it has a large lexicon because of an alphabet of 80 letters and a dictionary “this wide” (he demonstrated by stretching his hands two feet apart), and that Islam was embraced by the Pathans a hundred years after its inception. It would have been nice if he could have filled me in with some of the land’s Buddhist history as well, but for Pathans that draw their roots from the west of Pakistan, the NWFP’s eastern Buddhist ties may not play into the history that they are interested in studying.

At the Namak Mundi restaurant where we arrived in the hope of dinner, I was greeted by the fresh, sweet smell of halal meat just drained of blood, being cut on tree-stumps by a couple of men sitting cross-legged at the entrance. This is certainly no place for the faint-hearted, since skinned chicken carcasses hang on hooks threaded through their eye sockets, necks stretched out. I found the sight appetising, but then my mouth waters when I see fat juicy cows feasting in the fields of Sargodha and Jhang. At the age of fourteen, I couldn’t follow my parents into the medical profession because I suffered from queasiness; today, it would be my cannibalistic tendencies that make me unsuitable. We were served the chicken that had been on a hook just a few minutes ago, the best mutton karahi I’ve had since my mum first made it, and Peshawar’s speciality chappli kebab with naans hot from the tandoor. I washed it all down with some Peshawari kehva , and satiated, lay back upon the pillows laid out under the starry sky, my mind filled with notions of hospitality, izzat and the Pushtoon past. Truly, a visit that was all too short.