Searching
for Real Peshawar
Peshawar, Pakistan: I have lived away from
Peshawar, the place of my birth, for over
forty years and still in so many ways it feels
as if I never left. It is not the awful traffic,
widespread pollution, clogged sewers, deafening
street noises or the shrill call for prayers
broadcast over the ever-powerful and amply-amplified
speakers that gives me the re-assurance of
continuity; it is the peaceful and tranquil
slice of the old city that still connects
me with my early life and which can still
be found but only at odd hours of the day.
For that one has to venture into the maze
of brick-lined narrow alleys of the old city.
While the haphazard urban sprawl has swept
away the ancient city wall and the16 gates,
for some of us diehards, the city of yore
remains even if for a few fleeting moments.
There is a this tiny mosque located about
100 yards from our house in Mohalla Kazi Khela(N)
where I, when I can, attend the first prayer
of the day an hour before sunrise. A short
flight of stairs leads to a tiny courtyard
at the end of which there are two large carpeted
rooms that serve as prayer area. On a recent
morning there were about 15 worshipers from
the neighborhood who, wrapped in wool blankets
and shawls to ward off bone-chilling cold,
came for congregational prayers just as their
fathers and their fathers’ fathers had
done before them.
I am always amazed and envious of their devotion
to faith and family that surpasses mine in
so many ways. An elderly worshiper was praying
fervently for his family, his city and the
world beyond through a steady stream of tears
flowing down his gray beard. He was repeating
the ancient prayers that have, because of
mere repetition, lost their real meaning for
many of us. Just as these men, people in other
parts of the city as well respond to the call
for prayers and show humility that is becoming
a rare commodity in this violence prone world.
As opposed to the grenade tossing, machine
gun-totting fanatics who kill and maim in
the name of this very religion, these simple
people from every walk of life are the real
believers. It is a privilege to be in their
company.
There used to be a Qur’anic school in
this mosque where the neighborhood children,
both boys and girls, would come in the afternoon
to take lessons in memorizing or reading the
Qur’an. I profiled the school and its
imam the late Ustad Khurshid in a cover story
for Toledo Magazine in 1993. Many of those
kids still live in the neighborhood and have
become responsible citizens and good neighbors.
I see an occasional one at the morning prayers.
On my way to the mosque there is the neighborhood
baker’s shop. Every day before dawn
Anwar, the owner, fires up the large underground
clay oven. The aroma of the freshly baked
bread wafts through the neighborhood. On the
way back from the mosque I greet him and his
early customers and ask if he would bake me
a thin flat bread call lavash. As
a special favor he bakes one for me. By the
time I reach our home half of the bread is
gone. No one has heard of Dr Adkins and his
diet in these parts. A breakfast of freshly
baked bread and sweetened cream called malai
is enough to gladden any heart in this town
including that of a hopelessly romantic native
son from America.
Eating breakfast sitting around the sandli
in the kitchen is another tradition that connects
me with my past. Sandli is an old
Peshawari tradition where in winter months
a charcoal basket is placed under a low table
and an oversized large quilt is spread over
the table. Family members sit around the sandli
with their feet under the quilt. In the dead
of winter the families start using sandli
not only to ward off bitter cold but also
to have the entire family gather in one place
to talk, to tell stories and to enjoy food
or snacks in an intimate and comforting setting.
The stories and fables we heard from our elders
have, over the decades, been passed on to
the younger generation in this setting.
Another thing that has not changed is the
way people come to offer condolences. Unlike
in the West and for that matter the rest of
this country, long-time city residents come
whenever they can to visit. Our family went
through that process when the news of my wife’s
death reached here. Upon my arrival a few
weeks later the process started again. Some
of them bring an offering of food as a token
of their affection. A poor woman, a distant
acquaintance, brought a handful of spinach
leaves that she most likely had gathered in
the fields on the outskirts of the city. It
is the equivalent of neighbors bringing a
cake or food for the bereaved family. The
visitors raise their hands, bow their heads
and utter the familiar verse from the Qur’an,
‘To God we belong and to Him shall we
return’.
It is comforting and re-assuring to find a
few old traditions that are still in vogue
here even though the city I knew and loved
has ceased to exist except of course only
in the minds and hearts of some of us.
(A diehard Peshawari, Dr. Amjad Hussain returns
to his favorite city a few times a year to
reaffirm his deep rooted attachment to the
city of his birth.In his other life he is
a professor emeritus of surgery at the University
of Toledo and an op-ed columnist for the daily
Blade of Toledo, Ohio E-Mail: aghaji@bex.net)
