It was a pleasant morning sunwas around but it wasn’t too hot, I was walking along the side of Bukhrari auditorium between 9am. I saw young boys trying to fix the module of Khayber gate, there was a huge white canopy surrounding the Bukhrari ground boys and girls were moving around, trying to fixing the things, their enthusiasm has made their eyes shiny and shirts sweaty in the breezy month of April. I caught sight of a Panaflex saying, “we never intervene, we never victimize, we never tell lies”.
It was the celebration of Pashtoon cultural day at GC University. The event was arranged by GCU society of Cultural and Heritage (Soach) & Undergraduate History Society on 3rd of April. It started at 10:00 am sharp and ended around 3:00 pm. It’s been attended by many students as well as GCU faculty.
Different types of Atten (Pashtoon cultural dance) were performed followed by a peace walk, dances were performed by Pashtoon friends, wearing their traditional Shalwar Kmeez and Pashtoon ” Lungi” on heads, including Nasari, Dwar and Kattak. The word Attan means ‘milli’ (national) derived from the word milaat, all these types of Attan are basically names of different tribes.
What was more exciting? Under the title of Pashtoon cultural day there were other indigenous cultural performances like Bhangra, Chitrali, Blochi and Sindhi cultural dances. In the end indigenous food was served which is called “Penda” it’s a dish, Dasi chicken is cooked well and in its grabi the small pieces of homemade tandoori naan are socked and this is served in big round bowl families sit and eat together.
There were different stalls, arranged to fall an illuminating light on an unexploredrichest culture showcasing the dresses, the Rubab, the handmade jewellery, the Hujra and the books. Students were standing along the tables of stalls trying to explain the stories which were long being silenced by war on terror and the Talibanization.
The women of the Pashtoon have always been presented in the mainstream media as ‘oppressed and meek’ creatures having no agency at all. On the contrary, when we look at history from an unbiased eye, we come to know about a woman name “Bakhtnama”, a fierce Pashtoon female freedom fighter who fought against the British raj from 1925 to 1930. She killed a British soldier with a gun which is still present at the British museum. She was later arrested and hanged at the jail
Posters were telling the veiled truths of a nation’s resistance, courage and patriotism, the truths of oppression including Barbra massacre, truths of leadership and sacrifice, people who fought for the survival the way they fought was fearless& armless driven by the passion.
Pashtoon nationalist Bacha Khan organized a movement called Kudai-kidmatgar literary meansservants of God, it was a non-violent Pashtoon movement against British empire. Bacha Khan was arrested and activists of Kudai Kidmatdgar carried a peaceful protest on 12 August 1948 they marched from Charsadda to Babrra when they reached Babrra ground fire was open on armless protesters, they were killed by police and militia on orders of Abdual Khan Kashmeeri, almost 600 hundred were dead and thousands injured, the bodies were thrown in Kabul river.
There was a showcase of the glamorous, attractive & flared handmade dresses decorated with coins, beads and moties and there was a scraf type piece of cloth of green color, it is called Dosmal it is used to tie around the arm of groom to be when he is engaged, given by bride’s family, there are seasoned fruits in it with some salt and it was also decorated with embellishments.
And then there is this Rubab a well known euphonious musical instrument, which holds its significance beyond that, the idea is to form a communication, on evenings people gather in Hujras they play Rubab, they drink tea, they talk, the stories are told, people listen to each other’s pain and happiness and they come to know who is sick who is not home yet. All this activity is connected to Rubab, It’s an instrument which use melody to connect people. This instrument was essential part of home but Taliban banned it, the flowing melody was broken, snatched from the people depriving them from the symbol of their kinship, melody which helped them to connect at so many different levels, spiritual and social.
The women of the Pashtoon are always been presented in mainstream media as oppressed and meek creatures having no agency at all, on contrary when we look at history from an unbiased eye we come to know about a woman name “Bakhtnama”, a fierce Pashtoon female freedom fighter who fought against the British raj from 1925 to 1930. She killed a British soldier with a gun which is still present at British museum later she was arrested and hanged in jail.
On the Book stall there were books translated by Pashtoon writers no one have an idea of, one of the remarkable works is “Ten Days that Shook The World” the dialogue of Plato translated in Pashto by Sain Kamal Khan Sheerani in 1954 and Wretched Of the earth translated by Mir Hassan Attal. There were autobiographies of Pashtoon leaders as well.
The colorful dresses which were made with such detail and delicacy, are comparatively very expensive than male cloths and these dresses are being sold throughout the country which shows the contribution of Pashtoon women in economy. The dresses were speaking loud about Pashtoon aesthetics and their relation with colors, dresses were not monochromic, their songs have the compositions without the monotonous tune, the continuous tunes & the captivating use of multicolor pattern denotes diversity and which s opposites to a monolithic idea of oneness, of inability to get change, while the continuous tunes and multicolor patterns multiplicity of attitude, behavior and morality. Attan performed in the circle, produce a rhyme in bodies repeating the steps in circles could be a hint towards the circular idea of time and history the eternal recurrence.
When British came they were starkly shocked by the way we use colors, men here, were use to wear bright colors. We didn’t have male and female color specificities, white men wrote in their books that Asians have feminity in their males. So we start looking at ourselves with the codes given by them as we can see now a days, but in our indigenous places man still wear bright yellow, orange and pink colors and mostly they are Pahalwans as the pont of their masculinity is concerned, I have seen man wearing these colors in inner Lahore.
While walking around the stalls and taking to people I felt a void of not knowing what was being presented, not reading that in 16 years of my school education, the more excruciating thing was that I talk to some Pashtoon students who were around the stalls they told me that there are things from our tradition that we are not aware of until now, I thought, what is that? What can deprive you from your own heritage and culture, and this is not about one culture I am talking about , young students from indigenous backgrounds come for higher education in cities , either they forget what they are, what their culture is or when they go back home they start questioning their culture and tradition and rituals, because of what? Modern education is the answer, which leads you away from your indigenous background making it un-civilizes, unprogressive and irrational in your eyes. Exactly the way we left our language and culture during the time we were colonized, our rationality was directed by white man, we started adopted theirs ideas of rationality, civilization and progression and developing contempt for our own cultures and traditions so is idea of contempt is what we need to fight with by indigenizing our cultures and learning about the richness of our own existence more and more and for that we have to arrange such events more often. So we can derive our morality and rationality from our uninflected past before the curse of colonization.
The author has interest in post modern theory and subaltern studies