The Chandios
13 August 2015
Four kilometres to the northwest of village Ghaibi Dero (Larkana district) a group of domed buildings rises above the scrub and tamarisk-covered sand dunes. This is the family graveyard of the Nawab family of Chandio tribe of Baloch people whose ancestral seat is at Ghaibi Dero. All the buildings have plain exteriors while the interiors are painted with colourful frescoes of curving vines and bright flowers. There are also depictions of hunting and social scenes. These latter have largely been defaced, I am told, on the exhortation of some mullah who condemned them as un-Islamic. Of the two dozen odd tombs in this group the one on the far west end, an unpretentious little building, is that of Hafiz Wali Mohammed a.k.a. Ghaibi Khan. Although the simple headstone gives no date, the family’s genealogy would place him roughly around the beginning of the 19th century.
He was, they say, a man of great piety, humility and love for his fellow man. No traveller, rich or destitute, ever went by his door without partaking of whatever fare the good man could offer. One day, so the story goes, travellers arrived at his door seeking to be fed. Hafiz Wali Mohammed asked his wife to prepare for them, but unbeknownst to him, there was no food in the house. Nevertheless, even before the wife could tell him of their own want, foodstuff miraculously appeared in the kitchen. Now, since the victuals had come through divine (ghaib) intervention, so was Wali Mohammed to be known henceforth as Ghaibi Khan. From then on, too, there was never a fire to be burnt in the village of Ghaibi Dero for Nawab Ghaibi Khan established the tradition of feeding every single mouth in the village.
Labels: Chandios, History, Kohistan, Prisoner on a Bus: Travels Through Pakistan, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Kohistan - The Land of Chandios
18 July 2013
Kutte ji Qabar (Dog’s Grave)
'The Kohistan – bare, harsh, arid land of gravel wastes, torrent beds filled with boulders, pebbly slopes leading up to range after range, razor-edged and crowned with precipices. Under a June sun at midday refracted from the rocks, the mirages dancing along the maidans, it is indeed a penance to be there. But visit it in the cold season; see, when night is nearly ended – when the eastern horizon begins to glow, and above towards the zenith deep blue pales to steel, and the stars are fading out – see the dim bulk of the Khirthar put off the veil of sleep, awakening to the delicate touch of first light; from gray to lilac, from lilac to pearl and opal, the tracery of cliff and crag and chasm begins to show, and before we, far below, can see the first fiery edge of the sun, that high range bursts into a golden glory, seeming to throw back on us the lower ridges that darken awhile from the contrast.’
Such is the poetry that the Khirthar Mountains inspired in the mind of H. T. Lambrick. He was the man who served in the 1940s as Deputy Commissioner Jacobabad and wrote the definitive biography of John Jacob, the founder of the town that carries his name to this day. It was in those days that Lambrick visited the Kohistan region on hunting trips with Nawab Ghaibi Khan, the chief of the Chandio tribe of Baloch who live in the districts of Larkana and Dadu along the eastern foothills of the Khirthar. (While the Chandios themselves prefer to be called Baloch, some historians contest this claim on various grounds.) And it was in those days that he fell in love with this harsh mountain country on the border of Sindh and Balochistan.
Read more »Labels: Balochistan, Chandios, Kohistan, Prisoner on a Bus: Travels Through Pakistan, Sindh
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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A Sindhi Trojan Horse
14 March 2013
Sreman was the celebrated chief of the Chandio clan of the hill country west of Larkana. Large of heart with matching physical stature and courage, he ruled over his country with and equal measure of benevolence and firmness. It was in his time that Zunnu Pathan, the upstart ruler of Kandahar, came down to plunder Sindh. His thirteenth attack being one too many, Sreman resolved to avenge this wrong.
And so he prepared five hundred camels; each to carry two wooden boxes and each box to conceal a fully accoutred warrior. Sreman Chandio then set out for Kandahar in the guise of dealer of musk. As his convoy of camels drew up outside the walls of that distant city, it was nearing dusk and the customs officials were in a hurry to call it off for the day. In order to verify that Sreman really was a musk-seller, they ran a knife through the narrow slits of random boxes. The far-sighted Sreman had prepared for just such a chance: the warriors within were poised with musk-scented kerchiefs with which they wiped the blade leaving it heavily fragrant.
Labels: Book of Days 2009, Chandios, Sindh, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:10,
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