Puran Bhagat
23 December 2016
Raja Salvahan of Sialkot having sired his first-born, a son, called in the royal astrologers for advice. It was bizarre counsel that he received that day: he was to cloister his son away from himself for twelve years. For this period, the child was to see neither of his parents but be brought up by wet nurses and teachers.
That was what the stars ordained and so it came to pass. Time went by and twelve years later Puran, the prince of Sialkot, was brought into the presence of his father. The joyful king ordered wedding preparations, but young Puran of a philosophical bent of the mind, requested for a few more years for himself. This the king granted and bade the boy go to the private chambers to greet his mother.
Labels: Book of Days 2009, People, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Deosai: Land of the Giant
16 March 2013
Lying just 30 km south of Skardu (Baltistan) and sitting at 4000 metres (13,200 feet) above the sea, Deosai is the highest and largest plateau in Pakistan. Hemmed in by snow-draped crags a thousand metres higher still, it is a land of fens, rolling meadows, icy streams of crystal water and skies sculpted with fleecy clouds.
At this altitude there are no trees and summer is short and crisp. That is when the grass and sedge grow tall and dozens of different species of wild flowers turn Deosai into a colourful palette. That is when skylarks sing and lammergeyers quarter the cloud-laden skies for animal cadavers. Then the stoat and the Tibetan fox hunt amid the rocks, the brown bear browses in the grass and the wolf and snow leopard prowl the peaks for ibex.
Labels: Book of Days 2009, Deosai, Deosai: Land of the Giant, Northern Pakistan, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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Baba Ghundi: the Dragon-Slayer of Chapursan
15 March 2013
North of Hunza in the region of Gojal, Chapursan Valley stretches from the border post of Sost 60 km westward to end in a towering wall of rock and perpetual ice. Here, almost at the foot of the granite barrier sits the lonely and picturesque shrine of Baba Ghundi: the Old Man from Ghund (Wakhan).
Legend has it that there lurked in a lake in Chapursan a dragon that daily feasted on a human sacrifice from among the populace. One day as a young woman, her name having been drawn by lot, sat by the lake waiting to be taken by the monster, the pious Baba came upon her. Having heard her out, he told her to return home and tell the people that they need no longer fear the monster. And when the dragon emerged from the water, the pious man cut it to pieces with his sword.
Labels: Book of Days 2009, Gilgit–Baltistan, Northern Pakistan, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:08,
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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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The Temple of Gori and the diamond-studded Statue
13 March 2013
On the highroad from Naukot to Nagarparkar in the deep south of the Thar Desert of Sindh, their lies between the towns of Islamkot and Virawah the tiny, nondescript village of Gori. The village takes its name from Gorecha (also known as Prasanath), a Jain god. A couple of hundred metres east of the village, amid the grey dunes and the kundi trees, sits the ruinous temple dedicated to this god.
The spire of the temple is gone, a victim of the great earthquake of 1898. But the bulbous domes, the finely polished marble pillars of the portico and in the dimly lit interior, the exquisite frescoes adorning the portico and the overall workmanship tell that no expense was spared in the building of the temple. According to the Memoir on the Thurr and Parkur of Stanley Napier Raikes, magistrate of the district in the 1850s, this temple once held a statue of Gorecha.
Labels: Book of Days 2009, Sindh, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:06,
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Greeks in Chitral?
12 March 2013
Legend has it that some of Alexander’s legions having lost their way strayed into remote Chitral. Unable or unwilling to leave this delightful hill country which so resembled Macedonia both in terms of scenery and climate, they remained there, wedded local women and started families whose descendents are the modern Kalasha. The other yarn concerns Alexander himself having crossed into Chitral. Having remained in those cool climes several months, he left behind many pregnant women to begin the Kalasha line.
Self-proclaimed anthropologists draw parallels between Kalasha culture and that of the Greeks. But they deny the similarities that Kalasha culture, especially their pantheon, has with other ancient sub-continental cultures. It is an interesting and spiritually uplifting notion for anyone to be linked with the greatest and most civilised conqueror the world has ever known. The Kalasha therefore cling to the notion of being Alexander’s progeny.
Read more »Labels: Alexander, Book of Days 2009, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 07:31,
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Yusuf Khan and Sher Bano
11 March 2013
The hill of Kharamar – Rearing Snake, stands on the north side of the Mardan-Swabi highroad near the village of Shahbaz Garhi. As one regards it from the road, the vertical escarpment below its highest point (1050 metres) does indeed look like the spreading hood of a gigantic cobra. On the northern slope, just below the peak, there sits a solitary grave shaded by a single palosa tree. Here, by one account, lie the mortal remains of Yusuf Khan; by another his beloved Sher Bano shares the grave with him.
Yusuf Khan lived with his sister and widowed mother in the village of Turlandi a few kilometres due south of the Kharamar peak. Now, in Pukhtun tradition, acrimony between paternal cousins (turboor), because of the division of a common grandparent’s properties, is as bitter as that of sworn enemies. And so, the orphaned Yusuf Khan and his family were turned out of the ancestral home by his turboors.
Labels: Book of Days 2009, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:42,
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St Thomas in Taxila
10 March 2013
Among its proudest displays, the Cathedral of Lahore exhibits a small cross in a glass case. Known as the Taxila Cross, it was found in 1935 just outside the ruins of Sirkap, the second city of Taxila, and is commonly believed to signify that Christianity had taken root in the subcontinent shortly after the crucifixion of Christ.
The ‘proof’ supporting this theory is a manuscript titled The Acts of St Thomas that was discovered in 1822 in Syria. According to this document, St Thomas having been assigned by Jesus to teach the gospel in India, arrived by boat at the seaside capital of King Gondophares. Working miracles, he successfully converted the king and all his subjects to Christianity.
Labels: Book of Days 2009, Punjab, Tales Less Told, Taxila
posted by Salman Rashid @ 11:52,
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Guru Nanak and the hand print
09 March 2013
Legend has it that the great Guru Nanak having reached Hasan Abdal tired and thirsty on a hot day sought a drink. But there was no water to be had in town; the only source being up on a hill and jealously guarded by Hasan Abdal also known as Wali Kandahari (deputy of God from Kandahar). The guru sent one of his disciples to get some water from the Muslim ascetic who refused to oblige one whom he considered heathen.
Twice did Guru Nanak send up his man and twice was he returned empty handed by Wali Kandahari. In a fit of ire, the guru struck the earth with his staff causing a clear and copious spring to burst forth and, at that moment, drying up the spring on the hill. Not to be outdone, Wali on the hilltop cast a small pebble at the guru. As it rolled down the hill, the pebble grew in size until it was a boulder large enough to smother the spring and the guru.
Read more »Labels: Book of Days 2009, Punjab, Sikhs, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 09:50,
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Raja Paurava and Alexander
08 March 2013
In the gloom of a stormy night in late May of the year 326 BCE, Alexander of Macedonia secretly crossed the Jhelum River to fight his epic battle against the Punjabi king Paurava (Porus to the Greeks). The battle took place outside Mong village in the district of Mandi Bahauddin where lore celebrates the invader’s victory by either converting him to Islam, though he pre-dates this religion by a thousand years, or making him a hero from the Quran. Paurava is of course vilified for being heathen.
The well-known exchange between the victor and the vanquished concerning how the latter wished to be treated and his response are part of lore that is related as a sign of Alexander’s greatness, not of Paurava’s equanimity in defeat. Paurava simply pales in the presence of Alexander, but history looks at the Punjabi king differently.
Labels: Alexander, Book of Days 2009, Raja Paurava, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:30,
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Mountain of Forty Souls
06 March 2013
The purple loom of the Chiltan Mountain spikes the skyline 20 km southwest of Quetta. In its folds and deep ravines there live forty elfin children. Woe betide the unwary traveller who should cross paths with these elusive pixies for they entice and lead the person away from the path and into unknown depths of the forest whence none have ever returned. Indeed, Brahui shepherds will swear that they hear voices calling out to them as they lead their herds around the mountain.
Elderly Brahuis recount the tale as though it had unfolded but yesterday. Providence, they say, dealt a bizarre hand to an indigent Brahui couple: for long they had remained childless and then bestowed by nature with not one or two, but fully forty infants. Hard put to provide for themselves, the very thought of having to feed forty additional hungry mouths drove the parents to desperation. The only recourse, so they decided, was to keep just one of the babies and abandon the other thirty-nine in a nearby mountain in the hope that other travellers or wood-cutters would rescue them and take them for their own.
Labels: Balochistan, Book of Days 2009, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:24,
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The Invisible Saint
05 March 2013
Legend has it that the nameless saint and his sister the pious Bibi Nani arrived in the Bolan Pass to convert fire-worshippers to the true faith. But the pagan king took exception to their activities and sent out an armed posse to get them. The duo fled down the gorge but despairing of ever evading their pursuers, decided to split. While the sister went down the pass, the brother turned northwest into a wild and desolate gorge.
It is not told how Bibi Nani came to her end at the bottom of the Bolan where her tomb sits under a bridge by the rocky bank of a seasonal stream. But the nameless saint unable to shake of his tormentors ended up where the gorge forms a dead end. And even as the soldiers approached with bared swords, the saint calmly walked into solid rock. No sooner had he disappeared, when there opened a hole in the rock and out poured a large volume of water. Since the saint disappeared into solid rock, he became Pir Ghaib – the Invisible Saint.
Labels: Balochistan, Book of Days 2009, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 08:37,
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Tales Less Told
Ever since humans acquired the gift of speech, they have been telling tales. Originally these stories were no more than details of the last great hunt or the location of a bountiful hunting ground and the prowess of the one exceptional huntsman who successfully brought down a large animal that fed the clan for days on end.
With the establishment of farming communities and the first settlements some ten thousand years ago, the tales changed dramatically. Now there were yarns of the last drought and its accompanying shortage of food or the deluge in the time of a vaguely remembered grandsire that wiped out so many clans and settlements. But now, living as they were in cities, humans also had tales to tell of love and treachery, of courage and honour, of social customs, of journeys of trade and adventure and of long-ago ancestors that had to be elevated to lofty pedestals and a larger than life persona.
Read more »Labels: Book of Days 2009, Tales Less Told
posted by Salman Rashid @ 00:00,
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