Ishkoman, I’m Coming – Day 2: Let’s Get Sitarted

Jageer is the funniest man in the world. Not just in Shonas or Ishkoman, or Gilgit, or Pakistan, or Asia, but the whole world. Now if I could only understand Kowari I’d tell you what he was saying.Every time he spoke, somebody around him would laugh, and somebody would get a high five. In Pakistan, the hilarity of any joke can be gauged by the number and intensity of high fives given after the delivery of a joke, and Jageer always got the most.


He asked us the night before if we would stay in his house and treat us to food and music. Matt and I both agreed. Jageer lived in Shonas as well, but further up the mountainside near a waterfall that we could reach via hikeable path.

At an unreasonably early 7am, all the lights in the tranquilly dim common-room turned on and Indian bollywood music began to play. Moussa had sabotaged our slumber and in a firm, English-as-a-second-language voice said “I think… it is time… to… stand up.” We didn’t start the hike for at least 2 hours; from that moment on I found Moussa annoying.

Wazir pulled up to Murad’s house in an old Japanese jeep to pick us up and drive us to Jageer’s place. Wazir was sad that we wouldn't be staying with him at his house that night, but we promised that we would be his for the night after, and the day after that we would go fishing. Homemade chapatti, cream, and butter awaited us, the foreigners who couldn’t follow Ramazan. The hike was on a dirt path to a waterfall. The sun was hot and our Shalwar Kimeez kept our skin from burning and kept the sweat close to our bodies. Murad picked some wild red and orange berries (sea buckthorn berries) for us, since he was following Ramazan. The berries were extremely tart and citrusy with a pleasantly sweet aftertaste. We hiked down from the waterfall, back to Jageer’s house where Murad dumped us and said he’d pick us up the next day.

The 3 of us sat down in the common room among cylindrical pillows and sitars.

Five strings, only the center string tuned differently than the other four. The sound is layered, not redundant, and celestial. He sat down and looked at us as his clowning demeanor melted away in a foreign tune that seemed improvised until he began to sing.
He claimed to be able to recreate any song that he heard and play it on the sitar. So I have him my iPod® playing “Blackbird” by The Beatles. There was a silence, followed by a Ravi Shankar rāga that might have been the sound that Paul McCartney heard when he thought that he could recreate any song that he heard on his guitar.

The next morning would be Eid-al Fitr and a good rest was needed in preparation. Jageer rolled out some sheets and we fell asleep to the overlapping sounds of an old wooden sitar.