Ishkoman, I’m Coming – Day 3: Eid Mubarak

Eid-al Fitr is Pakistani Halloween. Everyone dresses up in their new Shalwar Kimeez, the traditional Pakistani duds, and children's shouts of "trick or treat" sounds more like "tea and fruit." It is the day after the last day of the month of Ramadan ("Ramazan" in Urdu) for which all Muslims fast during the day and only eat at night and in the early morning before the sun comes up. When you can eat at natural times again, it's only natural to have a celebration.

We took a walking tour of the entirety of Shonas and stopped at about 8 houses for 18 cups of tea and even more homemade cream, biscuits, egg-noodles in a sweet milk soup, almonds, apples.

At Ayub's family's house, we were greeted by "the Mullah," Ayub's brother and all-around nice guy who had a reputation for the hottest dancing feet on this side of the valley. He had a beard sans-moustache and he wore Chitrali Cap, also known by its Afghan name "Pawkul" popularized by anti-soviet resistance fighter Ahmed Shah Masoud.

He sat down, Murad said something in dialect, probably Khowar, then everyone laughed and had a hearty round of high-fives, except for Mullah who chuckled and wore a smile of embarrassment on his beard-faced face.

"I just said that he looks like a Taliban and that the foreigners must be terrified," Murad expounded in between sounds of stifled laughter. To be honest, he looks more Mennonite than he does Taliban.

Mullah, deep in thought:

As we walked from house to house, we were greeted on the streets by many a stranger who just wanted to tap my heart, shake hands and say "Eid mubarak" - Happy Eid.

It is the feeling of the genuineness of your reception that makes Eid-al Fitr so special. People do really just want to take a friend into their house for 10 minutes and give them a biscuit as they schmooze over a cup of chai. At Mahboob's house, we sat outside on a set of patio furniture that looked like it had been stolen from my grandparents' old duplex in Queens - chipped white paint, rusted iron, wicker-pattern chairs. His 4 year old daughter came up to me and started speaking to me, first in dialect (Khowar, Shina?), then in Urdu. I used my minimal Urdu to ask her name "Apka nam kya heh?" then tell her my name "Mera nam Jono heh." We became fast friends. Murad was talking to Mahboob while his daughter would run off somewhere then bring back something to show me, then speak to me in Urdu, none of which I understood. First she handed me an apple, then she disappeared and brought back a cat. I don't think I was supposed to eat the cat, but I was gracious for the apple.

We made it to Wazir's house by sundown. He had offered to host us the night before but was beat to the punch by the comic king Jageer. Wazir looks like Pakistani Elvis, an occasionally wore aviator sunglasses - he was the coolest kid in Shonas, especially while wearing sexy eyewear.

The façade of his cool came crashing down as he met us at the door of his house. With a pout, he said "I've been waiting all day for you guys! I had all these eggs hardboiled for you!" 2 things: 1) In hearing that we would spend the night at his place, he had assumed that we would be with him all day as well. 2) He prepared about 10 hardboiled eggs to "egg fight" with.

There were 3 local boys, Wazir, Wazir's son, Wazir's brother Abdul, Matt, Murad, Jageer, and Myself. An egg fight, as explained by Wazir is: "I don't even like it, I think it is stupid. But I will fight you with my egg." You find an egg you like, and you tap your opponent's egg until one of them cracks, the one whose egg does not crack is the winner. He shrugged off eggfights like it was a child's game, but he put on his game face and smashed eggs at a near-olympic level.

It was a boy's night out: we ate dinner with our hands, had eggfights, played cards, played with guns, sang and danced and played sitar into the night. The card game "Big 2" was a big hit.

Intoxicated on competition (eggs and cards), Wazir began to talk. He told us how Abdul used to fight and drink alcohol until a priest convinced him to be a better Muslim. Before, Abdul looked like Daniel Day-Lewis from "Gangs of New York," now he looks Amish. He made us promise that we'd go fishing with him the next day. He told us that I looked like the old Chitrali man who used to come to his village to fix broken cups.

Wazir with an old picture of Abdul:
Abdul now, in the background:

Wazir showing his guns:


Eid Mubarak everyone, peace on earth.

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.