Being Pashtun does not have to mean being Taliban, a writer finds in faraway Karachi
Have you read Rehman Baba's poetry?" Dr Ibrahim Yusufzai asks us in perfect English, referring to the Sufi poet beloved by the Pashtun. "It is all about peace and love." It is dusk on a Sunday in late February and we are at a hujra, a traditional Pashtun guesthouse where the community's men gather in the evenings to discuss everything from politics to poetry. This particular one is in Karachi in Shirin Jinnah Colony, named after Pakistan's founding father's sister, whose home, Mohatta Palace, now a museum, is a few kilometres away. My companion, Nick, and I are awaiting tea after a candid chat with a group of Pashtun transporters and truck drivers. We are on a donor-funded mission to ascertain the communication infrastructure and media-consumption patterns of Karachi's Pashtun communities. The donor wants to know how Pakistan's Pashtun are being radicalised by Afghanistan's Taliban, and how media can be used to 'prevent' this from happening.
The situation is ironic, even amusing. A woman (albeit modestly wrapped in a dupatta that covers her hair) and a white man (although not an American) are sitting at an all-male Pashtun gathering, as the vanguard to roll back the influence of radical Islam. Nick has read some translations of Rehman Baba's poetry and this pleases the good doctor, a surgeon and physician who runs a private clinic in this colony of Pashtun, whose occupational speciality is running the oil tankers that deliver fuel across the length and breadth of the land.
One by one, the members of the gathering leave for the mosque to offer their sunset prayers, and Nick is telling the diminished team about his plans to visit Peshawar in a few days. (Here, among members of the Shinwari, Afridi and Mohmand tribes, the call of azaan is obviously strong. Earlier that evening, among businessmen in Shershah, another Pashtun-dominated locality of the city, the call for the afternoon asr prayer had gone unheeded, as our hosts had given precedence to their guests.) "Then you must visit Rehman Baba's shrine," says Dr Yusufzai, handing Nick a cup of steaming kava, the sugary green tea that hydrates hujra conversations among the Pashtun everywhere. An interesting ritual takes place before the drinking commences. A few sips of tea are poured into one cup and transferred from cup to cup, till all the teacups have been thus 'anointed'.