Shogran, Pakistan: Mohammad Naseem’s eyes shine while he shares the legend of a remote, alpine lake nestled among snow-capped Himalayan peaks as a rare crowd of onlookers hears one of Pakistan’s last “storytellers.”
The story of Saif-ul-Malook — the winding saga of a brave prince who falls in love with a fairy — is just one of the 50 tall tales passed down to Naseem by his father.
“Usually people tell me I’m crazy when I tell these stories,” says Naseem, whose long white beard and traditional cloak give him the timeless appearance of a storyteller of old.
The 65-year-old shopkeeper says it would take days to recite all the stories he learned by heart that are imbued with “the history, the culture” of the land.
But few are still listening.
Naseem says he hasn’t bothered sharing the stories with his six children, and friends are no longer interested in hearing them as social media, video games, and soap operas have all but eclipsed his ancient art.
Video platform TikTok is now a major source of entertainment for the country’s youth, wildly popular in part because it is accessible to illiterate users in rural areas — just as the legends of old once were.
“When I die, these stories will die with me,” sighs Naseem outside his shop in northern Pakistan’s Shogran, where winter snows have blanketed the mountains.
The city of Peshawar — in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province where Shogran is located — has long been the country’s stronghold of oral history, its Qissa Khawani or “storytellers bazaar” a Silk Road hub where travelers and locals alike congregated to hear a well-spun yarn.
The bustling frontier capital was once “the Times Square of the region” because of “the excellence of its storytellers,” explains Naeem Safi — a consultant at an Islamabad-based institute dedicated to Pakistani folk heritage, where cassettes of stories told at the bazaar have been archived.
“Writing was not very popular. The transfer of knowledge was verbal. Storytelling was fundamental — people considered themselves educated if they had heard enough stories,” says Safi.
Before tuk-tuks and buses clogged its narrow lanes the market was littered with Silk Road caravans of wandering traders who often stayed the night after the city’s sixteen gates were sealed at dusk.
In the evenings, the merchants would hear the city’s famed storytellers — who shared tales about the perils of the road, news of wars and local lore.
Storytellers were “the communication tools of that time, they were the messengers,” said Ali Awais Qarni, a researcher in history and literature at the University of Peshawar.
“When they were telling the truth, they would always add a little poetry and color to it,” he said.
“People would listen to them for hours. Sometimes a story could last a week, or a month.”
The bazaar’s tea houses and salons have been replaced by neon signs on garish structures that now dot the traffic-choked streets.
“There may be some storytellers left, but the tradition is gone. It has transformed into other forms of storytelling,” Safi added.
Long-time Peshawar resident Khwaja Safar Ali, 75, remembers his youth in the city when the arrival of caravans was met with excitement.
During the day, “we used to run between the camels’ legs,” he recalls.
And when evening came, “we would all sit together and listen to the storytellers.”
“They would tell us about Kabul, the USSR, Uzbekistan. We learned about these countries through them.”
Modern transportation eventually killed off the caravans, which even by the 1960s had become an increasingly rare sight in the area.
Storytellers continued to perform for smaller circles, but were gradually replaced by radios and then televisions.
This autumn one of Peshawar’s few remaining storytellers died aged 86, said Jalil Ahmed, a tour guide who frequently took his clients to hear the recitations.
The narrator once owned a small hotel where the caravanners lodged and listened to stories “for a few pennies” over steaming cups of green tea.
“But now the only way to see storytellers in Peshawar is to go to the cemetery,” Ahmed sighed.
Once upon a time: Pakistan’s fabled storytellers fade away
https://arab.news/zex2z
Once upon a time: Pakistan’s fabled storytellers fade away
- Storytellers continued to perform for smaller circles, but were gradually replaced by radios and then televisions
- Storytellers were “the communication tools of that time, they were the messengers,” says a messenger
Pakistan says militants attempted drone attacks inside its territory, Afghanistan says carried out airstrikes
- Islamabad says anti-drone systems intercepted devices in three cities
- Kabul says it carried out airstrikes in Pakistan after earlier strikes in Afghanistan
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan on Friday said militants attempted to launch small drones inside its territory, while Afghanistan’s ministry of defense claimed it had carried out retaliatory airstrikes in “various areas of Pakistan,” marking a sharp escalation in cross-border hostilities between the bitter neighbors.
The developments follow Pakistani airstrikes earlier this week targeting what Islamabad said were Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and Daesh militant camps inside Afghanistan. Pakistan said those strikes killed more than 100 militants, while Kabul said women and children were killed and condemned the attacks as violations of Afghan sovereignty.
On Thursday night, Afghanistan’s Taliban authorities said they had launched “large-scale offensive operations” against Pakistani military bases and installations, prompting Pakistan to say its forces were responding to what it described as unprovoked fire along the shared border.
Pakistan’s Information Minister Attaullah Tarar said on Friday afternoon militants had attempted drone activity inside three Pakistani cities.
“Fitna al khawarij [TTP] terrorists have attempted to launch small drones in Abbottabad, Swabi and Nowshera. Anti Drone Systems have brought down all the drones. No damage to life,” Tarar said.
“The incidents have again exposed direct linkages between Afghan Taliban Regime and Terrorism in Pakistan.”
Afghanistan’s Ministry of National Defense, in an X statement, said it carried out airstrikes inside Pakistan.
“The Ministry of National Defense of Afghanistan today, before noon, at around eleven o’clock local time, carried out airstrikes in various areas of Pakistan,” the statement said.
“These attacks were carried out in response to last night’s aerial incursions by Pakistani forces in Kabul, Kandahar, and Paktia.”
Pakistan has not confirmed any damage from the Afghan claim.
Earlier Friday, the Pakistani prime minister’s spokesman Mosharraf Zaidi said counter-strikes were continuing after what Islamabad described as unprovoked Afghan fire along the border.
“A total of 133 Afghan Taliban are confirmed killed, more than 200 wounded,” Zaidi said in an X update. “Twenty seven (27) Afghan Taliban posts have been destroyed, and nine (9) have been captured.”
On the Afghan side, the defense ministry claimed 55 Pakistani soldiers were killed and that two garrisons and 19 posts were captured. Pakistani officials denied losing any posts. None of the casualty figures or battlefield claims from either side could be independently verified.
Amid the escalating rhetoric, Pakistan’s State Minister for Interior Talal Chaudhry urged Afghanistan’s Taliban leadership to change its approach.
“They must behave like a state, not like a guerrilla force,” Chaudhry told reporters in Islamabad. “Until their behavior changes, we will adopt every possible option to make it change.”
Chaudhry said the United Nations had confirmed that over two dozen militant groups operate from Afghan territory and added that brotherly countries “do not send militants who slaughter our youth, attack school buses carrying children, or make places of worship and innocent women unsafe.”
Cross-border violence has intensified in recent weeks, with Pakistan blaming a surge in suicide bombings and militant attacks on insurgents it says are based in Afghanistan. Kabul denies providing safe havens to anti-Pakistan militant groups.
The latest clashes mark the third major escalation between the neighbors in less than a year. Several regional countries, including China, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Iran, have urged restraint as operations on both sides continued Friday.
The confrontation unfolds against a backdrop of growing friction over Afghanistan’s regional alignments. Pakistan has repeatedly accused the Taliban authorities of allowing Indian influence to expand in Afghanistan, an allegation Kabul has rejected.
Pakistan’s defense minister Khawaja Asif earlier said the Taliban government had turned Afghanistan into “a colony of India.”
Islamabad has long accused India of using Afghan territory to support anti-Pakistan militant groups, a charge New Delhi denies.
