On My Ancestral House and Childhood

The news that the house where I was born (1922) and where I spent a good part of my childhood in Peshawar’s Qissa Khwani Bazaar, then in Undivided India, will be given the honour of being a part of the national heritage of Pakistan has sent my mind racing back to memories of happy days spent in the spacious home and its surroundings. This morning many of you asked me to blog about it.

I am at once full of fond remembrances of my parents, grandparents and numerous uncles, aunts and cousins who filled the house with the sounds of their chatter and hearty laughter. My mother who was frail and delicate was always in the spacious kitchen of the house and as a little boy I would wait for her to finish her chores so that I could just sit by her side and gaze at her beautiful face.

I have memories of the sitting room where the family gathered for high tea in the evenings, the large room where the ladies prayed, the terrace, the bedrooms, everything. I can vividly recall the piggy rides on my grandfather’s back and the scary stories my grandmother cooked up to forbid me from wandering out of the house alone.

I have lovely memories of Qissa Khwani Bazaar, where I received my first lessons in story telling, which later provided the impetus to choose meaty stories and scripts for my work. Every day as the trading closed in the market of Qissa Khwani Bazaar, a story teller would sit in the centre of the square narrating stories of valour and victory, deceit and retribution which I would listen to with wide- eyed attention, seated next to my father and uncles.  It is all there in my autobiography which, Inshallah, will be released shortly.


DK