I

Birth and Parentage

The Gandhis belong to the Bania caste and seem to have been originally
grocers. But for three generations, from my grandfather, they have been Prime
Ministers in several Kathiawad States. Uttamchand Gandhi, alias Ota Gandhi,
my grandfather, must have been a man of principle. State intrigues compelled
him to leave Porbandar, where he was Diwan, and to seek refuge in Junagadh.
There he saluted the Nawab with the left hand. Someone, noticing the apparent
discourtesy, asked for an explanation, which was given thus: “The right hand is
already pledged to Porbandar.”

Ota Gandhi married a second time, having lost his first wife. He had four sons
by his first wife and two by his second wife. I do not think that in my childhood
I ever felt or knew that these sons of Ota Gandhi were not all of the same
mother. The fifth of these six brothers was Karamchand Gandhi, alias Kaba
Gandhi, and the sixth was Tulsidas Gandhi. Both these brothers were Prime
Ministers in Porbandar, one after the other. Kaba Gandhi was my father. He was
a member of the Rajasthanik Court. It is now extinct, but in those days it was a
very influential body for settling disputes between the chiefs and their fellow
clansmen. He was for some time Prime Minister in Rajkot and then in
Vankaner. He was a pensioner of the Rajkot State when he died.

Kaba Gandhi married four times in succession, having lost his wife each time
by death. He had two daughters by his first and second marriages. His last wife,
Putlibai, bore him a daughter and three sons, I being the youngest.

My father was a lover of his clan, truthful, brave and generous, but short-
tempered. To a certain extent he might have been given to carnal pleasures. For
he married for the fourth time when he was over forty. But he was incorruptible
and had earned a name for strict impartiality in his family as well as outside. His
loyalty to the State was well known. An Assistant Political Agent spoke
insultingly of the Rajkot Thakore Saheb, his chief, and he stood up to the insult.
The Agent was angry and asked Kaba Gandhi to apologize. This he refused to
do and was therefore kept under detention for a few hours. But when the Agent
saw that Kaba Gandhi was adamant, he ordered him to be released.
 My father never had any ambition to accumulate riches and left us very little
property.

He had no education, save that of experience. At best, he might be said to

have read up to the fifth Gujarati standard. Of history and geography he was
innocent. But his rich experience of practical affairs stood him in good stead in
the solution of the most intricate questions and in managing hundreds of men.
Of religious training he had very little, but he had that kind of religious culture
which frequent visits to temples and listening to religious discourses make
available to many Hindus. In his last days he began reading the Gita at the
instance of a learned Brahman friend of the family, and he used to repeat aloud
some verses every day at the time of worship.

The outstanding impression my mother has left on my memory is that of

saintliness. She was deeply religious. She would not think of taking her meals
without her daily prayers. Going to Haveli—the Vaishnava temple—was one of
her daily duties. As far as my memory can go back, I do not remember her
having ever missed the Chaturmas.2 She would take the hardest vows and keep
them without flinching. Illness was no excuse for relaxing them. I can recall her
once falling ill when she was observing the Chandrayana3 vow, but the illness
was not allowed to interrupt the observance. To keep two or three consecutive
fasts was nothing to her. Living on one meal a day during Chaturmas was a
habit with her. Not content with that she fasted every alternate day during
one Chaturmas. During another Chaturmas she vowed not to have food without
seeing the sun. We children on those days would stand, staring at the sky,
waiting to announce the appearance of the sun to our mother. Everyone knows
that at the height of the rainy season the sun often does not condescend to show
his face. And I remember days when, at his sudden appearance, we would rush
and announce it to her. She would run out to see with her own eyes, but by that
time the fugitive sun would be gone, thus depriving her of her meal. “That does
not matter,” she would say cheerfully, “God did not want me to eat today.” And
then she would return to her round of duties.

My mother had strong common sense. She was well informed about all
matters of State, and ladies of the court thought highly of her intelligence. Often
I would accompany her, exercising the privilege of childhood, and I still
remember many lively discussions she had with the widowed mother of the
Thakore Saheb.
 Of these parents I was born at Porbandar, otherwise known as Sudamapuri, on
the 2nd October 1869. I passed my childhood in Porbandar. I recollect having
been put to school. It was with some difficulty that I got through the
multiplication tables. The fact that I recollect nothing more of those days than
having learnt, in company with other boys, to call our teacher all kinds of
names, would strongly suggest that my intellect must have been sluggish, and
my memory raw.

II

Childhood

I must have been about seven when my father left Porbandar for Rajkot to
become a member of the Rajasthanik Court. There I was put into a primary
school, and I can well recollect those days, including the names and other
particulars of the teachers who taught me. As at Porbandar, so here, there is
hardly anything to note about my studies. I could only have been a mediocre
student. From this school I went to the suburban school and thence to the high
school, having already reached my twelfth year. I do not remember having ever
told a lie, during this short period, either to my teachers or to my schoolmates. I
used to be very shy and avoided all company. My books and my lessons were
my sole companions. To be at school at the stroke of the hour and to run back
home as soon as the school closed—that was my daily habit. I literally ran back,
because I could not bear to talk to anybody. I was even afraid lest anyone
should poke fun at me.

There is an incident which occurred at the examination during my first year at

the high school and which is worth recording. Mr. Giles, the Educational
Inspector, had come on a visit of inspection. He had set us five words to write as
a spelling exercise. One of the words was “kettle.” I had misspelt it. The teacher
tried to prompt me with the point of his boot, but I would not be prompted. It
was beyond me to see that he wanted me to copy the spelling from my
neighbour’s slate, for I had thought that the teacher was there to supervise us
against copying. The result was that all the boys, except myself were found to
have spelt every word correctly. Only I had been stupid. The teacher tried later
to bring this stupidity home to me, but without effect. I never could learn the art
of “copying.”
 Yet the incident did not in the least diminish my respect for my teacher. I was,
by nature, blind to the faults of elders. Later I came to know of many other
failings of this teacher, but my regard for him remained the same. For I had
learnt to carry out the orders of elders, not to scan their actions.

Two other incidents belonging to the same period have always clung to my
memory. As a rule I had a distaste for any reading beyond my school books.
The daily lessons had to be done, because I disliked being taken to task by my
teacher as much as I disliked deceiving him. Therefore I would do the lessons,
but often without my mind in them. Thus when even the lessons could not be
done properly, there was of course no question of any extra reading. But
somehow my eyes fell on a book purchased by my father. It was Shravana
Pitribhakti Nataka (a play about Shravana’s devotion to his parents). I read it
with intense interest. There came to our place about the same time itinerant
showmen. One of the pictures I was shown was of Shravana carrying, by means
of slings fitted for his shoulders, his blind parents on a pilgrimage. The book
and the picture left an indelible impression on my mind. “Here is an example
for you to copy,” I said to myself. The agonized lament of the parents over
Shravana’s death is still fresh in my memory. The melting tune moved me
deeply, and I played it on a concertina which my father had purchased for me.

There was a similar incident connected with another play. Just about this
time, I had secured my father’s permission to see a play performed by a certain
dramatic company. This play—Harishchandra—captured my heart. I could
never be tired of seeing it. But how often should I be permitted to go? It haunted
me and I must have acted Harishchandra to myself times without number. “Why
should not all be truthful like Harishchandra?” was the question I asked myself
day and night. To follow truth and to go through all the ordeals Harishchandra
went through was the one ideal it inspired in me. I literally believed in the story
of Harishchandra. The thought of it all often made me weep. My common sense
tells me today that Harishchandra could not have been a historical character.
Still both Harishchandra and Shravana are living realities for me, and I am sure
I should be moved as before if I were to read those plays again today.

III

Child Marriage
Much as I wish that I had not to write this chapter, I know that I shall have to
swallow many such bitter draughts in the course of this narrative. And I cannot
do otherwise, if I claim to be a worshipper of Truth. It is my painful duty to
have to record here my marriage at the age of thirteen. As I see the youngsters
of the same age about me who are under my care, and think of my own
marriage, I am inclined to pity myself and to congratulate them on having
escaped my lot. I can see no moral argument in support of such a preposterously
early marriage.

Let the reader make no mistake. I was married, not betrothed. For in
Kathiawad there are two distinct rites—betrothal and marriage. Betrothal is a
preliminary promise on the part of the parents of the boy and the girl to join
them in marriage, and it is not inviolable. The death of the boy entails no
widowhood on the girl. It is an agreement purely between the parents, and the
children have no concern with it. Often they are not even informed of it. It
appears that I was betrothed thrice, though without my knowledge. I was told
that two girls chosen for me had died in turn, and therefore I infer that I was
betrothed three times. I have a faint recollection, however, that the third
betrothal took place in my seventh year. But I do not recollect having been
informed about it. In the present chapter I am talking about my marriage, of
which I have the clearest recollection.

It will be remembered that we were three brothers. The first was already
married. The elders decided to marry my second brother, who was two or three
years my senior, a cousin, possibly a year older, and me, all at the same time. In
doing so there was no thought of our welfare, much less our wishes. It was
purely a question of their own convenience and economy.

Marriage among Hindus is no simple matter. The parents of the bride and the
bridegroom often bring themselves to ruin over it. They waste their substance,
they waste their time. Months are taken up over the preparations—in making
clothes and ornaments and in preparing budgets for dinners. Each tries to outdo
the other in the number and variety of courses to be prepared. Women, whether
they have a voice or not, sing themselves hoarse, even get ill, and disturb the
peace of their neighbours. These in their turn quietly put up with all the turmoil
and bustle, all the dirt and filth, representing the remains of the feasts, because
they know that a time will come when they also will be behaving in the same
manner.
 It would be better, thought my elders, to have all this bother over at one and
the same time. Less expense and greater éclat. For money could be freely spent
if it had only to be spent once instead of thrice. My father and my uncle were
both old, and we were the last children they had to marry. It is likely that they
wanted to have the last best time of their lives. In view of all these
considerations, a triple wedding was decided upon, and as I have said before,
months were taken up in preparation for it.

It was only through these preparations that we got warning of the coming
event. I do not think it meant to me anything more than the prospect of good
clothes to wear, drum beating, marriage processions, rich dinners and a strange
girl to play with. The carnal desire came later. I propose to draw the curtain
over my shame, except for a few details worth recording. To these I shall come
later. But even they have little to do with the central idea I have kept before me
in writing this story.

So my brother and I were both taken to Porbandar from Rajkot. There are
some amusing details of the preliminaries to the final drama—e.g. smearing our
bodies all over with turmeric paste—but I must omit them.

My father was a Diwan, but nevertheless a servant, and all the more so
because he was in favour with the Thakore Saheb. The latter would not let him
go until the last moment. And when he did so, he ordered for my father special
stage coaches, reducing the journey by two days. But the fates had willed
otherwise. Porbandar is 120 miles from Rajkot—a cart journey of five days. My
father did the distance in three, but the coach toppled over in the third stage, and
he sustained severe injuries. He arrived bandaged all over. Both his and our
interest in the coming event was half destroyed, but the ceremony had to be
gone through. For how could the marriage dates be changed? However, I forgot
my grief over my father’s injuries in the childish amusement of the wedding.

I was devoted to my parents. But no less was I devoted to the passions that
flesh is heir to. I had yet to learn that all happiness and pleasure should be
sacrificed in devoted service to my parents. And yet, as though by way of
punishment for my desire for pleasures, an incident happened, which has ever
since rankled in my mind and which I will relate later. Nishkulanand sings:
“Renunciation of objects, without the renunciation of desires, is short-lived,
however hard you may try.” Whenever I sing this song or hear it sung, this
bitter untoward incident rushes to my memory and fills me with shame.
 My father put on a brave face in spite of his injuries, and took full part in the
wedding. As I think of it, I can even today call before my mind’s eye the places
where he sat as he went through the different details of the ceremony. Little did
I dream then that one day I would severely criticize my father for having
married me as a child. Everything on that day seemed to me right and proper
and pleasing. There was also my own eagerness to get married. And as
everything that my father did then struck me as beyond reproach, the
recollection of those things is fresh in my memory. I can picture to myself, even
today, how we sat on our wedding dais, how we performed the Saptapadi,4 how
we, the newly wedded husband and wife, put the sweet Kansar5 into each
other’s mouth, and how we began to live together, and oh! that first night. Two
innocent children all unwittingly hurled themselves into the ocean of life. My
brother’s wife had thoroughly coached me about my behaviour on the first
night. I do not know who had coached my wife. I have never asked her about it,
nor am I inclined to do so now. The reader may be sure that we were too
nervous to face each other. We were certainly too shy. How was I to talk to her,
and what was I to say? The coaching could not carry me far. But no coaching is
really necessary in such matters. The impressions of the former birth are potent
enough to make all coaching superfluous. We gradually began to know each
other, and to speak freely together. We were the same age. But I took no time in
assuming the authority of a husband.

FROM NALALA YOUSAFZAI: I AM MALALA

1
A DAUGHTER IS BORN

When I was born, people in our village commiserated with my

mother and nobody congratulated my father. I arrived at dawn as
the last star blinked out. We Pashtuns see this as an auspicious
sign. My father didn’t have any money for the hospital or for a
midwife, so a neighbor helped at my birth. My parents’ first child
was stillborn, but I popped out kicking and screaming. I was a girl
in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while
daughters are hidden away behind a curtain, their role in life
simply to prepare food and give birth to children.
For most Pashtuns it’s a gloomy day when a daughter is born.
My father’s cousin Jehan Sher Khan Yousafzai was one of the few
who came to celebrate my birth and even gave a handsome gift
of money. Yet, he brought with him a vast family tree of our clan,
the Dalokhel Yousafzai, going right back to my great-great-
grandfather and showing only the male line. My father, Ziauddin,
is different from most Pashtun men. He took the tree, drew a line
like a lollipop from his name and at the end of it he wrote,
“Malala.” His cousin laughed in astonishment. My father didn’t
care. He says he looked into my eyes after I was born and fell in
love. He told people, “I know there is something different about
this child.” He even asked friends to throw dried fruits, sweets
and coins into my cradle, something we usually only do for boys.
I was named after Malalai of Maiwand, the greatest heroine of
Afghanistan. Pashtuns are a proud people of many tribes split
between Pakistan and Afghanistan. We live as we have for
centuries by a code called Pashtunwali, which obliges us to give
hospitality to all guests and in which the most important value is
nang, or honor. The worst thing that can happen to a Pashtun is
loss of face. Shame is a very terrible thing for a Pashtun man. We
have a saying, “Without honor, the world counts for nothing.” We
fight and feud among ourselves so much that our word for cousin
—tarbur—is the same as our word for enemy. But we always
come together against outsiders who try to conquer our lands. All
Pashtun children grow up with the story of how Malalai inspired
the Afghan army to defeat the British in 1880 in one of the
biggest battles of the Second Anglo-Afghan War.
Malalai was the daughter of a shepherd in Maiwand, a small
town on the dusty plains west of Kandahar. When she was a
teenager, both her father and the man she was supposed to
marry were among thousands of Afghans fighting against the
British occupation of their country. Malalai went to the battlefield
with other women from the village to tend the wounded and take
them water. She saw their men were losing, and when the flag
bearer fell she lifted her white veil up high and marched onto the
battlefield in front of the troops.
“Young love!” she shouted. “If you do not fall in the battle of
Maiwand then, by God, someone is saving you as a symbol of
shame.”
Malalai was killed under fire, but her words and bravery inspired
the men to turn the battle around. They destroyed an entire
brigade, one of the worst defeats in the history of the British
army. The Afghans were so proud that the last Afghan king built a
Maiwand victory monument in the center of Kabul. In high school I
read some Sherlock Holmes and laughed to see that this was the
same battle where Dr. Watson was wounded before becoming
partner to the great detective. In Malalai we Pashtuns have our
very own Joan of Arc. Many girls’ schools in Afghanistan are
named after her. But my grandfather, who was a religious scholar
and village cleric, didn’t like my father giving me that name. “It’s
a sad name,” he said. “It means grief-stricken.”
When I was a baby my father used to sing me a song written by
the famous poet Rahmat Shah Sayel of Peshawar. The last verse
ends,
O Malalai of Maiwand,
Rise once more to make Pashtuns understand the song of
honor,
Your poetic words turn worlds around,
I beg you, rise again
My father told the story of Malalai to anyone who came to our
house. I loved hearing the story and the songs my father sang to
me, and the way my name floated on the wind when people
called it.

We lived in the most beautiful place in all the world. My valley,

the Swat Valley, is a heavenly kingdom of mountains, gushing
waterfalls and crystal-clear lakes. WELCOME TO PARADISE, it says
on a sign as you enter the valley. In olden times Swat was called
Uddyana, which means “garden.” We have fields of wildflowers,
orchards of delicious fruit, emerald mines and rivers full of trout.
People often call Swat the Switzerland of the East—we even had
Pakistan’s first ski resort. The rich people of Pakistan came on
holiday to enjoy our clean air and scenery and our Sufi festivals of
music and dancing. And so did many foreigners, all of whom we
called angrezan—“English”—wherever they came from. Even the
queen of England came, and stayed in the White Palace that was
built from the same marble as the Taj Mahal by our king, the first
wali, or ruler, of Swat.
We have a special history too. Today Swat is part of the
province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, or KPK, as many Pakistanis call
it, but Swat used to be separate from the rest of Pakistan. We
were once a princely state, one of three with the neighboring
lands of Chitral and Dir. In colonial times our kings owed
allegiance to the British but ruled their own land. When the British
gave India independence in 1947 and divided it, we went with the
newly created Pakistan but stayed autonomous. We used the
Pakistani rupee, but the government of Pakistan could only
intervene on foreign policy. The wali administered justice, kept
the peace between warring tribes, and collected ushur—a tax of
10 percent of income—with which he built roads, hospitals and
schools.
We were only a hundred miles from Pakistan’s capital Islamabad
as the crow flies, but it felt as if it were in another country. The
journey took at least five hours by road over the Malakand Pass, a
vast bowl of mountains where long ago our ancestors led by a
preacher called Mullah Saidullah (known by the British as the Mad
Fakir) battled British forces among the craggy peaks. Among
them was Winston Churchill, who wrote a book about it, and we
still call one of the peaks Churchill’s Picket even though he was
not very complimentary about our people. At the end of the pass
is a green-domed shrine where people throw coins to give thanks
for their safe arrival.
No one I knew had been to Islamabad. Before the troubles
came, most people, like my mother, had never been outside
Swat.
We lived in Mingora, the biggest town in the valley, in fact the
only city. It used to be a small place, but many people had moved
in from surrounding villages, making it dirty and crowded. It has
hotels, colleges, a nearby golf course and a famous bazaar for
buying our traditional embroidery, gemstones and anything you
can think of. The Marghazar stream loops through it, milky brown
from the plastic bags and rubbish thrown into it. It is not clear like
the streams in the hilly areas or like the wide River Swat just
outside town, where people fished for trout and which we visited
on holidays. Our house was in Gulkada, which means “place of
flowers,” but it used to be called Butkara, or “place of the
Buddhist statues.” Near our home was a field scattered with
mysterious ruins—statues of lions on their haunches, broken
columns, headless figures and, oddest of all, hundreds of stone
umbrellas.
 Islam came to our valley in the eleventh century when Sultan
Mahmud of Ghazni invaded from Afghanistan and became our
ruler, but in ancient times Swat was a Buddhist kingdom. The
Buddhists had arrived here in the second century and their kings
ruled the valley for more than 500 years. Chinese explorers wrote
stories of how there were 1,400 Buddhist monasteries along the
banks of the River Swat, and the magical sound of temple bells
would ring out across the valley. The temples are long gone, but
almost anywhere you go in Swat, amid all the primroses and other
wildflowers, you find their remains. We would often picnic among
rock carvings of a smiling fat Buddha sitting cross-legged on a
lotus flower. There are many stories that Lord Buddha himself
came here because it is a place of such peace, and some of his
ashes are said to be buried in the valley in a giant stupa.
Our Butkara ruins were a magical place to play hide-and-seek.
Once some foreign archaeologists arrived to do some work there
and told us that in times gone by it was a place of pilgrimage, full
of beautiful temples domed with gold where Buddhist kings lay
buried. My father wrote a poem, “The Relics of Butkara,” which
summed up perfectly how temple and mosque could exist side by
side: “When the voice of truth rises from the minarets, / The
Buddha smiles, / And the broken chain of history reconnects.”
We lived in the shadow of the Hindu Kush mountains, where the
men went to shoot ibex and golden cockerels. Our house was one
story and proper concrete. On the left were steps up to a flat roof
big enough for us children to play cricket on. It was our
playground. At dusk my father and his friends often gathered to
sit and drink tea there. Sometimes I sat on the roof too, watching
the smoke rise from the cooking fires all around and listening to
the nightly racket of the crickets.
Our valley is full of fruit trees on which grow the sweetest figs
and pomegranates and peaches, and in our garden we had
grapes, guavas and persimmons. There was a plum tree in our
front yard which gave the most delicious fruit. It was always a
race between us and the birds to get to them. The birds loved
that tree. Even the woodpeckers.
For as long as I can remember my mother has talked to birds. At
the back of the house was a veranda where the women gathered.
We knew what it was like to be hungry, so my mother always
cooked extra and gave food to poor families. If there was any left
she fed it to the birds. In Pashto we love to sing tapae, two-line
poems, and as she scattered the rice she would sing one: “Don’t
kill doves in the garden. / You kill one and the others won’t
come.”
I liked to sit on the roof and watch the mountains and dream.
The highest mountain of all is the pyramid-shaped Mount Elum.
To us it’s a sacred mountain and so high that it always wears a
necklace of fleecy clouds. Even in summer it’s frosted with snow.
At school we learned that in 327 BC, even before the Buddhists
came to Swat, Alexander the Great swept into the valley with
thousands of elephants and soldiers on his way from Afghanistan
to the Indus. The Swati people fled up the mountain, believing
they would be protected by their gods because it was so high. But
Alexander was a determined and patient leader. He built a
wooden ramp from which his catapults and arrows could reach
the top of the mountain. Then he climbed up so he could catch
hold of the star of Jupiter as a symbol of his power.
From the rooftop I watched the mountains change with the
seasons. In the autumn chill winds would come. In the winter
everything was white snow, long icicles hanging from the roof like
daggers, which we loved to snap off. We raced around, building
snowmen and snow bears and trying to catch snowflakes. Spring
was when Swat was at its greenest. Eucalyptus blossom blew into
the house, coating everything white, and the wind carried the
pungent smell of the rice fields. I was born in summer, which was
perhaps why it was my favorite time of year, even though in
Mingora summer was hot and dry and the stream stank where
people dumped their garbage.
When I was born we were very poor. My father and a friend had
founded their first school and we lived in a shabby shack of two
rooms opposite the school. I slept with my mother and father in
one room and the other was for guests. We had no bathroom or
kitchen, and my mother cooked on a wood fire on the ground and
washed our clothes at a tap in the school. Our home was always
full of people visiting from the village. Hospitality is an important
part of Pashtun culture.
Two years after I was born my brother Khushal arrived. Like me
he was born at home, as we still could not afford the hospital, and
he was named Khushal like my father’s school, after the Pashtun
hero Khushal Khan Khattak, a warrior and poet. My mother had
been waiting for a son and could not hide her joy when he was
born. To me he seemed very thin and small, like a reed that could
snap in the wind, but he was the apple of her eye, her niazbeen. It
seemed to me that his every wish was her command. He wanted
tea all the time, our traditional tea with milk and sugar and
cardamom, but even my mother tired of this and eventually made
some so bitter that he lost the taste for it. She wanted to buy a
new cradle for him—when I was born my father couldn’t afford
one, so they used an old wooden one from the neighbors which
was already third or fourth hand—but my father refused. “Malala
swung in that cradle,” he said. “So can he.” Then, nearly five
years later, another boy was born—Atal, bright-eyed and
inquisitive like a squirrel. After that, said my father, we were
complete. Three children is a small family by Swati standards,
where most people have seven or eight.
I played mostly with Khushal because he was just two years
younger than me, but we fought all the time. He would go crying
to my mother and I would go to my father. “What’s wrong, Jani?”
he would ask. Like him I was born double-jointed and can bend
my fingers right back on themselves. And my ankles click when I
walk, which makes adults squirm.
My mother is very beautiful and my father adored her as if she
were a fragile china vase, never laying a hand on her, unlike
many of our men. Her name Toor Pekai means “raven tresses”
even though her hair is chestnut brown. My grandfather, Janser
Khan, had been listening to Radio Afghanistan just before she was
born and heard the name. I wished I had her white-lily skin, fine
features and green eyes, but instead had inherited the sallow
complexion, wide nose and brown eyes of my father. In our
culture we all have nicknames—aside from Pisho, which my
mother had called me since I was a baby, some of my cousins
called me Lachi, which is Pashto for “cardamom.” Black-skinned
people are often called white and short people tall. We have a
funny sense of humor. My father was known in the family as
Khaista Dada, which means “beautiful.”
When I was around four years old I asked my father, “Aba, what
color are you?” He replied, “I don’t know, a bit white, a bit black.”
“It’s like when one mixes milk with tea,” I said.
 He laughed a lot, but as a boy he had been so self-conscious
about being dark-skinned that he used to go to the fields to get
buffalo milk to spread on his face, thinking it would make him
lighter. It was only when he met my mother that he became
comfortable in his own skin. Being loved by such a beautiful girl
gave him confidence.
In our society marriages are usually arranged by families, but
theirs was a love match. I could listen endlessly to the story of
how they met. They came from neighboring villages in a remote
valley in the upper Swat called Shangla and would see each other
when my mother went to visit her aunt—who was married to my
father’s uncle and who lived next door to my father. They
glimpsed enough of each other to know they liked one another,
but for us it is taboo to express such things. Instead he sent her
poems she could not read.
“I admired his mind,” she says.
“And me, her beauty,” he laughs.
There was one big problem. My two grandfathers did not get on.
So when my father announced his desire to ask for the hand of
my mother, Toor Pekai, it was clear neither side would welcome
the marriage. His own father said it was up to him and agreed to
send a barber as a messenger, which is the traditional way we
Pashtuns do this. Malik Janser Khan refused the proposal, but my
father is a stubborn man and persuaded my grandfather to send
the barber again. Janser Khan’s hujra was a gathering place for
people to talk politics, and my father was often there, so they had
got to know each other. He made him wait nine months but finally
agreed.
My mother comes from a family of strong women as well as
influential men. Her grandmother—my great-grandmother—was
widowed when her children were young, and her eldest son,
Janser Khan, was locked up because of a tribal feud with another
family when he was only twenty-five. To get him released she
walked forty miles alone over mountains to appeal to a powerful
cousin. I think my mother would do the same for us. Though she
cannot read or write, my father shares everything with her, telling
her about his day, the good and the bad. She teases him a lot and
gives him advice about who she thinks is a genuine friend and
who is not, and my father says she is always right. Most Pashtun
men never do this, as sharing problems with women is seen as
weak. “He even asks his wife!” they say as an insult. I see my
parents happy and laughing a lot. People would see us and say
we are a sweet family.
My mother is very pious and prays five times a day, though not
in the mosque, as that is only for the men. She disapproves of
dancing because she says God would not like it, but she loves to
decorate herself with pretty things, embroidered clothes and
golden necklaces and bangles. I think I am a bit of a
disappointment to her, as I am so like my father and don’t bother
with clothes and jewels. I get bored going to the bazaar, but I love
to dance behind closed doors with my school friends.
Growing up we children spent most of our time with our mother.
My father was out a lot, as he was busy, not just with his school,
but also with literary societies and jirgas, as well as trying to save
the environment, trying to save our valley. My father came from a
backward village, yet through education and force of personality
he made a good living for us and a name for himself.
People liked to hear him talk, and I loved the evenings when
guests visited. We would sit on the floor around a long plastic
sheet which my mother laid with food, and eat with our right
hands, as is our custom, balling together rice and meat. As
darkness fell we sat by the light of oil lamps, batting away the
flies as our silhouettes made dancing shadows on the walls. In the
summer months there would often be thunder and lightning
crashing outside and I would crawl closer to my father’s knee.
I would listen, rapt, as he told stories of warring tribes, Pashtun
leaders and saints, often through poems that he read in a
melodious voice, crying sometimes as he read. Like most people
in Swat we are from the Yousafzai tribe. We Yousafzai (which
some people spell Yusufzai or Yousufzai) are originally from
Kandahar and are one of the biggest Pashtun tribes, spread
across Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Our ancestors came to Swat in the sixteenth century from
Kabul, where they had helped a Timurid emperor win back his
throne after his own tribe removed him. The emperor rewarded
them with important positions in the court and army, but his
friends and relatives warned him that the Yousafzai were
becoming so powerful they would overthrow him. So one night he
invited all the chiefs to a banquet and set his men on them while
they were eating. Around 600 chiefs were massacred. Only two
escaped, and they fled to Peshawar along with their tribesmen.
After some time they went to visit some tribes in Swat to win their
support so they could return to Afghanistan. But they were so
captivated by the beauty of Swat they instead decided to stay
there and forced the other tribes out.
The Yousafzai divided up all the land among the male members
of the tribe. It was a peculiar system called wesh under which
every five or ten years all the families would swap villages and
redistribute the land of the new village among the men so that
everyone had the chance to work on good as well as bad land. It
was thought this would then keep rival clans from fighting.
Villages were ruled by khans, and the common people, craftsmen
and laborers, were their tenants. They had to pay them rent in
kind, usually a share of their crop. They also had to help the
khans form a militia by providing an armed man for every small
plot of land. Each khan kept hundreds of armed men both for
feuds and to raid and loot other villages.
As the Yousafzai in Swat had no ruler, there were constant feuds
between the khans and even within their own families. Our men
all have rifles though these days don’t walk around with them like
they do in other Pashtun areas, and my great-grandfather used to
tell stories of gun battles when he was a boy. In the early part of
the last century they became worried about being taken over by
the British, who by then controlled most of the surrounding lands.
They were also tired of the endless bloodshed. So they decided to
try and find an impartial man to rule the whole area and resolve
their disputes.
After a couple of rulers who did not work out, in 1917 the chiefs
settled on a man called Miangul Abdul Wadood as their king. We
know him affectionately as Badshah Sahib, and though he was
completely illiterate, he managed to bring peace to the valley.
Taking a rifle away from a Pashtun is like taking away his life, so
he could not disarm the tribes. Instead he built forts on mountains
all across Swat and created an army. He was recognized by the
British as the head of state in 1926 and installed as wali. He set
up the first telephone system and built the first primary school
and ended the wesh system because the constant moving
between villages meant no one could sell land or had any
incentive to build better houses or plant fruit trees.
In 1949, two years after the creation of Pakistan, he abdicated
in favor of his elder son, Miangul Abdul Haq Jehanzeb. My father
always says, “While Badshah Sahib brought peace, his son
brought prosperity.” We think of Jehanzeb’s reign as a golden
period in our history. He had studied in a British school in
Peshawar, and perhaps because his own father was illiterate he
was passionate about schools and built many, as well as hospitals
and roads. In the 1950s he ended the system where people paid
taxes to the khans. But there was no freedom of expression, and
if anyone criticized the wali, they could be expelled from the
valley. In 1969, the year my father was born, the wali gave up
power and we became part of Pakistan’s North West Frontier
Province, which a few years ago changed its name to Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa.
So I was born a proud daughter of Pakistan, though like all
Swatis I thought of myself first as Swati and then Pashtun, before
Pakistani.

Near us on our street there was a family with a girl my age

called Safina and two boys similar in age to my brothers, Babar
and Basit. We all played cricket on the street or rooftops together,
but I knew as we got older the girls would be expected to stay
inside. We’d be expected to cook and serve our brothers and
fathers. While boys and men could roam freely about town, my
mother and I could not go out without a male relative to
accompany us, even if it was a five-year-old boy! This was the
tradition.
I had decided very early I would not be like that. My father
always said, “Malala will be free as a bird.” I dreamed of going to
the top of Mount Elum like Alexander the Great to touch Jupiter
and even beyond the valley. But, as I watched my brothers
running across the roof, flying their kites and skillfully flicking the
strings back and forth to cut each other’s down, I wondered how
free a daughter could ever be.
Love Cycle
by Chinua Achebe

At dawn slowly
the sun withdraws his
long misty arms of
embrace. Happy lovers

whose exertions leave

no aftertaste nor slush
of love’s combustion; Earth
perfumed in dewdrop
fragrance wakes

to whispers of
soft-eyed light…
Later he
will wear out his temper
ploughing the vast acres
of heaven and take it

out of her in burning

darts of anger. Long
accustomed to such caprice
she waits patiently

for evening when thoughts

of another night will
restore his mellowness
and her power
 over him.

Gitanjali 35

By Rabindranath Tagore

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;

Where knowledge is free;

Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic
walls;

Where words come out from the depth of truth;

Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;

Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way into the dreary desert
sand of dead habit;

Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and
action

Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.

Unit 2

Nine Gold Medals (Poem) by David Roth

The athletes had come from all over the country

To run for the gold, for the silver and bronze

Many weeks and months of training

All coming down to these games.

The spectators gathered around the old field

To cheer on all the young women and men

The final event of the day was approaching

Excitement grew high to begin.

The blocks were all lined up for those who would use them

The hundred-yard dash and the race to be run

These were nine resolved athletes in back of the starting line

Poised for the sound of the gun.

The signal was given, the pistol exploded

And so did the runners all charging ahead

But the smallest among them, he stumbled and staggered

And fell to the asphalt instead.

He gave out a cry in frustration and anguish

His dreams and his efforts all dashed in the dirt

But as sure as I’m standing here telling this story

The same goes for what next occurred.

The eight other runners pulled up on their heels

The ones who had trained for so long to compete

One by one they all turned around and went back to help him

And brought the young boy to his feet.

Then all the nine runners joined hands and continued

The hundred-yard dash now reduced to a walk

And a banner above that said (Special Olympics)

Could not have been more on the mark.

That’s how the race ended, with nine gold medals

They came to the finish line holding hands still

And a standing ovation and nine beaming faces

Said more than these words ever will.

Alice Fell, Or Poverty

The post-boy drove with fierce career,

For threatening clouds the moon had drowned;

When, as we hurried on, my ear

Was smitten with a startling sound.

As if the wind blew many ways,

I heard the sound,-and more and more;

It seemed to follow with the chaise,

And still I heard it as before.

At length I to the boy called out;

He stopped his horses at the word,

But neither cry, nor voice, nor shout,

Nor aught else like it, could be heard.

The boy then smacked his whip, and fast

The horses scampered through the rain;

But, hearing soon upon the blast

The cry, I bade him halt again.

Forthwith alighting on the ground,

"Whence comes," said I, "this piteous moan?"

And there a little Girl I found,

Sitting behind the chaise, alone.

"My cloak!" no other word she spake,

But loud and bitterly she wept,

As if her innocent heart would break;

And down from off her seat she leapt.

"What ails you, child?"-she sobbed "Look here!"

I saw it in the wheel entangled,

A weather-beaten rag as e'er

From any garden scare-crow dangled.

There, twisted between nave and spoke,

It hung, nor could at once be freed;

But our joint pains unloosed the cloak,

A miserable rag indeed!

"And whither are you going, child,

To-night alone these lonesome ways?"

"To Durham," answered she, half wild-

"Then come with me into the chaise."

Insensible to all relief

Sat the poor girl, and forth did send

Sob after sob, as if her grief

Could never, never have an end.

"My child, in Durham do you dwell?"

She checked herself in her distress,

And said, "My name is Alice Fell;

I'm fatherless and motherless.

"And I to Durham, Sir, belong."

Again, as if the thought would choke

Her very heart, her grief grew strong;

And all was for her tattered cloak!

The chaise drove on; our journey's end

Was nigh; and, sitting by my side,

As if she had lost her only friend

She wept, nor would be pacified.

Up to the tavern-door we post;

Of Alice and her grief I told;

And I gave money to the host,

To buy a new cloak for the old.

"And let it be of duffil grey,

As warm a cloak as man can sell!"

Proud creature was she the next day,

The little orphan, Alice Fell!