‘The mobile music center’

Akhtar Ali Malang thinks he is a poet! Also he proudly tells people that he is a disciple of Rehman Baba, a mystic Pashto poet, known as the Nightingale of Peshawar, whose tomb was recently blown up by unknown militants in Peshawar.

Malang is often seen in the weekly and monthly held Pashto poetry reading gatherings near and around Peshawar, where he recites his funny poems and makes the audience laugh. The audience has to laugh either to his funny poems or his even more funny style. His pockets are always full of music cassettes and tiny tape recorders (and currently damaged mobile phones) which  and tiny rs and tiny rround Peshawar, where he recites his funny poems. he sells in village fairs. Village people know him as a ‘mobile music center,’ which he indeed is.

Homeless and having none to care about him, the Rehman Baba ziarat (mausoleum) is his favorite place in the world, where he stays like many other faqirs and homeless people, and music is his favorite pastime. Unfortunately, both of them (the tomb of Rehman Baba and music) are targeted by the militants these days across the whole Pashtoon belt. This angers him and he sometimes blurts condemning the militants.

This was exactly what happened a few days back. I saw him in a poetry reading gathering held in village hujra (a traditional place for men to gather) at Arbab Landi village on Ring Road, in Peshawar. When he was invited to read his poem, he stood and read a poem condemning the Taliban for ‘making troubles and destroying the tomb of Rehman Baba.’ Immediately, some Taliban-looking men, who later in their poems praised the Taliban and their militancy, on the other end of the gathering shouted at him in a threatening way and asked him to stop. Panicked, he fell silent.

But other people demanded him to read another poem. He rose, and again started reading but this time his mobile rang with a shriek. He left the poem and hurriedly went outside the hujra to attend the call, but only there he found that it was just a missed call. Some one had done monkey business with him. Disappointed, he stood there thinking what to do. That was the time when I went to him, encouraged him to read his poem to me and then got him posed for my camera.

Akhtar Ali Malang