Some Time On The Frontier—A Pakistan Journal
I HAD FIRST gone to Lahore on a lark. It was with one of the few foreign friends I had in Pakistan, an English journalist. I had been in Pakistan’s ancient Mughal city often before as a stopping off and overnight watering spot on journeys between Afghanistan and India, but never just to Lahore, the garden city. Never just for the sake of being in Lahore.
And it was more than just for the sake of being in Lahore that we were there. Of course we wanted to see the sights of Lahore, a historic city, the capital of the Punjab for nearly a thousand years. The Mughal emperor Akbar had held his court there for fourteen years, from 1584 to 1598. He built the Lahore Fort at that time as his imperial residence. A city famous for its beautiful mosques, tombs, gardens, the fort, and the rich variety of its many storied and intriguing bazaars. One of these bazaars, the infamous Hira Mandi, we were especially keen on investigating.
We had heard many intriguing tales about Hira Mandi, literally the diamond market. The nautch houses of dancing girls and as Pakistanis themselves say, ‘loose character women,’ are there. In more direct words, the red light district. This mecca of the senses has been known since Mughal times, maybe before. Sensual pleasures are as old as sin, and as seductively enticing. Historically patronized by maharajahs and men of power, it has also been a place where female lonely men could come to get a sight and a taste of the forbidden. Forbidden fruit is the sweetest, is it not?
In olden days it seethed with sensuality. Prostitution was condoned here until the mid-seventies, when certain religious parties pressured ex-Prime Minister Zulfigar Ali Bhutto, (executed by President-General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq after Zia seized control of the government in 1976), to openly crack down on immorality.
Now in these days of Islamization, this time old art is much more restrained. Prostitution is illegal and women are banned from dancing in public. The area of Hira Mandi (also known as Shahi Mohallah) is now heavily patrolled by Pakistani vice-cops. But the action still exists and can still be found on several back streets that run behind the Badshahi Mosque. Only now, we had to be careful our ethnic research wouldn’t find us in the hands of the law.
Police in groups patrol the area on foot, or stand around watching the public, smoking cigarettes and chatting, waiting it seems for some flagrant example of moral decadence. No cars are allowed to leave the area without being checked to see if girls are being smuggled out of Hira Mandi. Yet these visual deterrents seem to have little effect. An unspoken laissez faire. ‘Look, but don’t touch.’ By 10 p.m. the narrow streets are crammed with strolling men, cruising, looking for action, Pakistani style. Men that is, only men... and of course, in the business establishments are the girls...
THE GIRLS YOU see in all shades of satins and silks, sparkling in sequins and rhinestones. Filmy Punjabi shalwar kameez and smoky flowing gossamer thin dupattas, heavily made-up and glittering golden bejeweled. They sit in upper-story windows and balconies, looking down, looking enticing. Some sit and smoke, taking their ease, not paying any attention to the men walking below gazing up at them longingly. Others beckon coyly with surma rimmed luminous eyes sparkling, their red voluptuous lips mouthing unheard half-imagined words of encouragement.
This warren of windy streets is a remnant of another age. The houses lean half-hazardously against one another. Stairways and dimly lit passageways lead to the various rooms. Downstairs the musicians are warming up. They are mostly dark skinned swarthy Punjabis, gold loop earrings and greasy black hair, plump from years of sitting and plying their trade, lips and rotted teeth stained dried blood red with betel juice.
Tabla, dholak, sitar, harmonium, sarangi, and tambourine. The shimmering sounds of the ghungrughan (leather leggings covered with rows of small shincay brass bells, fastened to the dancing girls’ ankles). With gracefully arched bare feet they stomp out the rhythms, dancing to the accompaniment of the pulsing drums. Fat madames sitting on plush cushions, faces painted, ostentatious rings on corpulent fingers, silver filigreed paan boxes by their sides, watch the doorways for potential customers.
By eleven thirty the dancing starts. The hypnotizing beat of the drums and dholaks mix and carry down the streets. In front of the houses the drone of the harmoniums, the plaintive whine of a sitar or wail of the sarangi can be heard calling their individual melodies. The fronts of the houses are open on the bottom floor and brightly lit behind veils and curtains of transparent smoke-like fabrics of all hues.
The street is a surging press of humanity, predominately male. Vendors, beggars, food, lights, colors, girls... cars slowly squeezing between the massed people. The pounding of drums and the ringing of bells bedazzle our senses. We change money on the street from one of the many money changers with their glass-covered card table size cases filled with wads of crisp new rupee notes. Ones, fives, and tens, held together with thin rubber bands stretched to the breaking point. Money to shower the dancing girls, the key to keep them spinning. It’s never free to enter these rooms. Nor is it free, sometimes, to leave.
We walk up and down the streets, looking in, trying to pick some girls we like. We linger in front of an establishment, watching. The madame leans on her golden brocaded cushion and spits blood red paan juice into a shinny silver spittoon.
"Come on in sons." she croons.
We step up and cross the smooth linoleum covered floor and sit on richly stuffed cushions. The girls are dressed in beautifully bright scintillating satins. Gold nose rings and jangling golden earrings and chains. Long thick luxurious hair, plaited down shimmering satin covered backs, silken gold or silver tassels twisted in the ends.
The room we have picked has only two dancing girls, though some houses have as many as half a dozen. As long as we keep showering them with money, they keep dancing. A young barely teen-aged girl brings us chai.
The dancers are caught up in the rhythms and tempos of the drums and twirling, their glittering hair plaits streaming out behind them. They dance up to us, suggestively gyrating in our faces and laps, the smell of their flowers and perfume heady in our heads. As they coax and tease us more, we carelessly toss the remainder of the money we’ve changed. Larger notes are drawn from our pockets. They rub up to us, plucking the money from our pockets and off our laps. It’s loud and garish, ethereal, very ethnic, and from my experiences in Pakistan over the last twelve years, a sumptuously surreal flash from the past, entertainment of the maharajahs.
LIVING IN AN Islamic country is great. It’s my choice. Being a Muslim, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I like the culture, the unity, the brotherhood, the respect and awareness of God. But being raised on the western ideals of romance, it does seem Islam and the culture doesn’t leave much room for a romantic relationship in Pakistan. As to what I’ve seen, it’s practically impossible to have a girlfriend here. That is a woman as a friend, let alone a romantic relationship. Most people can’t seem to relate to platonic relationships between men and women.
Marriage is the only way. And love isn’t the main factor in a marriage here. It’s the family unit, the clan, the tribe that is important. Most marriages are arranged or decided by the family. Divorce is very uncommon and rather unacceptable. It isn’t so easy to make a mistake in marriage here and then divorce your way out. Not many children suffer the broken home syndrome here. This is what I see.
Now, as two (foreign) Peshawari bachelors, I must admit besides the temptation of seeing a colorful exotic leftover relic of another era we were intrigued to suss out, as they say, ‘the world’s oldest profession’. Does it still exist here in Lahore? In Islamic Pakistan? Out of curiosity. Out of adventure. Out of cultural research. To see if we could get laid. We figured we’d give it a go, even though neither of us had much experience in, how you say, ‘whoring’.
We were told though, dancing is at night in Hira Mandi. Any other business is conducted during the day.
OUR FIRST DAY walking in Hira Mandi we are approached on the streets several times by agents - sleazy Punjabi junky types. Dirty and slovenly.
"You want to go?" they say in Urdu, coming up and walking beside us.
"Where?" we naively answer.
"Girls! Nice young girls. You want to go?"
Too sleazy. Maybe dangerous. This is THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN. Walking in Hira Mandi isn’t like cruising Sunset Strip back in Los Angeles. Here, if the police catch you involved in more than just looking, it could spell real trouble. Jail, or a flogging. For a foreigner, most likely deportation. This isn’t America. I didn’t want to think about it too much. Being green in this field even in the countries of our birth, we assuredly didn’t know the ropes here. What could happen? We kept an eye over our shoulders for police or plainclothes followers. Maybe the agent will set us up with the police. I didn’t know yet how the game was played.
In a Pathan tea house we meet one young, slick, well dressed, clean looking agent. He tells us if we want girls, to come back in the morning. It is already afternoon and getting much too close to the night.
The next morning, in the name of cultural research, and by now mostly just plain curiosity, we go back to the Pathan tea house. Our agent isn’t there. We sit in the smoky, cramped tea house drinking qawah and watching the clientele. They mostly seem to be junkie types, burnt out and wasted by the years, miles, or other substances. The pungent acrid smell of heroin mixed with cheap tobacco hangs heavily in the air. We’re dedicated to our research though, and we end up with a sleazy, stubbly chinned agent.
He takes us to a house. We sit in the front room. A young man comes into the room and greets us. Then a girl comes in. She’s Pathan. She isn’t bad looking, though she appears to have just woken up. There is no trace of makeup on her sleepy face and her jet black hair is disheveled. The fellow who greeted us tells us she is his wife. My companion and I exchange glances. We agree to leave. No inspiration here, no feeling, no magic for sure.
We leave to wander the dark narrow cobbled lanes and alleys of old Lahore. I go to the Badshahi Mosque for the Juma (Friday) prayer. The Badshahi Mosque (Emperor's Mosque) is the congregational mosque built by the Emperor Aurangzeb (Alamgir), grandson of Akbar, in 1673-4, to the west of Lahore Fort. It has one of the largest open courtyards of any mosque in the Islamic world (capable of accommodating over 55,000 worshipers). The architecture and design of the Badshahi Mosque is closely related to the Jama Masjid in Delhi, India, which was built in 1648 by Aurangzeb's father and predecessor, Emperor Shah Jahan. A few thousand pray the Juma prayer.
We then go back to the tea house for one last try. We sit and drink more qawah. Our agent from yesterday comes in. We finish. He pays for our tea and we go. The three of us walk to the end of Hira Mandi Bazaar where we get into a rickshaw and head out of the old city toward the outskirts of town. We are conversing with him in Urdu and Pashtu. He is Pathan, but my limited Pashtu doesn’t feel adequate. I don’t know Lahore, don’t know where we are. Eventually we come to a dead end dirt alley with a shamiyana tent blocking the way. We leave the rickshaw and squeeze between the tent and a brick wall, following the agent through a wooden doorway and down three steps into a room.
The room is furnished with big, upholstered chairs and a double bed with a wooden headboard inlaid with floral designs in brass. A rainbow colored Afghan knit bedspread covers it. There is a bureau with a mirror on it against the wall. Another doorway leads into a garden. We sit on the cushioned chairs across from the bed. The agent sits on the end next to my friend. Two girls come in to sit in front of us. Another two are standing at the garden door.
The agent is telling us the price, but I can only stare at the girl sitting in front of me on the edge of the bed. I fall right into her deep dark liquid pool eyes. Her hair, dark and damp, falls in moist long ringlets over her shoulders. She’s drying it with a towel over her shoulder. She is dressed in pure white satin.
My heart is immediately caught in her silvery sparkling smile and large luminous eyes. There seems to be some instantaneous spark between us. I look at the other three girls, but all I can see now is this girl with the dark glistening eyes and inky silk hair, surrounded in a vision of white satin. She seems to be in charge. I’m not sure if she is even for the picking, but it’s too late. She’s my only choice.
"What do you think about the price?" my friend asks me. "It is rather dear."
It is more than we had imagined it would be, but by now I’m in a world where money has no real value.
"I like her." I state, without taking my gaze off the girl in front of me. "If you want one of the others, go ahead. If she is available, I’m ready."
I look at her and smile.
"Do you like?" she smiles back into me.
"I like you." I say.
A silvery laugh... "I don’t work, I only negotiate. This is my family’s business. It is my job. Now what do you like?"
"I still like you!" I state again.
"Wait." she says and leaves the room.
AND THEN WE'RE sitting in the room together, alone on the bed. She gets up to close the door. I don’t know what to expect. I put my vest, with my money and passport, on the far corner of the bed. I’m not sure if somebody may sneak in to snatch it while we’re involved. I don’t want to take chances. Maybe the police will come in? This is all new to me.
She sits on the bed next to me and takes my hand. I stroke my other hand along her satin covered leg. She smiles into my eyes. She’s warm, soft, and sleek. I can’t keep from falling into her lustrous eyes.
Falling forever.
Noor Mohammad Khan was born in Los Angeles and became a Muslim in 1978 in Kabul, Afghanistan. There he submerged himself deeply into the culture, studying music, learning the language, doing field recording, and dealing in handicrafts (1975-1979). After years of playing various instruments, his love focused on the Afghan rabab. He lived in Peshawar, Pakistan (Northwest Frontier Province) from 1982-1992, where he played with local musicians and had a music recording studio. He still has a house in the heart of the old city. In 1988/89, he helped organize The Karakoram Equestrian Expedition, where he served as a translator and chargé d’affaires (cum sidekick). With two other American Muslim convert friends and a Pakistani friend he made a 1000 mile (1600 km) five month horse trip through the mountains of Northern Pakistan; Kalash, Chitral, Gilgit, Kaghan Valley, and Azad Kashmir. He currently lives in San Francisco with his Thai wife and son, with occasional visits to Pakistan. His deep connection and love for Pakistan remains unbroken. (More information about his book here.)
I HAD FIRST gone to Lahore on a lark. It was with one of the few foreign friends I had in Pakistan, an English journalist. I had been in Pakistan’s ancient Mughal city often before as a stopping off and overnight watering spot on journeys between Afghanistan and India, but never just to Lahore, the garden city. Never just for the sake of being in Lahore.
And it was more than just for the sake of being in Lahore that we were there. Of course we wanted to see the sights of Lahore, a historic city, the capital of the Punjab for nearly a thousand years. The Mughal emperor Akbar had held his court there for fourteen years, from 1584 to 1598. He built the Lahore Fort at that time as his imperial residence. A city famous for its beautiful mosques, tombs, gardens, the fort, and the rich variety of its many storied and intriguing bazaars. One of these bazaars, the infamous Hira Mandi, we were especially keen on investigating.
We had heard many intriguing tales about Hira Mandi, literally the diamond market. The nautch houses of dancing girls and as Pakistanis themselves say, ‘loose character women,’ are there. In more direct words, the red light district. This mecca of the senses has been known since Mughal times, maybe before. Sensual pleasures are as old as sin, and as seductively enticing. Historically patronized by maharajahs and men of power, it has also been a place where female lonely men could come to get a sight and a taste of the forbidden. Forbidden fruit is the sweetest, is it not?
In olden days it seethed with sensuality. Prostitution was condoned here until the mid-seventies, when certain religious parties pressured ex-Prime Minister Zulfigar Ali Bhutto, (executed by President-General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq after Zia seized control of the government in 1976), to openly crack down on immorality.
Now in these days of Islamization, this time old art is much more restrained. Prostitution is illegal and women are banned from dancing in public. The area of Hira Mandi (also known as Shahi Mohallah) is now heavily patrolled by Pakistani vice-cops. But the action still exists and can still be found on several back streets that run behind the Badshahi Mosque. Only now, we had to be careful our ethnic research wouldn’t find us in the hands of the law.
Police in groups patrol the area on foot, or stand around watching the public, smoking cigarettes and chatting, waiting it seems for some flagrant example of moral decadence. No cars are allowed to leave the area without being checked to see if girls are being smuggled out of Hira Mandi. Yet these visual deterrents seem to have little effect. An unspoken laissez faire. ‘Look, but don’t touch.’ By 10 p.m. the narrow streets are crammed with strolling men, cruising, looking for action, Pakistani style. Men that is, only men... and of course, in the business establishments are the girls...
THE GIRLS YOU see in all shades of satins and silks, sparkling in sequins and rhinestones. Filmy Punjabi shalwar kameez and smoky flowing gossamer thin dupattas, heavily made-up and glittering golden bejeweled. They sit in upper-story windows and balconies, looking down, looking enticing. Some sit and smoke, taking their ease, not paying any attention to the men walking below gazing up at them longingly. Others beckon coyly with surma rimmed luminous eyes sparkling, their red voluptuous lips mouthing unheard half-imagined words of encouragement.
This warren of windy streets is a remnant of another age. The houses lean half-hazardously against one another. Stairways and dimly lit passageways lead to the various rooms. Downstairs the musicians are warming up. They are mostly dark skinned swarthy Punjabis, gold loop earrings and greasy black hair, plump from years of sitting and plying their trade, lips and rotted teeth stained dried blood red with betel juice.
Tabla, dholak, sitar, harmonium, sarangi, and tambourine. The shimmering sounds of the ghungrughan (leather leggings covered with rows of small shincay brass bells, fastened to the dancing girls’ ankles). With gracefully arched bare feet they stomp out the rhythms, dancing to the accompaniment of the pulsing drums. Fat madames sitting on plush cushions, faces painted, ostentatious rings on corpulent fingers, silver filigreed paan boxes by their sides, watch the doorways for potential customers.
By eleven thirty the dancing starts. The hypnotizing beat of the drums and dholaks mix and carry down the streets. In front of the houses the drone of the harmoniums, the plaintive whine of a sitar or wail of the sarangi can be heard calling their individual melodies. The fronts of the houses are open on the bottom floor and brightly lit behind veils and curtains of transparent smoke-like fabrics of all hues.
The street is a surging press of humanity, predominately male. Vendors, beggars, food, lights, colors, girls... cars slowly squeezing between the massed people. The pounding of drums and the ringing of bells bedazzle our senses. We change money on the street from one of the many money changers with their glass-covered card table size cases filled with wads of crisp new rupee notes. Ones, fives, and tens, held together with thin rubber bands stretched to the breaking point. Money to shower the dancing girls, the key to keep them spinning. It’s never free to enter these rooms. Nor is it free, sometimes, to leave.
We walk up and down the streets, looking in, trying to pick some girls we like. We linger in front of an establishment, watching. The madame leans on her golden brocaded cushion and spits blood red paan juice into a shinny silver spittoon.
"Come on in sons." she croons.
We step up and cross the smooth linoleum covered floor and sit on richly stuffed cushions. The girls are dressed in beautifully bright scintillating satins. Gold nose rings and jangling golden earrings and chains. Long thick luxurious hair, plaited down shimmering satin covered backs, silken gold or silver tassels twisted in the ends.
The room we have picked has only two dancing girls, though some houses have as many as half a dozen. As long as we keep showering them with money, they keep dancing. A young barely teen-aged girl brings us chai.
The dancers are caught up in the rhythms and tempos of the drums and twirling, their glittering hair plaits streaming out behind them. They dance up to us, suggestively gyrating in our faces and laps, the smell of their flowers and perfume heady in our heads. As they coax and tease us more, we carelessly toss the remainder of the money we’ve changed. Larger notes are drawn from our pockets. They rub up to us, plucking the money from our pockets and off our laps. It’s loud and garish, ethereal, very ethnic, and from my experiences in Pakistan over the last twelve years, a sumptuously surreal flash from the past, entertainment of the maharajahs.
LIVING IN AN Islamic country is great. It’s my choice. Being a Muslim, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I like the culture, the unity, the brotherhood, the respect and awareness of God. But being raised on the western ideals of romance, it does seem Islam and the culture doesn’t leave much room for a romantic relationship in Pakistan. As to what I’ve seen, it’s practically impossible to have a girlfriend here. That is a woman as a friend, let alone a romantic relationship. Most people can’t seem to relate to platonic relationships between men and women.
Marriage is the only way. And love isn’t the main factor in a marriage here. It’s the family unit, the clan, the tribe that is important. Most marriages are arranged or decided by the family. Divorce is very uncommon and rather unacceptable. It isn’t so easy to make a mistake in marriage here and then divorce your way out. Not many children suffer the broken home syndrome here. This is what I see.
Now, as two (foreign) Peshawari bachelors, I must admit besides the temptation of seeing a colorful exotic leftover relic of another era we were intrigued to suss out, as they say, ‘the world’s oldest profession’. Does it still exist here in Lahore? In Islamic Pakistan? Out of curiosity. Out of adventure. Out of cultural research. To see if we could get laid. We figured we’d give it a go, even though neither of us had much experience in, how you say, ‘whoring’.
We were told though, dancing is at night in Hira Mandi. Any other business is conducted during the day.
OUR FIRST DAY walking in Hira Mandi we are approached on the streets several times by agents - sleazy Punjabi junky types. Dirty and slovenly.
"You want to go?" they say in Urdu, coming up and walking beside us.
"Where?" we naively answer.
"Girls! Nice young girls. You want to go?"
Too sleazy. Maybe dangerous. This is THE ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF PAKISTAN. Walking in Hira Mandi isn’t like cruising Sunset Strip back in Los Angeles. Here, if the police catch you involved in more than just looking, it could spell real trouble. Jail, or a flogging. For a foreigner, most likely deportation. This isn’t America. I didn’t want to think about it too much. Being green in this field even in the countries of our birth, we assuredly didn’t know the ropes here. What could happen? We kept an eye over our shoulders for police or plainclothes followers. Maybe the agent will set us up with the police. I didn’t know yet how the game was played.
In a Pathan tea house we meet one young, slick, well dressed, clean looking agent. He tells us if we want girls, to come back in the morning. It is already afternoon and getting much too close to the night.
The next morning, in the name of cultural research, and by now mostly just plain curiosity, we go back to the Pathan tea house. Our agent isn’t there. We sit in the smoky, cramped tea house drinking qawah and watching the clientele. They mostly seem to be junkie types, burnt out and wasted by the years, miles, or other substances. The pungent acrid smell of heroin mixed with cheap tobacco hangs heavily in the air. We’re dedicated to our research though, and we end up with a sleazy, stubbly chinned agent.
He takes us to a house. We sit in the front room. A young man comes into the room and greets us. Then a girl comes in. She’s Pathan. She isn’t bad looking, though she appears to have just woken up. There is no trace of makeup on her sleepy face and her jet black hair is disheveled. The fellow who greeted us tells us she is his wife. My companion and I exchange glances. We agree to leave. No inspiration here, no feeling, no magic for sure.
We leave to wander the dark narrow cobbled lanes and alleys of old Lahore. I go to the Badshahi Mosque for the Juma (Friday) prayer. The Badshahi Mosque (Emperor's Mosque) is the congregational mosque built by the Emperor Aurangzeb (Alamgir), grandson of Akbar, in 1673-4, to the west of Lahore Fort. It has one of the largest open courtyards of any mosque in the Islamic world (capable of accommodating over 55,000 worshipers). The architecture and design of the Badshahi Mosque is closely related to the Jama Masjid in Delhi, India, which was built in 1648 by Aurangzeb's father and predecessor, Emperor Shah Jahan. A few thousand pray the Juma prayer.
We then go back to the tea house for one last try. We sit and drink more qawah. Our agent from yesterday comes in. We finish. He pays for our tea and we go. The three of us walk to the end of Hira Mandi Bazaar where we get into a rickshaw and head out of the old city toward the outskirts of town. We are conversing with him in Urdu and Pashtu. He is Pathan, but my limited Pashtu doesn’t feel adequate. I don’t know Lahore, don’t know where we are. Eventually we come to a dead end dirt alley with a shamiyana tent blocking the way. We leave the rickshaw and squeeze between the tent and a brick wall, following the agent through a wooden doorway and down three steps into a room.
The room is furnished with big, upholstered chairs and a double bed with a wooden headboard inlaid with floral designs in brass. A rainbow colored Afghan knit bedspread covers it. There is a bureau with a mirror on it against the wall. Another doorway leads into a garden. We sit on the cushioned chairs across from the bed. The agent sits on the end next to my friend. Two girls come in to sit in front of us. Another two are standing at the garden door.
The agent is telling us the price, but I can only stare at the girl sitting in front of me on the edge of the bed. I fall right into her deep dark liquid pool eyes. Her hair, dark and damp, falls in moist long ringlets over her shoulders. She’s drying it with a towel over her shoulder. She is dressed in pure white satin.
My heart is immediately caught in her silvery sparkling smile and large luminous eyes. There seems to be some instantaneous spark between us. I look at the other three girls, but all I can see now is this girl with the dark glistening eyes and inky silk hair, surrounded in a vision of white satin. She seems to be in charge. I’m not sure if she is even for the picking, but it’s too late. She’s my only choice.
"What do you think about the price?" my friend asks me. "It is rather dear."
It is more than we had imagined it would be, but by now I’m in a world where money has no real value.
"I like her." I state, without taking my gaze off the girl in front of me. "If you want one of the others, go ahead. If she is available, I’m ready."
I look at her and smile.
"Do you like?" she smiles back into me.
"I like you." I say.
A silvery laugh... "I don’t work, I only negotiate. This is my family’s business. It is my job. Now what do you like?"
"I still like you!" I state again.
"Wait." she says and leaves the room.
AND THEN WE'RE sitting in the room together, alone on the bed. She gets up to close the door. I don’t know what to expect. I put my vest, with my money and passport, on the far corner of the bed. I’m not sure if somebody may sneak in to snatch it while we’re involved. I don’t want to take chances. Maybe the police will come in? This is all new to me.
She sits on the bed next to me and takes my hand. I stroke my other hand along her satin covered leg. She smiles into my eyes. She’s warm, soft, and sleek. I can’t keep from falling into her lustrous eyes.
Falling forever.
Noor Mohammad Khan was born in Los Angeles and became a Muslim in 1978 in Kabul, Afghanistan. There he submerged himself deeply into the culture, studying music, learning the language, doing field recording, and dealing in handicrafts (1975-1979). After years of playing various instruments, his love focused on the Afghan rabab. He lived in Peshawar, Pakistan (Northwest Frontier Province) from 1982-1992, where he played with local musicians and had a music recording studio. He still has a house in the heart of the old city. In 1988/89, he helped organize The Karakoram Equestrian Expedition, where he served as a translator and chargé d’affaires (cum sidekick). With two other American Muslim convert friends and a Pakistani friend he made a 1000 mile (1600 km) five month horse trip through the mountains of Northern Pakistan; Kalash, Chitral, Gilgit, Kaghan Valley, and Azad Kashmir. He currently lives in San Francisco with his Thai wife and son, with occasional visits to Pakistan. His deep connection and love for Pakistan remains unbroken. (More information about his book here.)
