SIkander Read online

  SIKANDER

  SIKANDER

  By

  M. Salahuddin Khan

  Fourth American Electronic Edition

  July 2012

  KARAKORAM PRESS, Lake Forest, IL

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance of fictitious characters, events, or locales, to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  SIKANDER copyright © 2011, 2012; KARAKORAM PRESS

  Cover art copyright © 2011, 2012; M. Salahuddin Khan

  Line Maps / Illustrations copyright © 2011, 2012; M. Salahuddin Khan

  Interior terrain maps copyright © 2012, Google. Map data copyright © Google.

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Karakoram Press, an imprint of QMarket Corporation

  Edited by Janie Cavolina

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2010904104

  ISBN 978-0-9828511-3-5

  Produced in the United States of America

  Fourth American Electronic Edition; July 2012

  www.sikanderbook.com

  KARAKORAM PRESS, Lake Forest IL

  In the name of God, the Beneficent, the Caring

  To “human beings,” wherever they may yet remain,

  To the ones whose humanity has withstood conflict,

  To the nameless victims of warfare whose individual

  human stories fail to command media attention,

  and

  To the memory of my ever-loving parents.

  M. Salahuddin Khan

  Preface

  Whether we like it or not we live in a complex and dangerous world in which cultures often brush against each other. Diasporas (used generically here) and migrations fuel such effects and the assumptions grounded in one culture frequently fall apart when naïvely applied to another. I’m a product of a diaspora. I was born in Pakistan. I moved to England at the age of four, spending the next thirty-two years growing up and receiving an education there. In 1988 I moved to the United States. From my earliest years, I’ve found myself thrust into an outsider’s perspective of never quite belonging to the place where I’ve lived.

  Sikander is a human story. It follows a young man’s coming of age and subsequent growth through adversity. He finds himself more than once having to deal with loss, which brings him to the recognition of the ultimate and relative value of his own humanity and his relationships with people.

  Sikander is a citizen of the species. He belongs nowhere in particular and everywhere in general. In spirit, he transcends cultures while being a product of his native culture. Sikander’s religion is a matter-of-fact aspect of daily life, informing decisions from the mundane to the seismic. Being a part of his daily existence, his religion is neither hanging in a closet only to be worn on Fridays, nor is it is a manic permanent resident of his frontal lobes.

  Sikander immerses the reader into the “ordinary” nature of most of the world’s routinely lived Islam, which is far removed from the misconceptions sadly prevalent in much of the non-Muslim world. The story does not, however, intend an apologist perspective. Neither does it suggest that we have a simple “east-versus-west” narrative to consider. It simply takes us into the ordinary lives of everyday Muslims while allowing us to be aware of the textured, varied, and nuanced hues of such life from rural Afghanistan to urban Pakistan and, to a lesser degree, for diaspora Muslims in the USA. All of this is still within the mainstream camp, without venturing into radical or heretical renditions of the religion, which also obviously exist.

  Sikander’s personal growth as a man involves working through some of these cultural differences in the practice of mainstream Islam and the conflicts between it and the “fringes” of the religion without making him be a religious fanatic of any stripe while doing so.

  An additional theme has been to examine the veneer-like quality of what we call civilization. Seen frontally, it projects depth and substance and seeming durability. We use words like “institution” to help us consolidate such sensibilities into our collective psyche. But turned on its side it reveals its true lack of depth and fragility. After all, civilization has only existed for a few millennia, which is but the blink of an eye against the vast ocean of time that has shaped homo sapiens, the animal that lies beneath. We should not be surprised to see how readily any human being is capable of descent into unfettered inhumanity, under the sanction of higher authority. It also reminds us why we have governments, laws and rules and why “minor” losses of liberty, while alluring in their promise of safeguarding physical security, can so often lead ultimately to disaster, and in a very real sense, increase the risks to physical security.

  In Sikander I also wanted to weave the thread of an individual life through the fabric of world events that shape it. When today we hear about casualties and soldiers’ tragic deaths in conflicts such as the post-9/11 Afghanistan war or Iraq, the human-interest focus is upon the lives and families of the fallen. We want to know what defined them as people, how they grew up, their military career, family and so on. All these things quite properly help us to look into their essential humanity and feel empathy for such a tragic loss. Sikander has been squarely aimed at doing something similar but from the viewpoint of the equally ordinary people of Afghanistan and Pakistan, whose lives have been touched by conflict and its fallout, but whose deaths are sadly often just statistics, too numerous to warrant individual attention. The story attempts to remind us to re-examine how this rendering of “otherness” upon such lives causes us to fail to see their no-less-essential humanity.

  I would also like to clarify that the story’s setting in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the USA is secondary to its core focus being that of an examination of human nature and behavior across the boundaries between cultures. For a sense of realism, much effort went into researching historical events and the geography of the regions involved. This does not make the book a work of reference about either the events or the geography. The purpose of the research was to provide as realistic a context for the narrative as possible. But at the end of the day, it’s a work of fiction. As for a source on the nature of Afghan and Pakistani culture, I would like to believe that the included glossary is both accurate and substantive and would strongly recommend the interested reader study its contents.

  As a convenience, this fourth electronic edition incorporates all maps into the body of the text and hyperlinks ethnic words from the narrative directly to the respective Glossary page. It has also been rewritten to render the original edition’s telling of the story in fewer words and to improve readability without compromising either the literary style or the scope and reach of the narrative.

  A word about spelling and pronunciations. Sikander is written so that pronunciations made by non-native speakers are spelled accordingly. A good illustration is “Qunduz” versus “Kundooz.” Please take the time to examine the glossary, which provides not only meanings and context but also some guidance on pronunciations

  I hope you enjoy the story.

  Foreword

  In these times of suspicion of Muslims, fiction can play a key role in humanizing people to one another. While it is rare for Americans to see Muslims even on television for a few minutes at a time, works of literature or film by Muslims are even rarer. This is unfortunate because novels especially can be instrumental in opening up other worlds to the reader, and in our interconnected world, such cross-cultural explorations, especially where Islam is concerned, are of utmost necessity. In this, a novel can succeed in humanizing an “other” where even the best-intentioned analysis lets us down—witness, for example, the huge impact that Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mocking
bird had on American readers during the Civil Rights era.

  It is because of this power of literature, and the dearth of visible Muslims in America producing such works, that I was so enthused to hear of Sikander. Finally, a South Asian Gone with the Wind, with the sweep of history and a plot ripped out of today’s headlines in locales about which so many wish to learn. Pulling no punches and written in a western literary style, the book provides a clear and balanced perspective about the turbulent pathology of America’s relationship with Pakistan, Afghanistan, and with Islam. The narrative is firmly planted in the native cultures of the region and presents a journey through Afghanistan’s recent past, from the Soviet occupation to the present.

  When I traveled across America in 2008-2009 for my book Journey into America: The Challenge of Islam many Americans told me they had never met a Muslim. Many wanted to learn about Muslim culture and society, they said, but did not feel they had a way to do so. Sikander fills this void. Reading Sikander, non-Muslim Americans will find a great deal of relatable common ground—reading about characters who experience happiness, sadness, aspirations, fears, that have hopes and dreams.

  In addition, Sikander provides a fascinating window into a tribal culture where Americans are so involved but understand so little, the Pashtuns of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Readers are given a deep immersion into this other world in which, through Khan’s extraordinary techniques, “they” become “us.” We are taken into the minds of Afghan and Pakistani Muslim characters and are denied the comfortable point of view of “spectator.” We are no longer "watching" the movie, we're in it. Aside from being entertaining, Sikander is engaging and thought provoking. It explores many human themes including coming of age, prejudice, misunderstanding and being misunderstood, family values, and the differences in culture and mentality between America and the Muslim world.

  Sikander has deservedly been awarded many distinctions, including the Grand Prize in Fiction at the Los Angeles Book Festival 2010, the Grand Prize and top Fiction title at the Paris Book Festival 2011, and the winner of the multicultural fiction category at the 2011 National Indie Excellence Book Awards.

  I commend Salahuddin Khan for writing this excellent, pathbreaking book. He is at the peak of his professional career and ideally placed to contribute as he has. The stakes in terms of understanding between the US and the Muslim world and specifically the US and Afghanistan and Pakistan could not be higher. This book is an important tool to bring this about and it needs to be widely read and discussed.

  Professor Akbar Ahmed

  Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University,

  Washington, D.C.

  Akbar Ahmed is currently the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies, American University in Washington, D.C., the First Distinguished Chair of Middle East and Islamic Studies at the US Naval Academy, Annapolis, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He is considered “the world’s leading authority on contemporary Islam” by the BBC.

  Ambassador Akbar Ahmed has advised world leaders including most recently General David Petraeus, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, and Secretary Michael Chertoff on Islam and foreign policy. He is regularly interviewed by CNN, CBS, BBC, and Fox News and has appeared several times on the Oprah Winfrey Show and The Daily Show.

  He is the author of over a dozen award-winning books, including Discovering Islam (the basis for the BBC six-part TV series entitled Living Islam) and Journey into Islam; his books have been translated into many languages, including Chinese and Indonesian. His latest project based in extensive fieldwork has resulted in a full length documentary, Journey into America, which has been shown at several film festivals and the book, Journey into America; the Challenge of Islam (Brookings Press, June 2010).

  He joined the Civil Service of Pakistan and held important posts in Pakistan and Bangladesh—including Commissioner, Quetta; Political Agent, South Waziristan Agency. He has also been the Ambassador from Pakistan to the UK.

  Ambassador Ahmed is one of the world’s foremost anthropologists and was inducted into the legendary figures in Anthropology’s Hall of Fame as part of the "Anthropological Ancestors" audio-visual interview series at Cambridge University in July 2004. He has written extensively on the tribal areas of Pakistan, including his book Resistance and Control in Pakistan (1983), and the anthropology of Muslim societies. His most recent projects have been unprecedented large-scale anthropological studies and as one Harvard intellectual noted, he is “changing the face of anthropology.”

  A prolific author, he is also a playwright and three of his plays were staged in the DC area: Noor, The Trial of Dara Shikoh, and From Waziristan to Washington: A Muslim at the Crossroads. Two plays, Noor, and The Trial of Dara Shikoh, were published by Saqi Books in the summer of 2009.

  Ambassador Ahmed has also been a leader in interfaith dialogue and tries to build bridges between civilizations. Along with Judea Pearl, father of slain journalist Daniel Pearl he has had public dialogues in an effort to dispel hate and ignorance. For their efforts they were awarded the prestigious Purpose Prize in 2007. Ambassador Ahmed was also the recipient of the first Gandhi Center Fellowship of Peace Award in 2004.

  October, 2011

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1 ................ Difficult Times

  Chapter 2 ................ Mujahideen

  Chapter 3 ................ Khyber Nights

  Chapter 4 ................ Laghar Juy

  Chapter 5 ................ Ambush

  Chapter 6 ................ Applecross

  Chapter 7 ................ Stinger

  Chapter 8 ................ Arghandab

  Chapter 9 ................ Rabia

  Chapter 10 ............... Home

  Chapter 11 ............... Wahid Electric

  Chapter 12 ............... Students

  Chapter 13 ............... Enduring Freedom

  Chapter 14 ............... Qunduz

  Chapter 15 ............... Sheberghan

  Chapter 16 ............... Jahannam

  Chapter 17 ............... Family

  Chapter 18 ............... Carolina

  Chapter 19 ............... Redemption

  Glossary

  Acknowledgments

  References

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  Difficult Times

  ALREADY LOW IN THE northwestern sky, the late August sun set ablaze with its grand and orange entrance the previously gray walls of Aftab’s classroom. Sharp contrasts from the starkly lit scene outside drew the attention of two of his students seated nearest the windows. University Public School was about to conclude its very first week after the long summer break and lingering memories of recent freedom left the boys struggling to pay attention. The bell would be launching the weekend that Thursday afternoon and almost everyone fidgeted in anticipation of its metallic trill. They were, however, in no doubt. Until it rang, Aftab would allow no acknowledgment of the approaching end of class.

  Mister Aftab to his students, his job was to teach them English and the ability to interpret English literature. For this term it was to be Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Having begun the term the prior Sunday, Aftab intended a weeklong reading followed by critical analysis over the subsequent weeks, but despite plans to cover one act per day, he had yet to reach the fourth. Now slipping behind and with the week’s final minutes evaporating, it was no small frustration for Aftab to have to deal with inattentive students staring out of his window.

  Though frail and some might say, soft-spoken, Aftab had an icy will. His “no,” was the end of any discussion. Discipline was important and he always intervened at the first sign of it slipping. Inevitably, he launched into the distracted duo, the disinterested Hamid Anwar Haque and the distant Sikander Khan.

  “Sikander, pay attention…if you please!” Aftab called out, simultaneously casting a modest scowl—whose purpose
was immediately served—at Hamid. Aftab’s intervention skillfully combined demand and plea. As the boys were army brats or the children of wealthy Peshawar business families, teachers could ill afford to risk parental complaints about their harshness and the near certain dismissal that would result.

  Sikander had been peering at the flow of traffic on Peshawar’s Grand Trunk Road beyond the north playground a hundred meters from the window. Incessant horn-blowing and rickshaw-buzzing had become a focus of distraction for his daydreaming yet troubled mind; a reverie from which Aftab’s rebuke had rudely awoken him.

  “Sorry, Mr. Aftab…sir.” Sikander’s lips apologized even as his eyes betrayed an adolescent bravado. An independent-minded young man, he was buoyed by his family’s standing and it didn’t hurt that at almost eighteen, he was already a physically imposing Pathan. Justifiably self-assured with his English skills, he had comfortably allowed his attention to drift away from Aftab’s lesson.

  “Now,” Aftab resumed, reassembling his thoughts, “before coming back on Sunday, read through the fourth act, and pay special attention to the quarrel and reconciliation between Brutus and Cassius.”

  Shakespeare’s feuding characters were far from Sikander’s thoughts. His attention drifted back to the scene outside the dusty windowpane. He yearned to leave Pakistan; to see more of the world, and was sure that someday he would. His patience, however, was no match for his certainty.