heh :~) Kind of a cute story. Now obviously it doesn’t mean i believe in fairies before someone comes into this thread and slaps an e-fatwa on me :rolleyes: It’s a “cute” story, that’s all folks.
The fairies of Nanga Parbat, Mustansar Hussain Tarar, DAWN, 9 May 2004
It was the same evening when Chris recited his poetry and in turn Mati translated one of Ghalib’s couplet i.e. Dile Nadan Tujhe Hua Kia Hai, Aakhir Es Dard Ki Dawa Kia Hai into English. The translation went something like this;
O, stupid heart what has happened to you,
After all what is the medicine of this pain?
“You call him a great poet?” Chris asked after listening to this translation, we nodded.
“I think he is a stupid poet.” We assured him that he does not come out well in translation, especially if Mati does it.
The ancient Dardistan, the present Diyamira district of Gilgit is also full of fairy tales and rightly so because it is called “The Land of Fairies”. Underneath the ninth tallest mountain in the world Nanga Parbat, the killer mountain, stories of fairies and witches abound. The locals believe that Nanga Parbat is the abode of queen of fairies who live in a vast palace of snows. There are giant frogs and snakes also made entirely of snows that guard the palace of this queen. Females living in the vicinity of Nanga Parbat refrain from wearing colourful dresses and shining ornaments because they believe that the fairy queen can be jealous and will cast a spell on them.
Once I asked Nazir Sabir, the famed mountaineer who has the honour of being the only Pakistani to reach the summit of Mount Everest, whether he believed in these tales and if ever during his mountaineering he encountered anything unusual.
“Tarar sahib it is true that up there in the highest snows you hear strange sounds and you feel that someone is around. But most probably it is due to the lack of oxygen that your brain starts hallucinating or it is the sound of a shifting glacier, although I admit that up there I felt a definite presence of my long lost friends who died on the mountains. But the Pakistani North is such mythical place that you cannot rule out any possibilities. Maybe there are fairies and maybe there are not.”
Many years after the first introduction of fairies I was in the Lathobo Base camp of Nanga Parbat and during the evening I was jotting down some information about the area in my diary when my porter Sultan asked me, “Sahib tell me is it the fourteenth of moon tonight?”
“What if it is, Sultan?” I asked casually.
I saw a definite fear spreading on his rugged face, “The Japanese mountaineers who are buried nearby will descend from Nanga Parbat, visit their graves and go back to the summit.”
Only the day before I had visited The Graveyard of Foreigners, situated underneath the snows of Nanga Parbat where two Austrians and three Japanese mountaineers are buried and there also Sultan had mentioned that he had seen the Japanese coming down from the mountains in the moonlit nights to visit their graves.
“Well Sultan, luckily it is the tenth of moon tonight so you need not fear the dead Japanese roaming around our tents.”
“May be not the Japanese, but the fairies and witches may roam around sir.” This was the young porter Bahadur Jamil.
“This is all your imagination Bahadur,” I said although there was no conviction in my voice, only fear of the unknown. “No such thing exists.”
Bahadur Jamil did not like my comment and sulked “Why don’t you ask Nazim, he will tell you.”
The other porter Nazim was slightly reluctant but he narrated anyway. “Tarar sahib it is about my grandfather, he was a very famous hunter and he had nine hunting dogs and he could kill a bear with their help. He used to live in Churat village near Tarshing and once he came to this Top Maidan area to hunt. He chased two Markhors and by the time he killed them it was too late to go back so he spent the night right here, where we are camping. He lit a huge fire to warm himself just as we have done and the Rui appeared.”
“What appeared?”
“In our local language a witch or churail is called Rui, and this Rui appeared in the form of his wife. Only that my grandfather knew that she was not his wife because her feet were turned backwards. He asked her if she would like to eat meat and the Rui said, ‘Yes, I love meat’. My grandfather roasted a leg of Markhor in the fire and then with this piping hot leg he beat the hell out of Rui, then grasping her hair he dragged her around Nanga Parbat till such time that the Rui apologized and agreed to marry him. My grandfather was a very clever man and he tied a knot in Rui’s hair so that she will not escape. Then he placed those Markhors on Rui’s back because a Rui can carry a load of five donkeys and then drove her to Churat.”
Nazim was totally engrossed in the story and believe me at that moment underneath the snows of Nanga Parbat I started imagining Ruis all around me.
"So my grandfather married this Rui and after two years a daughter was born to them. When the daughter grew up one day both of them, mother and daughter, went outside the village to graze cattle. There the Rui requested the daughter to comb her hair and while trying to comb her hair she said, ‘Mother there is a knot in your hair.’
‘Untie it daughter’ she said.
As soon as the daughter untied the knot, she was transformed into a Rui from human being and then she flew away."“And what happened to the daughter?”
“She is my aunt sir,” Nazim said proudly. “And another thing, before flying away the Rui said that my grandfather’s tribe Kaiting will have very sharp tongues from now on.”
“It is fact Tarar Sahib,” Sultan added “The Kaiting do have very sharp tongues and Nazim is one of them.”
I also agreed because how could they create such fantasies if they did not have sharp tongues! But the question is, do they create them or is it their genuine experience? Who is to know, who are we to judge?
If you believed in fairies when you were a kid and then felt ashamed of yourself after growing up, for believing this humbug, my advice to you is, never ever spend a night under the snows of Nanga Parbat otherwise you will start believing in fairies again as I did.
