Lahore – A Peshawar boy in Anarkali

The culinary capital of Lahore, Anarkali Food Street

He was very young, I suggested that he was only 11 years old. His name is Waseed, a Pathan boy from Peshawar. He comes everyday to Anarkali, with his little treasure: a weight scale. Oh, plus some thick papers for him to sit on.

“How old are you?”
“Between 10 and 15”
But it’s a big range. He doesnt know his own age.
Waseed didnt know English. Even his Urdu was limited. I tried to communicate with Farsi, but he knew nothing. He was not from Afghanistan anyway, but his homeland was just next to the Farsi speaking country.

He sat on the padestrian path of the food street of Anarkali, Lahore, waiting for customers. Every time a curious fellow tried to weigh on his little scale, he get 2 Rs.

He was very young.
“You dont go to school?”
“No”
“Where are your parents?”
“In Peshawar”. Peshawar is a city 10 hours away from Lahore by the public bus. The Pathans, people from border area, mostly from Peshawar, are famous to be wanderer around the country to work all the hard works. But being a wanderer at such a young age, Waseed did really interest me.

“So you are alone here?”
“With my brother.”
And his brother, just some years older than him, also do the same work, offering weight guessing to the people.
“You go home to meet your father and mother?”
“No.”

Wasid and his little weight scale

The dusty day of Lahore, he kept his treasure clean by keep wiping the weight scale with his napkin.

It was indeed the treasure which feeded him everyday.

The Pathans have very strong bound anyway. There are many Pathan sellers along the Anarkali market, selling anything from juice, sugar cane, T-shirts, until shoes. And the young Pathans around the area know each other, and take care each other. Some claimed to be Waseed’s brother. But it was ethnical brotherhood, not bloodship brotherhood. But the brotherhood does guarantee their survival in this gigantic city.