Today’s Enlightening Entertainment will be presented in Urdu and English, with subtitles in Arabic, Aulacese (Vietnamese), Chinese, English, French, German, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Mongolian, Persian, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, (Urdu) and Thai.

Welcome, distinguished viewers, to Enlightening Entertainment. Today, we will visit the marvelous region of Kohistan in northwestern Pakistan. Kohistan, which means “Land of Mountains,” is a unique district of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. It is known for its beautiful mountain scenery with lush green forests and meadows.

The great Indus River divides Kohistan into two parts. The eastern part is called Indus Kohistan, and the western part is called Swat Kohistan. The land is also traversed by the Karakoram Highway which is the highest paved international road in the world, reaching an elevation of 4,693 meters! The Karakoram Highway traces one of the paths of the ancient trade route and connects Pakistan with China.

Kohistan is the meeting point of the mountain regions Hindu Kush, Karakoram, and Himalayas. With its rich flora and fauna, Kohistan is home to unique species such as the Western Tragopan pheasant and the snow leopard. The people of Kohistan live simply and joyfully. They welcome their guests with warm hospitality.

We, the Kohistani children, collectively thank you all for coming here. We are happy that you people are here for us, and we hope that you shall make a cooperation with us.

Let’s now meet Mr. Talib Jan, Executive Director of the Indus Social Welfare & Development Organization (ISWDO), who will tell us more about Kohistan and its culture.

In the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Almighty.

With the Name of Allah, the Most Merciful, the Almighty. On behalf of the Kohistani community in these mountains, I am thankful to SupremeMasterTV.com for providing me the opportunity to say something about Kohistani’s people, its history and its culture.

Kohistan has an area of 7,492 square kilometers and it has an elevation of between 2,000 to 5,000 meters. The people of Kohistan have their own specific culture, their own history. But unfortunately, Kohistani history is not recorded and that’s why the history of Kohistan is a mystery.

Nobody can say with certainty from where these people came from and when they started to live in these mountains, but (from) what the people say about their own origin there are two different views. The first view says that Kohistanis are the descendents of the Qurashi clan in Saudi Arabia, and the second view is that Kohistanis are the people who migrated to this area from Afghanistan.

Now Kohistani culture, Kohistan has a very specific culture. It is somehow resembling with northern areas of Pakistan like Gilgit Baltistan, but it is different from Khan’s culture, the culture of different people living in lower parts of Pakistan. One specific thing I would love to mention here that is part of the culture is the exchange marriages, and this is a word you might not have heard before.

Exchange marriages are the marriages which, for example, person A gives the hands of his daughter to person B’s son and similarly, person B gives the hands of his daughter to the son of person A. And this is the very much performed in the area. I will also talk about poetry of Kohistan. Kohistan has a very very different sort of poetry because a poet must be a singer.

And the second important thing is that in Kohistani poetry, almost all of the poets and the singers, they are illiterate, so the poet must be a singer. A couple of languages are spoken in the area, like Indus Kohistani, Shina, Bateri, Pashto. So now I will ask my friend Mr. Ziya, he will sing a song in this Kohistani language and hopefully I will translate it.

My small Nargis flower became angry with me, My small Nargis flower became angry with me.
Oh my beloved, you should not be angry with me as I am not allowed to come out of the home, let’s wait for the fortune.
There are greater sanctions upon me as I cannot remember you, you should not believe the backbiters, (as I am all the time remembering you.)
My small Nargis flower became angry with me.
The backbiters tell you lies, I can take an oath that
I am not happy being away from you for a little while,
My beloved became angry,

I am not happy being away from you for a little while,
My small Nargis flower became angry with me.
I am not weeping that I am away from you,
Oh my flower, rather, I am weeping for the reason that my companionship is not a good omen for you,
The little sparrow is weeping for the parrot,
Better to go to the jungle instead of living in a cage,
My beloved became angry and I am going to the jungle instead of living in a cage,
Oh she went angrily, My Nargis flower went angrily.

We invite Mr. Hasan Khan, his mother tongue is Shina, so he will sing a song in Shina language.

I am mad in your love and beauty; I merely wish to have a glimpse of you.
I am restless because of the punishment of your love.
My beloved is as pretty as the moon of the sky,
she appears like a rainbow after the rain in the street.
Because I miss and love you,
I am deprived of happiness and rest.
Because of your love I have become mad for the world,
Because of your love I have become mad for the world.
O my beloved, I have become a king in my mind, in your love,
while I am mad in the eyes of your friends.
You have become a punishment for me but happiness for others,
I wish to meet you always but whenever I plan to meet you I consider it my last meeting.

In Kohistani culture, we have another very much important aspect, that people do have very great respect to the guests and people are very much hospitable. This culture is the least exposed culture in the world, because in Pakistan, this is the 110th district in the north and we are very much away, bounded inside the mountains, and very few researches have been carried out about the history and culture of this area.

Shina is the very much established language. By the grace of Almighty Allah, we have been succeeded to devise an orthography system, writing system in this Kohistani language, and we don’t have documented proof of Kohistani culture like music, musical instruments, the poetry and the handicrafts and the other very much specific tools. But we have plans ahead to document this Kohistani culture and these Kohistani cultural segments and to share it with the other world.

Let me talk about little bit about the living style of the people and their livelihood. The majority of the population lives in the valleys, very beautiful valleys where people have agricultural land. In agriculture, people have two crops like maize corn and wheat, these are the two crops which people grow in a year, and people mostly live on upper elevations with houses made of mud and stones, and very few people have concrete houses having cement and the concrete.

During the summers, people migrate from lower elevations to upper elevations, because of the seasonal extremes. Because in the lower regions, we have during the summer very warm weather and people cannot tolerate that and people have their least resources during the summer, so they migrate to the upper elevations.

In addition to corn and wheat, rice, red beans, potatoes and vegetables are also grown. The many streams in the valleys provide water for the crops’ cultivation. Next, Mr. Talib Jani and a boy from the village were so kind to show us a traditional Kohastani dance.

My small Nargis flower became angry with me,
O my small Nargis flower became angry with me.

O boy! Don’t get worried, you have entered into a net of destiny.
O boy! Don’t get worried, you have entered into a net of destiny.
O boy! Don’t get worried, you have entered into a net of destiny.
O boy! Don’t get worried, you have entered into a net of destiny.

Our gratefulness to Mr. Talib Jan and the smiling inhabitants of the Dassu town in Kohistan, for introducing the beautiful culture of Kohistan to us. With Heaven’s blessing, may your homeland and pure-hearted people flourish in peace.

Thank you, esteemed viewers, for joining us today. Coming up next is Our Noble Lineage, right after Noteworthy News, here on Supreme Master Television. May your heart be filled with joy and freedom.