In our culture speeches are usually written by our fathers, uncles or teachers. They tend to be in English or Urdu, not in our native Pashto. We thought speaking in English meant you were more intelligent. We were wrong, of course. It does not matter what language you choose, the important thing is the words you use to express yourself. Moniba’s speech was written by one of her older brothers. She quoted beautiful poems by Allama Iqbal, our national poet. My father wrote my speech. In it he argued that if you want to do good, but do it in a bad way, that’s still bad. In the same way, if you choose a good method to do something bad it’s still bad. He ended it with Lincoln’s words: ‘it is far more honourable to fail than to cheat’.
On the day only eight or nine boys and girls turned up. Moniba spoke well – she was very composed and her speech was more emotional and poetic than mine, though mine might have had the better message. I was so nervous before the speech, I was trembling with fear. My grandfather had come to watch and I knew he really wanted me to win the competition, which made me even more nervous. I remembered what my father had said about taking a deep breath before starting, but then I saw that all eyes were on me and I rushed through. I kept losing my place as the pages danced in my shaking hands, but as I ended with Lincoln’s words, I looked up at my father. He was smiling.
When the judges announced the results at the end, Moniba had won. I came second.
It didn’t matter. Lincoln also wrote in the letter to his son’s teacher, ‘Teach him how to gracefully lose.’ I was used to coming top of my class. But I realised that, even if you win three or four times, the next victory will not necessarily be yours without trying – and also that sometimes it’s better to tell your own story. I started writing my own speeches and changing the way I delivered them, from my heart rather than from a sheet of paper.
6
Children of the Rubbish Mountain
AS THE KHUSHAL School started to attract more pupils, we moved again and finally had a television. My favourite programme was Shaka Laka Boom Boom, an Indian children’s series about a boy called Sanju who has a magic pencil. Everything he drew became real. If he drew a vegetable or a policeman, the vegetable or policeman would magically appear. If he accidentally drew a snake he could erase it and the snake would disappear. He used his pencil to help people – he even saved his parents from gangsters – and I wanted that magic pencil more than anything else in the world.
At night I would pray, ‘God, give me Sanju’s pencil. I won’t tell anyone. Just leave it in my cupboard. I will use it to make everyone happy.’ As soon as I finished praying, I would check the drawer. The pencil was never there, but I knew who I would help first. Just along the street from our new house was an abandoned strip of land that people used as a rubbish dump – there is no rubbish collection in Swat. Quickly, it became a rubbish mountain. I didn’t like walking near it as it smelt so bad. Sometimes we would spot rats running through it and crows would circle overhead.
One day my brothers were not home and my mother had asked me to throw away some potato peel and eggshells. I wrinkled my nose as I approached, swatting away flies and making sure I didn’t step on anything in my nice shoes. As I threw the rubbish on the mountain of rotting food, I saw something move and I jumped. It was a girl about my age. Her hair was matted and her skin was covered in sores. She looked like I imagined Shashaka, the dirty woman they told us about in tales in the village to make us wash. The girl had a big sack and was sorting rubbish into piles, one for cans, one for bottle tops, another for glass and another for paper. Nearby there were boys fishing in the pile for metal using magnets on strings. I wanted to talk to the children but I was too scared.
That afternoon, when my father came home from school, I told him about the scavenger children and begged him to go with me to look. He tried to talk to them but they ran away. He explained that the children would sell what they had sorted to a garbage shop for a few rupees. The shop would then sell it on at a profit. On the way back home I noticed that he was in tears.
‘Aba, you must give them free places at your school,’ I begged. He laughed. My mother and I had already persuaded him to give free places to a number of girls.