PukhtunWomen

Shnay Aloochai

There is something about green plums that makes my mouth water even if my sensitive teeth won’t let me eat them anymore.

Like many good things green plums and apricots are always forbidden (they supposedly give sore throats, but I for one can attest that never once did I get a sore throat, I swear, not even once). Babo would loudly tell us that we were going to dry and shrivel up; Abai would say we would turn pale and no one would marry us, Jajay would silently shake her head and ask what sin had her brother committed to have so many grand daughters and top it all of them stupid and dumb, Spinda would seriously wag a finger and say he would have our skins if we hurt his trees.

Spinda had an orchard of plums right next door to the house. We were not allowed to go there (but we all know that rules and laws can be bent without breaking them and then in that case it only matters if you get caught). This orchard was surrounded by a mud wall and had a wooden door that would lock with a simple chain but at the end of this chain was one of the biggest locks that I have ever seen. This lock that was rusted and corroded had been bought in Germany. Spinda never tired of proudly telling us, it was a gift from a friend, who had told him that the Germans were the best lock makers in the world. “Try breaking it, you will break your hands but you can never break this lock,” he would taunt us.

We never told Spinda that we didn’t need to break it when we could as easily take his key (And put it back) while he slept in the afternoons. We could also climb the walls like monkeys, but there a lot of things that one keeps from their elders. Like you never tell them that if you milk the cow in between morning and evening you can get a good two cups per cow for making milk lollies or washing your skin with and that evening if there is less milk than usual everyone thinks the cow is going dry.

Another good place to get milk was from the giant kettle that the milk was cooked and then stored in. The only way Babo would know if someone had taken some milk was if the thick cream on the top had been disturbed. Well, we never bothered to tell her that if you stick a straw through the cream you can get to all the milk you need without disturbing the thick cream. Babo knew that her milk was disappearing but just not how; she would puzzle over her milk pot and proclaim “I swear there was more milk.

Lets get back to those green plums now, these plums were th most sour things we had tasted. We were not allowed to pick any unripe plums, but that didnt mean we couldnt shake the trees and quickly pick spread out our sadar to catch them before they hit the ground. Oh how sour and jucy and finger licking good they were. When we were sent away to boarding school all we could think of was, who would eat all the green plums when we were away. We survived though, one of us would conveniently fall sick and would ask for someone to come and visit us and when they came laden with all kinds of home cooked goodies we never failed to find some green plums discreetly hidden among them.

Green plumd always reminds me of green grapes and that in turn reminds me of Jajay. She was our grandfather’s oldest sister and in this position she assumed the role of tyrant over all of us. She had her own kids but because our grandparents really pampered and pandered her, she always stayed at our house. She was quite a character, she refused to believe that man had landed on the moon and we were all made to wash out our mouths with soap for uttering such blasphemies. On one occasion when she was asked how old she was she tartly replied “Why, am I eating your food? This is my brother’s house, how dare you ask me such a question.

Then there were the luscious bunches of ever so sweet grapes that grew in front of the kitchen. Jajay or Jaja Sokidar as we would take up her post under the grape vine as soon as the first sour green bunches appeared. She had a long (at least 7 feet) stick with her and would not hesitate to hit anyone who came close. She would carefully count all the bunches each evening and recount them first thing in the morning, God forbid if a bunch was missing she would make such a fuss and would curse us all into becoming barren women. She would pinch us saying that we good for nothing girls were growing fat, eating her poor brother out of house and home.

But we like to think that we outsmarted Jajay too, when she would fall asleep we would climb onto chairs on top of tables and cut away partial parts off the bunches. When her daughters came she would make us pick the ripened bunches and would puzzle over the size of the bunch. One more confession I have to make is that we would occasionally volunteer to make tea for her to which unbeknownst to anyone we always made sure to add a couple of poppy seed pods. Hey! it helped with her cough and her pains but it didn’t hurt if it also made her sleep heavier.