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| I'm not exactly why some weeks are easier than others but that's the
way it is. After a few weeks where the research felt like pulling teeth (my own--
no one has been difficult here) I am pleased to say that this week everything went
very smoothly. I think I've acclimatised to the heat a little better. Most of the
week was fairly ordinary-- interviews/conversations about land disputes and other
arguments etc. The exciting event of the week has nothing to do with my thesis (as
far as I can tell)-- meeting a snake catcher from South East Asia. I also tried my
hand at cutting wheat (I negotiated a special rate from one of the Malik Sahibs).
I accompanied one of the Maliks on a social call to the local police station. Good
news for one of my friends-- he had a partial victory in a land dispute that has
been plaguing him for considerable time now. The snake catcher is working in a neighbouring village making the fields safe for labourers. He earns his living selling the snakes he catches to laboratories in Pindi and making his own remedies from the extract of snake. The only rememdy I was told about was a cure for impotence. This was told to me with much glee and several men in the room were pointed out as being frequent users of it. This snake catcher is orginally from Singapore but has lived in Pakistan for over 20 years. He is married to a Pakistani woman from a village. I admit I am very curious how he met his wife. I did not ask because my neighbours have been conditioning me for 5 months now to avoid asking about potentially embarrassing marriages. It's not part of my thesis so I don't see the need to push it because it really distresses some people to be asked how they got married if it was a love match. Love matches are poorly viewed in the village and this Singaporan snake catcher must have made a love match. My time as a field labourer was brief. I might have cut enough wheat to make a sandwich but it's not certain. In general my status as special guest of one of the zamindars prohibits me from engaging in any serious manual labour. I can try any of the tasks I want but as soon as people start seeing me doing something more seriously they intervene and take over. What people seem to want me to do is sit on a charpai and drink tea and be idle. They dislike when I do any sort of work myself-- this includes making my bed or polishing my shoes. However my status as guest also means people try very hard to satisfy my requests so when I request to be able to try cutting wheat or planting something or any other physical task they pretty much feel obliged to let me try. As I say however they are unhappy if I do it for very long. Normally the labourers receive 10% of what they cut. I haggled a bit and the zamindar agreed to give me 20%. Given the amount that I actually cut I don't think I'll bother going by to collect my 20%. One evening a servant came by and requested I follow him to one of the Maliks. He was going to greet the new Station House Officer (SHO) at the police station. Everyone knows it's the sort of thing I like to tag along so I often get these last minute invitations. When we arrived the SHO was sitting in the courtyard of the police station looking very much like a zamindar in his bait'hek. We listened while some transporters came and complained to the SHO about their cousins. There are regular disputes between Suzuki and Hilux drivers and the owners of the vehicles. At one point the SHO got very angry and slapped his hand down on his chair and reminded one of the men that what he was asking was illegal and to stop asking. A very hot day in Attock, the District Head Quarters, brought good news for a friend of mine. He and his cousins were unable to settle the partition of their land amicably. Almost everyone in the village agrees that this is a spurious case as the paritition had been agreed by their fathers in the traditional way (numbering pieces of paper corresponding to plots of land and drawing them from a box or a hat). However now that the motorway is coming through and there is compensation money to be had people are scrambling over themselves to make sure they have a claim to some of the motorway land. The District Commissioner decided that this case didn't belong in the District Courts and threw it back down to the Tehsildar to decide. This is good news for my friend as the Tehsildar is already very familiar with the case and will almost certainly decide in favour of my friend. I suspect this is why his cousin pushed so hard to have the case heard at District level since he knew he stood almost no chance of winning at Tehsil level. I find it difficult to include much of what goes on during the week in these updates so confine myself to what I hope are the most interesting or unusual events of the week. As usual, this week's update covers just a tiny fraction of what happened. Let's hope I can do a little better next week. |
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