Peshawar derives its name from a sanskrit word “Pushpapura” which means town of flowers. Peshawar’s flowers were mentioned even in Mughal Emperor Babur’s memoirs.
Alexander’s legions and also the southern wing of his army were held up here in 327 B.C. for forty days at a fort excavated recently, twenty seven ½ kms north-east of Peshawar at Pushkalavati (lotus city) close to Charsadda. the great Babur marched through historic mountain pass to conquer South Asia in 1526 and set up the Moghal Empire within the South Asia. The pass and the valley have resounded to the tramp of marching feet as consecutive armies hurtled down the crossway of history, pathway of commerce, migration and invasion by Aryans, Scythians, Persians, Greeks, Bactrians, Kushans, Huns, Turks’ Mongols and Moghals.
And Peshawar is currently, as always, substantially a frontier city. The formalities of dress and manner give way here to a free and simple vogue, as men encounter men with a firm hand-clasp and a straight however friendly look. Hefty handsome men in baggy trousers and long, loose shirts, wear bullet decorated bandoleers across their chests or pistols at their sides as a traditional a part of their dress. there’s simply that small bit of pleasure and drama within the air that produces for a frontier land. An occasional salvo of gun fire-no, not a tribal raid or a skirmish in the streets however a full of life a part of wedding celebrations.
Remember, we are in the land of the Pathans – a totally male-dominated society.
North and south of Peshawar spreads the immense tribal area wherever lives the most important tribal society within the world, and also the most accepted, although abundant misrepresented. Pathans are trustworthy Muslims. Their typical martial and religious character has been moulded by their heroes, like Khushal Khan Khattak, the warrior poet and Rehman baba,a preacher man and additionally a poet of Pushto language. Today, they themselves guard the Pakistan-Afghanistan border along the great passes of the Khyber, the Tochi, the Gomal and others on Pakistan’s territory, however before independence they successfully defied mighty empires, just like the British and also the Mughal and others before them, keeping the border preparation with commotion, and also the flame of freedom with pride burning. urban center is the great Pathan town. And what a town ! Hoary with age and the passage of twenty-five centuries, redolent with the smell of luscious fruit and roasted meat and tobacco.
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