PukhtunWomen

My grandmother and aunts like millions of other pukhtun women had committed to memory thousands of stories that are specific to the villages we belong to. I have fond memories of sitting under the twinkling stars in summer or warming beside an open fire in winter, massaging my grandmothers legs while whe wove us beautiful pictures of dashing handsome princes and beautiful women, of old hags and wise women and stupid men.

With the impact of 24 hour television people no longer have time to sit around the fire place and share stories on a cold night or a breezy starry night under a summer sky. Most of this folklore is passed verbally from one generation to another and most have never been documented. As the older generation is slowly dying out and the subsequent generations not being able to remember the old stories many of them have been lost forever.

In an attempt to collect as many of them as we possibly can we have requested numerous people to submit any story they remember, even partial ones, so we can start a collection here.

These stories are dedicated to all those women who worked hard all day and at night entertained us with wonderful tales giving us a glance into a world of fantasy and dreams.

The stories below are an attempt to collect what little we do remember.