Guest Post by Mast Qalandar (MQ)
In a recent post I had described the different Pugrees worn across Pakistan, including the famed and flamboyant Peshawari Patkaiy or Kullah. There is an interesting story passed down by generations of students of Islamia College Peshwar about how this particular turban, once part of the prescribed college uniform, was abandoned by the College.
As a background information I should add here that Islamia College Peshawar (ICP) was founded in 1913 by Sir Sahibzadah Abdul Qayyum, a Pushtun, and Sir George Roos-Keppel, the then British Chief Commissioner of NWFP, who was a virtual Pushtun in that he spoke Pushto fluently and also understood and adopted many of Pushtun customs.
While founding the ICP the two gentlemen tried to model their institution after the Aligarh Muslim College, which was founded 35 years earlier by Sir Syed Ahmed Khan. Following Aligarh’a example they also chose black achkan as part of the uniform for ICP students. To the achkan they added the local turban as head-wear. Both gentlemen, I should add, we proud turban-wearers themselves.
Thus the Peshawar Kullah along with black achkan, white shalwar, and black chaplis/shoes became the uniform of ICP students. However, the turban didn’t last long and was soon discarded. One reason for giving it up was that it didn’t sit too well on mostly 16-17 year olds who were usually too skinny at that age to sport this bulky head-wear. The other reason was more interesting and requires a bit of explanation.
In all the college hostels (there were 7) a bell would ring early in the morning and the students would stream out of their rooms into the hostel’s courtyard and line up, all dressed up in black achkan, white shalwar, black shoes and, of course, the Patkaiy or turban. First there would be a roll call to ensure that everyone was present, followed by an inspection. The hostel superintendent would pass by each student to see if he was properly dressed, which meant a properly buttoned up achkan, its collar hooked, no azarband hanging loose, the shoes shined and the shamla of the turban flared and proudly standing up.
Ditching the “dress parade” (that is what it was called) or turning up improperly dressed at the parade was considered almost a felony and the culprit was fined. Since boys were and will always be boys, they couldn’t resist pulling pranks on each other. When everyone was rushing out of his room to join the dress parade, one tug at the tail of someone’s turban would unravel the turban and the student would end up missing the parade.
And this happened not too infrequently. As an insurance against such mishaps the students would keep an extra turban ready to wear. If one were pulled apart at the last minute, the ‘victim’ would quickly fetch the other, don it and rush back to join the parade.
But there was not always a happy ending to such episodes. So, legend has it, the college administration mercifully decided to abandon the turban altogether - to the relief of the latter generations including mine.
Mast Qalandar is a proud alumnus of Islamia College Peshawar.
I Found A lot Of Information About My Country In This Site(False).
It Has No Information About Our Country .
(Sorry For This Comments).
in responce to mr Raees Mughal says:January 8th, 2007 10:47 am comments : iknow about some jews who lived in peshawar b4 partion contect me on humayun_m_pk@yahoo.com
i want to take admission in islamia collage peshawer
salam. may name malik bilal .our may islamiya may study kay liya aana chata ho.pleace mujaii is collage kay baray may batai. ya mera hotmail lay kar mujay is kay barai may bataii . may chakwal mar rihata ho.yaha ki syudy kasy hai.. sarmadmalik123@hotmail.com…. pleace contact karay.. takr care…
salam to all .how r u all, i m salman buneri and i m old islamian.
i love islamia college and i like people who talk about icp .
A.H.Shah,
No, I was not aware of this story. It is really funny. Thanks for sharing it with us.
MQ’s story of how ICP lost its turban is interesting.I wonder if he knows another similar story: how ICP lost ‘radhai’ (the quilt). Ch.Mohammad Ali,the ex-vc of UOP who was one of the students in the pioneering batch of 1913,told us about this.In the beginning,students at the ICP would come to the classes in whatever dress they liked. So most of the boys came wearing ‘chaddars’ or blankets during the cold winter days.This was bearable and nobody objected.Then,some of them started to bring their ‘radhai’ from their hostel rooms.The english principal saw this one day and said “this is too much!” So ideas about introducing a proper uniform were explored.There then came the achkan, chappal and kulla.Isn’t it a story older than that of MQ? :)
Very intresting discussion on this board that covers my both intrests, Islamia College Peshawar and Jews particularly, Oriental Jews.
Just being an Islamian, I also wonderd about the presence of David Star on back of main building of ICP. These are six stars in total and are on wall facing the so called “Fowara Chok” in the language of Islamians. When I was student of that college (1991-1995) those stars were painted in green and were very dominant against pink shaded walls. Perhaps in the principalship of (late) Prof. Mussarat Hussain those stars were painted with same colour, that now they are not dominant to be noted in frist sight.
For Adil, I have read those excellent articles on Pakistani jews and inspired by that I dig deeper on Jews of Peshawar. I am soon going to publish an article with same title. I hope that would be of intrest to Adil Najam.
For Sadia: Prof. Teodar Parfitt of SOAS, University of London is conducting excellent DNA testing to discover all those lost tribes of Jews. One success in this was the varification of Bene Israel tribe of India. Their claim to be jew was verifid beside the fact that their history was now recorded by any other source or mean for at least thousand years. Same test is been conducted in Pashtoons (On Afridi tribes to be precise) and though the study is in process but so far DNA pattren do not support this so old thesis of Jew origion of Pashtoons.
And at end, thanks MQ for that great page.