ORIENTATIONS

Rowshan, in summer, is a beautiful and verdant village surrounded by the peaks of the Hindu Kush and Hindu Raj mountain ranges. In winter its frozen streams, muddy village paths, and smoke-filled houses make life difficult even for the most resilient of its inhabitants. It is flanked by the fast flowing Chitral River, brown with glacial melt water in summer and deep blue in autumn, which cuts a gorge around the perimeter of Rowshan. On the steep banks of this gorge men and boys spend many an afternoon and evening sitting in discussion, reciting love poetry, studying for exams, talking about Islam, playing with children, smoking cigarettes and gazing at the mountains surrounding them.

The village's men and boys largely dress in sombre colours in the loose trousers and long shirt (shalwar kameez) worn across Pakistan. Older men often wear woollen Chitrali caps (pakol), waistcoats and long coats (chugha), made by Chitrali tailors (darzi) who skills are renowned across Pakistan. The village's more fashion conscious boys (fashnie daqan), however, prefer American-style baseball caps, and often say that they are embarrassed to wear the older types of Chitrali clothing preferred by the village elders. The women and girls of the village, in contrast to the men, wear colourful patterned outfits, and, on special days, such as the two main Muslim festivals, Eid-ul Fitr and Eid-ul Azhar, the two major occasions of the year when they are able to freely leave their homes, they wear outfits they have lovingly sewn and embroidered both with Chitrali style patterns and new ‘down country fashions’ they have seen on the television and in magazines brought to them by their brothers and fathers from Pakistan's cities.