Khatir Afridi (Misri Khan): Pashto ghazal poet of the Khyber, 1929–1968

At a glance

• Khatir Afridi was the pen name of Misri Khan, an Afridi of the Khyber, who is usually said to have lived from 1929 to 24 August 1968. [4, 5]

• He never went to school. He learned to read and write from the poet Lalzada Nazir Shinwari and had some of his verse corrected by Hamza Shinwari. [2]

• He is remembered above all for the Pashto ghazal, written in plain village speech, and for love poems that carry the hujra, the jirga and the guest into the lover's complaint. [2, 3, 6]

• He died young of a lung illness, which one Pashto biographer calls tuberculosis. [4, 6]

• Sources disagree on his death year: one newspaper gives 1961. [8]

A boy of the Khyber

Misri Khan wrote under the pen name Khatir and is known by it. A Pashto essay by Jamshid Azimi, published online in 2023, gives the outline of his life. It says he was born in 1929 into the family of Akbar Khan, a family of the Afridi of the Khyber, and was the grandson of Khan Dost. [4] The Wikisource author page gives 1929 to 1968 as well. [5]

His father died when he was very small. His uncle Hazrat Khan and his grandfather Khan Dost brought him up as their own child. [4] Azimi says he worked the family land, then took a post at a camp at Lwargai in the Khyber, the village beside Landi Kotal where Hamza Shinwari was born. After that he turned to trade, bringing goods from Kabul and selling them to support himself. [4] The Afridi, one of the large tribes holding the pass, are described in the article on the Afridi of the Khyber.

He had no schooling. Azimi says for that reason nobody can say exactly when his poetry began, though it is said to have started about 1959. [4]

Nazir Shinwari, Hamza and the first mushairas

Hamza Shinwari wrote a note on him that a later Pashto Academy article quotes from the 2004 edition of Khatir's collected poems (Da Khatir Kulyat, University Book Agency, Peshawar, p. 4). Translated here, it says that Misri Khan Khatir was unlettered at first and learned to read and write from his teacher, Lalzada Nazir Shinwari. He already had poetry in his blood, Hamza says, but Nazir's corrections kindled it far more. He also took some corrections from Hamza and used to go with Hamza and Nazir to the mushairas, the gatherings where poets recite, and often met the poet Khyber Afridi there. Hamza adds that his looks and colouring gave no hint of a poet, and that when he began a ghazal the listeners understood that something bright was flowing. [2]

Azimi adds that poets held gatherings in his honour. The first was at Hamza Baba's hujra of the Khyber Pashto literary circle, and later a large one was held in Khatir's own village. [4] The Express Tribune, writing about literary life in the Khyber in 2014, names Hamza Shinwari, Nazir Shinwari and Khatir Afridi as famous poets of the region. [10]

The ghazal in village speech

Khatir wrote ghazals, and a good deal besides. The diwan scanned for Ketabton lists 114 ghazals arranged by the last letter of their refrain, then a section of songs (sandare) on pages 132 to 165. [1] Azimi says he also wrote in folk forms: the charbeta, the nimakai, the bagatai and others. He says the example of another Khyber poet, Khusro Afridi, whose verses were on the lips of singers, drew him to them. [4]

At a literary session in Jamrud in 2022, reported by Dawn, speakers said he was respected by all Pashtuns as well as by the poets of the Khyber, and that he wrote high-quality poetry in simple words that every part of Pashtun society could understand. Professor Aslam Taseer said his poetry was full of love and romance along with heartfelt pain and frustration, and that it appealed even to illiterate Pashtuns. [6] Atif Khan Afridi, writing in the Pashto Academy's journal Pashto in 2023, says Khatir's simplicity has earned him the name of the Hamza Baba of the Khyber, and that some critics hold that after Rahman Baba he is the one poet whose verse is so simple, soft and pure. [3]

Two Pashto Academy scholars, Mohammad Ayaz and Noor Muhammad, argue that the reason lies in his materials. His ghazals borrow from the life of the village: the hujra, the jirga, hospitality, the badraga, the armed escort that guards a traveller, the tor, the accusation of dishonour, sowing and harvest, and the smoky hearth. [2] In their reading, the lover offers his sorrows the hospitality a Pashtun owes a guest and gives them a place in the hujra of his heart; when the beloved's rivals crowd the hujra, he complains that there is no room left for him. [2] Pashtun custom thus becomes the language of the love poem, and the people recognised their own world in it. [2]

Azimi says he composed quickly. Sowing flower seeds in a garden one day, he is said to have spoken a couplet at once:

زه چې تخمونه د ګلانو کرم

څه معشوقې د بلبلانو کرم

Za che tukhmuna da gulano karam

tsa ma'shuqe da bulbulano karam

When I sow the seeds of roses,

I am sowing sweethearts for the nightingales. [4]

Another couplet he quotes goes with the story of Khatir's illness, below:

په دارو د طبيبانو نه جوړېږم

پرې جوړېږم چې د مينې بيمار وينم

Pa daru da tabibano na jorezhem

pre jorezhem che da mene bimar winam

The medicine of physicians does not cure me;

I am cured by seeing one sick with love. [4]

Both Pashto couplets are copied from Azimi's essay; the English is Pashtunxwa's literal translation. For a full ghazal of Khatir with its Pashto, see the poem When the beloved turns cruel, what will he do? in the Poetry section, copied from the scanned diwan. [1]

His verse was also sung. When Dawn marked the death of the folk singer Gulab Sher Ustad in 2016, the poet and broadcaster Laiqzada Laiq said Khatir's ghazal "Sta manzal manzaloonu kay yama" was still on the lips of every Pakhtun listener. [7]

Poems for the nation

Khatir's diwan holds more than love poems. Azimi lists poems in praise of the Prophet, praise of Khushal Khan Khattak, verses on grief for the homeland and the Khyber, and verses urging Pashtun unity. [4] The scanned diwan also holds a poem addressed to the young men of the nation, which tells them to look at themselves and the world, not to look back, and "with your courage to carry the name of Pakistan everywhere". [1] It is included in the Poetry section with the Pashto copied from the page. [1]

His illness and death

Azimi says Khatir fell ill with tuberculosis (nare ranz) and never recovered, though he went on trading and writing in spite of the disease. People advised him to see a doctor, but he would not go, saying that he was cured by the doctor of the heart, and the couplet above is the line Azimi quotes with the story. [4] He gives the date of death as the 24th of the eighth month of 1968, which is 24 August. [4] Dawn says only that he died young of a lung illness. [6]

The death year is not agreed. The Express Tribune, reviewing Pashto books of 2015, writes that Khatir Afridi, whose real name was Misri Khan, died in 1961 and left a great deal of poetry in small booklets. [8] Azimi and the Wikisource author page give 1968. [4, 5] The Pashto essay and the author page agree on 1968.

How he is remembered

His mausoleum is at Landi Kotal. [6] In October 2022 the Jamrud session asked the provincial government to build a complex at his mausoleum there, so that local poets and writers could hold gatherings in it. [6] In June 2024 a mushaira at the Landi Kotal Press Club asked the Inspector General of the Frontier Corps to build a tomb for him like the renovation at the Hamza Baba Complex. [9] The Express Tribune reported in 2015 that a collection of his poetry had been released that year, under a title it gives as Kulyat-e-Khyber Afridi. [8]

The 2004 edition from University Book Agency, Khyber Bazar, Peshawar, is the one the Pashto Academy scholars cite. [2] An earlier, undated printing titled Da Khatir Diwan holds the 114 ghazals and the songs. [1]