Nasreen
Nasreen was born on September 27, 1973, in Hayatabad on the edge of Peshawar, in Pakistan’s North-West Frontier Province. The city sat close to the Afghan border. Military governments ruled from Islamabad, clerics and parties argued over public morality, and later the long war in Afghanistan sent refugees and weapons across the border. Her family spoke Pashto at home and Urdu outside, and they prayed as Sunni Muslims in the Hanafi way, with the extra practices that filled many Pashtun houses—naat cassettes, milad gatherings, and folded paper amulets pinned inside clothing.
She entered a household ruled by her paternal grandfather, Baba Jan, and managed by her grandmother, Ana Bibi. Her father, Haji Abdul Karim, taught in a local school and kept a strict order. In the morning he read the newspaper in Urdu, and Nasreen learned not to cross in front of him. Her mother, Bibi Gul, ran the kitchen with help and competition from other women under the same roof.
Nasreen’s earliest memories were of rules. Water carried in metal pots. Charpoys shifted out of the way before sweeping. Bread dough covered so it would not dry. When she made a mistake, Ana Bibi did not shout; she flicked her ear or slapped her hand and pointed back at the task. Nasreen learned quickly and did not argue. She liked the neatness of a finished floor and the quiet hour after fajr when the men had gone out and the house was briefly hers.
Fazal was born in 1976, then Naeem in 1979, then Jamal in 1982. Nasreen was the oldest and the only girl. By eight, she could bathe a baby with one hand and stir lentils with the other. The men called her “Mashar,” eldest, in a tone that was half affection and half instruction. She helped raise all three brothers: carried Fazal on her hip, taught Naeem to wash before prayers, scolded Jamal when he tracked mud across freshly swept floors. When she went to school she kept her books wrapped in brown paper, edges taped, pencils sharpened to a point. She read better than she wrote. She copied slowly and hated crossing out words, so she often waited until she was sure before putting pen to page.
Outside the house, Peshawar changed. During Zia-ul-Haq’s rule, sermons about proper behavior grew louder, and Nasreen’s father tightened his expectations. Then refugees came from Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion. The city filled with new faces and new markets. Men spoke more openly about guns and factions. Nasreen’s mother began keeping a ta’wiz sewn into the lining of Nasreen’s dress when she went out. On Thursdays, Bibi Gul sometimes took her to a shrine on the outskirts, where women tied threads to the grill and whispered du‘a for protection and good marriages.
Baba Jan died in 1986. His sons took over decisions about money and land, but the household stayed together under one roof. Ana Bibi held the keys and made Nasreen stand with her when guests arrived, passing tea and checking that the cups were clean. When Ana Bibi died in 1992, the women’s hierarchy loosened. Nasreen felt it as extra work: more arguing about who would wash dishes, more chances for things to be done badly.
Marriage negotiations began the year before Ana Bibi died. Nasreen was seventeen, short and plain-faced, and had already stopped regular schooling. She could read signs and simple letters, and she could recite and follow Urdu radio dramas, but writing longer passages was slow and tiring. In 1991 she married Saeed Khan, a man from another town in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. She left Peshawar with a trunk of clothes, quilts, and kitchen items and entered a new joint family with new rules. The first months were a series of tests: how she cooked rice, how she greeted elders, whether she rose before everyone else. She watched the other women carefully, noted who had the mother-in-law’s ear, and made herself useful to the ones who mattered.
Imran arrived in 1993. Bilal followed in 1995, then Ayesha in 1998. Nasreen’s days filled with cooking, washing, and managing children in a house where privacy was limited and quarrels carried. She developed a habit of holding a small tin of tobacco—naswar—wrapped in cloth in the back of a cupboard. After the morning rush she took a pinch, then rinsed her mouth carefully. She told herself it steadied her. Over the years it became a fixed part of her day, and she grew sharp when anyone touched the cupboard.
Usman was born in 2001, months before the towers fell in America. After 9/11, her town tightened. Security checkpoints appeared, and rumors moved faster than facts. When Usman was small, Saeed began coming home late, tense from roadblocks and news of attacks. Nasreen did not ask many questions. She kept to her routines, kept the children fed, pressed their clothes, and sent them to school when it was open.
Her father died in 2004 of a heart attack, at home, before an ambulance could reach him. Nasreen traveled back to Peshawar for the funeral, sat with women behind a curtain, and listened to the Qur’an recitation. She had always been able to call on him for advice or small loans; now that channel closed. Fazal, her closest brother, tried to fill the gap, but he had his own family and his own debts.
Zara was born in late 2004. Nasreen’s household felt full, and she counted money more carefully. In 2006 she went to a crowded bazaar to buy cloth and cooking oil. Someone cut her purse. The cash for that week’s expenses disappeared without a sound. She went home furious with herself. After that she pinned notes inside her kameez with a safety pin and refused to go to the market alone. If a neighbor insisted on going together, Nasreen chose early morning when the lanes were less packed.
Swat’s conflict pushed displaced families toward KP’s towns in 2007 and 2008. Lines got longer at clinics. Rents rose. Saeed argued with his brothers about money. Nasreen kept her voice even, but she tightened the household rules: children washed hands twice, shoes lined up, no lingering outside. Arif was born in 2008, a quiet baby with a weak appetite. He died in 2009 after a short illness that turned into fever and diarrhea. Nasreen washed him, wrapped him, and sat with women while men carried him away. Afterward she kept a ta’wiz tied above the doorway and attended milad gatherings more often, lips moving as the women sang naat softly.
That same year, 2009, violence reached closer. An explosion and gunfire on a nearby road sent neighbors pouring into the lane, shouting questions and accusations. Gul Bano, a woman from the house next door, blamed Shazia—Saeed’s younger sister—for drawing attention to their lane by talking to a stranger the week before. Nasreen grabbed Shazia by the wrist to pull her back inside. Gul Bano struck Nasreen across the face and shoved her hard against the wall. Nasreen did not hit back. She steadied herself, dragged Shazia indoors, and shut the door. Bruises darkened on her arm and shoulder. She told no police, only her brother Fazal, who came the next day and stood in the lane with his jaw clenched.
In 2010, Saeed died. He had complained of chest pain and breathlessness for two days, refused to see a doctor, and collapsed in the courtyard on a Friday morning. By the time a neighbor’s car got him to the hospital, he was gone. Nasreen became a widow with five living children. The respect she received was real—women lowered their voices around her, men spoke to her through intermediaries—but dependence came with it. She held her posture straight when in-laws discussed expenses, fought to keep her share of the household budget, and relied on Fazal and Jamal to stand behind her when negotiations turned difficult. She also began using tobacco more openly, saying it helped her sleep.
In 2012, a bombing hit near a market road she used. She arrived soon after, thinking of errands, and saw bodies and wounded people being loaded into cars and pickups. A child’s face was gray with dust. That night she washed her hands again and again and said ayat al-kursi under her breath. For months she refused that route and snapped at anyone who suggested it was safe.
Diabetes and high blood pressure were diagnosed in 2014. Dr. Farah told her to cut down on sweets and stop tobacco. Nasreen nodded, kept the paper, and asked Imran to read it aloud later because she did not like filling forms at the clinic. She followed the medicine schedule precisely for a week, then slipped back into old eating patterns when guests came or stress rose. She took her pills most days, though, counted them, and scolded the children if a bottle was moved. Her brother Naeem, who had more education than the rest of the family, lectured her about the tobacco when he visited. She listened politely, agreed with everything he said, and changed nothing.
Her mother, Bibi Gul, died in 2016. Nasreen traveled to Peshawar for the funeral and sat with the women again, as she had for her father twelve years before. The house in Hayatabad felt smaller without her mother’s voice in the kitchen. Nasreen returned to her own household and resumed her routines. That same year Imran married. His wife moved in, and Nasreen taught her the kitchen the way Ana Bibi had once taught her—watching, correcting, pointing at the task until it was done right.
By 2020 her eyesight blurred. She could no longer read fine print, not even the simple Urdu she once handled. Dr. Farah said the diabetes had reached her eyes. Imran, her eldest, became her reader—medicine labels, utility bills, official letters. He was patient but sometimes snapped when she asked him to read the same thing twice. Zara, her youngest daughter, learned to handle phone calls and appointment dates. Ayesha, who had always been her closest helper in the kitchen, resented how much was expected of her now that Nasreen could not see clearly. Bilal drifted further from the household, spending time with friends and coming home late. Nasreen worried about him most but kept her worry quiet, expressing it only through stricter rules when he was present. The loss of control irritated her; she responded by making more lists in her head, repeating instructions, checking the spice jars and the rice tin as if they might have shifted when she looked away.
Ayesha married in 2021 and moved to her husband’s family in Peshawar. Nasreen kept her face still during the rukhsati and gripped Zara’s arm on the walk home. Imran’s wife took over the kitchen work. Bilal married the following year, though he still spent more time out than Nasreen liked.
In 2025 she lives in the same KP town where she married. Imran’s children run through the courtyard, and she calls after them in the same voice she once used on her brothers. She prays, prepares food, and attends women’s milad gatherings when her health allows, sitting against a wall with her dupatta pinned tight. She keeps naswar in the cupboard and thinks she hides it, though everyone smells it. In the afternoon she sits where the light is strongest and asks Zara to read messages on a phone. When the call to maghrib comes, she stands carefully, checks the latch on the gate, and goes back to the small tasks that keep the house running.