Pak Tea House » culture » A Peshawari princess?
A Peshawari princess?
By Angela Weinberger
In my last life I was a princess and lived in Peshawar. I probably died young and was some Mughal’s daughter. Have I mentioned that my name was Khan, Anjali Khan?“
If I ever write a novel, this is how it will start. What might bring a smile to your face right now is that you see a Western woman writing this. I am obviously not from this area of the world. I will never forget when one of my Indian drivers in Bombay asked me: „What is your name madam?“ and I said „Angela Weinberger“. He replied „Anjali – that’s a Hindi name. You must be Indian. I was in love with the country and the people right away. At that time „Anjali“ (Kajol) had just become my favorite heroine and „Kuch kuch hota hai“ one of my first Bollywood movies.
Today, I do not want to enlighten you with my story about how much I love Indians. Today I want to share with you some thoughts around why I am writing here and how all of this is somehow connected. This is the story of my love for Pakistanis.
One year ago I was sitting in Alexandria in Egypt learning Arabic. It was the beginning of the holy months of Ramadan and my favorite café now opened at night only. So I stayed home most of the time between my lessons and the outings with my teacher. I had been on Twitter already for a year but never really got it and only recently found that I could use it to follow Shah Rukh Khan and my other favourite Bollywood stars. I had also downloaded an app to my blackberry which was at that time quite new to me. Since I did not bring a laptop and I did not have a TV in the place I only had twitter to update me on what was going on in the world outside of Alexandria.
I usually spent a few hours in the morning reading aol news before I resumed my vocabulary and my intercultural literature. It was hot, the restaurants closed and I was a Western woman on my own. I tried to stay in a place where I felt at home. Getting the groceries done was enough of a challenge with my basic Arabic skills.
One morning I read about the floods in Pakistan. It was heartbreaking. Then I read about a dentist and his group of friends and their relief work in the flood hit areas. I also read about how he generates support through Twitter. Since I was interested how that works from a more professional perspective I started to follow Dr. Awab Alvi. A few days later I knew exactly what he and his friends are doing.. I watched them taking thier cars to the flood affectees and help them hands on. Sometimes even risking their lives. Honestly speaking, I had lived in a state of numbness for years with regards to social activities. I used to be active in my student days but somehow completely lost my spirit.
That day in Alexandria I finally changed into the person that I really am. I suddenly knew that I could use my skills as a coach and HR professional to help people and to get some funds raised for the relief workers. I did a full weekend of calls and coachings, reworked some people’s resumes and asked for donations. My Coaching for Pakistan“ logo was handmade…I had no technological skills whatsoever but it attracted some attention.
Some Pakistanis on Twitter already got in touch and were happy to see how supportive I was. That’s how I followed Farhan Masood. Some of my German friends were slightly worried where our funds would actually end up. I did some research on sa relief and watched a few videos of Dr. Awab and another person called Faisal Kapadia. Those videos were hilarious. I knew that these two are good people. I never doubted this decision.
The next month, #PKFloods continued and did not get enough media attention in the West. I supported Farhan Masood by translating his „#PKFloods-Tweets“ in my mother tongue German. Again I was hooked on the idea immediately and used some of my vacation to help. I was getting so involved that many Pakistanis followed me on Twitter. I met Khushbu Malik, my online sister and she taught me a lot of important ideas about the culture, religion and a bit of Urdu too.
Suddenly more than 50% of my followers came from Pakistan and the best thing was they were really enthusiastic and communicative. I connected with many on Facebook as well and they feel like friends to me now. If someone is looking for any type of support I am trying to help. I cannot name all of my friends here but they are all on my facebook club called „The Global People Club“.
I was and still am fascinated by the amount of lovely and intelligent Pakistanis I have met on Twitter and I am trying to expand my knowledge and deepen my friendships at this time. For me the saddest moments over the last year were those when I realized how fragile the country is, how many dangers my friends face every day and how hard it is to just lead what I consider a normal“ life. Besides the floods there was at least one major earthquake, a dead politician shot dead by his bodyguard, the Osama bin Ladern raid, an attack on the military basis of Karachi and over the last few weeks many people dying in Karachi again.
However, there are also moments of normality and fun with the Cricket world championship (which does not mean much to me as a German) and a lot of funny and inspiring news coming along. Most of the time I feel like all of you are just like me, we all have our issues, we all fall in love, try to get the best for our families and we all work hard to achieve that.
Even our religions have so many connections. I am a catholic Christian and we also have a fasting period which is the 40 days before Easter. The fasting period reminds us of the time Jesus spent in the desert to fight Satan. I usually try not to drink alcohol in fasting time. This year I have stopped to drink alcohol in Ramadan as well. Being an intercultural practitioner I do not want to sound like we do not have our differences but I am positive that with a bit of an effort and more learning on all sides most of these differences will not matter in the long run. You all have potential and you can show the world that you have talented young people who will inspire others like Dr. Awab & Mr. Kapadia who inspired me.
Maybe one day I will finally travel to your country. My heart and soul are already there most of the time since 17 August 2010.
Filed under: culture · Tags: 2010 floods, a letter from germany, meeting people online, relief work, sa relief, twitter
18 Responses to "A Peshawari princess?"
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Dear Angela,
I want to thank you for all the efforts you made in tough times of Pakistan. The thing which made me write to you is your thoughtfulness. At least someone considered us (Pakistanis) as normal as rest of the nationals are … every nation is as normal as you, me and other Pakistanis. We can be different because of our different cultures and surroundings but from inside we all are similar normal people.
And we all Pakistanis demand only one thing that please consider us normal human and Muslim.
Thank you for your warm welcome to the Muslims and Pakistanis highly appreciated
Regards,
Angela or Anjali…you are an amazing writer..it was a lot of fun going through ur story…thank you so much for being of help to our country…you can always visit Pakistan…we’ll take good care of you.
Respect
Dear Angie Aapi . . Love what you write about pakistan . . You are Amazing in writing . . . Whenever you come pakistan please come to my country my mother land and shahrukh khan’s home town ‘INDIA’ . . Love you Aapi
lovely write up.. i thought people come and go and we move on… but ppl likeyou stay with us and keep inspiring
Thank you
Thank you so much for helping our countrymen in need at that time, and to continue to do so. Your spirit to see this through is inspirational. Good luck and best wishes for whatever you do in the future.
Your words are too kind – thank you for them
and for showing us that as long as there are people out there willing to help one another. Humanity will still have its hope!
You will alwaya be welcome in pakistan!!
I am personally thankful to Faisal Kapadia for posting this article here. PTH could be a force for good if used properly. Angela Weinberger is an Angel that brings love to the people. Good luck with your Arabic and Urdu. May be one day you could learn Persian and Turkish as well. And Dr. Awab Alvi, the teeth maestro, you are an amazing person. If you read this post; God bless you my brother.
Thank you angela for your sentiments for Pakistan.
To enjoy your visit to Pakistan may I suggest to please stay away from the Ba Ba Blacksheep Pakistanis..These selfloathing Pakistanis pretend and act as if they belong in the west. The hate anything which is not western. They take pride in knowing itsy-bitsy Urdu and try to pass themselves as being educated. Such scum fancies itself to be “elite” but in reality it is the riff-raff of the nation and most of them are corrupt to the core. Pakistan is suffering because of these Civil, Military and business middle class…Most of this scum lives in what it proudly call as “COLONIES” like DEFENSE etc and yearn for the return of COLONIAL days.
Please try to mix and mingle with Muslims in Pakistan and not with the westoxicated scum.
to PMA
Why should she learn arabic, turkish and persian. why not panjabi and sindhi and brahui? Here again PMA shows up as the quisling that he is. He wants to fool the world into believing that pakistanis are arabs and turks and persians (what exactly?).
“Westoxicated scum” (term as used by hamzad) means bootlickers of arabs, turks and persians. The arabs, turks and iranians are to the west of Pakistan.
Germans are good because they kicked the British butt before the British baboons were kicked out of the “Colonies”. THey are not a nation of shopkeepers like Britto baboons. Westoxicated and Ba Ba Blacksheep stand for the riff-raff of “elite” ‘schooling’ in Pakistan which deludes itself to be an emexed*-crow a “westerner-in-waiting” and tries to look, walk, talk, and eat as if he/she is in Pakistan only as a transit to a country where he can act out his fantasy to flip burgers
*emexed: a skin whitening cream used by the westoxicated scum .
“Today I want to share with you some thoughts around why I am writing here and how all of this is somehow connected. This is the story of my love for Pakistanis. One year ago I was sitting in Alexandria in Egypt learning Arabic. It was the beginning of the holy months of Ramadan and my favorite café now opened at night only. So I stayed home most of the time between my lessons and the outings with my teacher……..
The next month, #PKFloods continued and did not get enough media attention in the West. I supported Farhan Masood by translating his “#PKFloods-Tweets“ in my mother tongue German. Again I was hooked on the idea immediately and used some of my vacation to help. I was getting so involved that many Pakistanis followed me on Twitter. I met Khushbu Malik, my online sister and she taught me a lot of important ideas about the culture, religion and a bit of Urdu too.”
Lovely read.
Whenever you visit Pakistan Angela, Peshawar & its people will welcome its long lost princess. God bless you.
Angela would be the first Jewish peshawari princess..cant you have better dreams?
@Rehmat
Did you even read the article? The article where she says she’s a catholic Christian? Besides even if she was Jew, does it even matter?
you article is highly appriciated.. I would say we all as a human being should think like we all are the same.. and we should take these Satan out of us.. and should believe in equality of mankind.. Angela your love for Pakistan and Peshawar.. will truly make you the Princess of Peshawar…. My Vote is with you.. thanks for Everything…
Regards
@Rehmat… the courage to write should be appreciated. and you shouldnt say weather its Christian or Jew we all are human beings.. and you should be a shame of yourself by bring religion into humanity.. Humanity is in Religion..every Religion gives the lesson of Peace and love and helping others..
Dear Amgela: What a wonderful story. While there are people like you there is hope for humanity and for Pakistan too. I hope you are able to visit Pakistan someday and meet up with all the friends you have made. God Bless!
Dear Angela:
We Pakis suffer from MJS…Michael Jackson syndrome..only worse. HE at least was good in his own language. Some among abhor or self-loathe our dress, food, language..and look at our own country from a foriegners eyes…as if they are sitting on this garbage heap only as a favour to “natives”. You’ll see as soon as you land how these anglished-crows fawn over you. They’ll ignore their own white-crows to serve you till you turn red with embarrasment. Fashionable westoxicated emexed crows would love to talk abot uptodate US European stuff..but would sneer with disdain when someone mentions our learned folk..the Muslims, The Urdu “types”, the ones in shareef mohallaas and not the ones in OFFENSE colonies…yes they still love colonies as a reminder of “great” COLONIALISM period…more later…auf wiedersahn…Ein Stuffe Deutch sprach…40 years ago.