My father was in awe of my grandfather and told me wonderful stories about him, but he also told me that he was a man who could not meet the high standards he set for others. Baba was such a popular and passionate speaker that he could have been a great leader if he had been more diplomatic and less consumed by rivalries with cousins and others who were better off. In Pashtun society it is very hard to stomach a cousin being more popular, wealthier or more influential than you are. My grandfather had a cousin who also joined his school as a teacher. When he got the job he gave his age as much younger than my grandfather. Our people don’t know their exact dates of birth – my mother, for example, does not know when she was born. We tend to remember years by events, like an earthquake. But my grandfather knew that his cousin was actually much older than him. He was so angry that he made the day-long bus journey to Mingora to see the Swat minister of education. ‘Sahib, ’ he told him, ‘I have a cousin who is ten years older than me and you have certified him ten years younger.’ So the minister said, ‘OK, Maulana, what shall I write down for you? Would you like to have been born in the year of the earthquake of Quetta?’ My grandfather agreed, so his new date of birth became 1935, making him much younger than his cousin.

父亲很敬畏祖父，他跟我说了很多关于祖父了不起的事迹，但他也告诉我，祖父自己都无法达到他对别人设下的高标准。他是个很受欢迎又充满热忱的演说家，如果他可以多用点心思在人际交往上，少花点时间跟表亲以及其他比他优异的人较劲，他或许可以成为很优秀的领导人物。在普什图社会，亲戚比自己受欢迎、富有或是比自己更有影响力，是一般人很难忍受的事。祖父有个亲戚也在他服务的学校里当老师。当他得到那份工作时，他将自己的年龄填写为比我祖父年轻许多。我们一般不会记得自己确切的生日，比如我母亲就不知道她是何时出生的。我们习惯于用大事件来记住出生年，比如说一次地震。但我祖父知道他的亲戚其实比他年长许多。他对此非常愤怒，搭了整整一天的车，跑到明戈拉去找斯瓦特的教育部长。“萨比，”他跟部长说，“我有个亲戚比我大十岁，你却在证书上把他写成比我小十岁。”部长就问他：“好啊，毛拉，那我们要怎么帮你写呢？你想要出生在奎达地震那一年吗？”我祖父答应了，于是他得到了新的出生年份--1935年，比那个亲戚年轻很多。

This family rivalry meant that my father was bullied a lot by his cousins. They knew he was insecure about his looks because at school the teachers always favoured the handsome boys for their fair skin. His cousins would stop my father on his way home from school and tease him about being short and dark-skinned. In our society you have to take revenge for such slights, but my father was much smaller than his cousins.

家族内互相较劲造成父亲常常被表兄弟们欺凌。他们知道他对自己的外表缺乏自信，学校里的老师也都比较疼爱长相好看的男孩。这些男孩子们会在我父亲下课回家的路上拦住他，取笑他个子又矮、皮肤又黑。在我们的社会里，遇到这种欺凌是一定要报复的，但我父亲比他的亲戚们瘦小多了，只能默默承受。

He also felt he could never do enough to please my grandfather. Baba had beautiful handwriting and my father would spend hours painstakingly drawing letters but Baba never once praised him.

那时候，父亲觉得自己永远都无法让祖父满意。祖父写一手很漂亮的字，因此父亲会花好几个小时费尽心力地描绘每个字，但祖父从没给过他一句称赞。