My father insisted that they needed to think big. One day Hidayatullah came back from trying to enrol pupils to find my father sitting in the office talking about advertising with the local head of Pakistan TV. As soon as the man had gone, Hidayatullah burst into laughter. ‘Ziauddin, we don’t even have a TV, ’ he pointed out. ‘If we advertise we won’t be able to watch it.’ But my father is an optimistic man and never deterred by practicalities.

父亲坚持认为，他们应该想得更长远一点。一天，希达亚图拉招生回来，发现父亲正在与巴基斯坦电视台驻本地的台长讨论刊登广告的问题。台长一走，希达亚图拉禁不住大笑。“齐亚乌丁，我们根本没电视”，他指出，“就算我们真的登了广告，我们自己也看不到。”但父亲是个乐观之人，他从不会被现实击退。

One day my father told Hidayatullah he was going back to his village for a few days. He was actually getting married, but he didn’t tell any of his friends in Mingora as he could not afford to entertain them. Our weddings go on for several days of feasting. In fact, as my mother often reminds my father, he was not present for the actual ceremony. He was only there for the last day, when family members held a Quran and a shawl over their heads and held a mirror for them to look into. For many couples in arranged marriages this is the first time they see each other’s faces. A small boy was brought to sit on their laps to encourage the birth of a son.

某天，父亲跟希达亚图拉说他要回家几天。其实他是要结婚了，但他没有向任何明戈拉的朋友提起此事，因为他没有钱招待他们。按照我们的传统，婚礼的庆祝活动要持续好几天。事实上，后来母亲常常提醒父亲，结婚仪式开始时，父亲根本不在现场，他在最后一天才赶到。家人拿着《古兰经》和披肩越过新人头顶，再拿出一面镜子，让他们看看镜中的彼此。对于其他由父母安排婚事的新人来说，这是夫妻第一次见到彼此真实的模样。然后，有一个小男孩被带去坐在他们的腿上，鼓励新人们生个儿子。

It is our tradition for the bride to receive furniture or perhaps a fridge from her family and some gold from the groom’s family. My grandfather would not buy enough gold so my father had to borrow more money to buy bangles. After the wedding my mother moved in with my grandfather and my uncle. My father returned to the village every two or three weeks to see her. The plan was to get his school going then, once it was successful, send for his wife. But Baba kept complaining about the drain on his income and made my mother’s life miserable. She had a little money of her own so they used it to hire a van and she moved to Mingora. They had no idea how they would manage. ‘We just knew my father didn’t want us there, ’ said my father. ‘At that time I was unhappy with my family, but later I was grateful as it made me more independent.’

在我们的传统中，新娘的娘家会送她家具或是一台冰箱，而新郎家会送新娘一点黄金。我的祖父买的黄金不够，父亲又去借了些钱，买了手镯。婚礼后，我母亲搬来与我祖父和大伯同住，我父亲则每隔两三个星期回村里看望她一次。父亲原计划等学校上了轨道、成功了，再把妻子接过去。但爷爷一直抱怨这增加了他的支出，母亲的生活于是很难熬。她自己存了一点钱，父母用这笔钱租了一台货车，就这样，母亲搬到了明戈拉。他们完全不知道日子要怎么过下去。“我们只知道我父亲不想要我们待在那里。”父亲说，“当时我对我的家人很不满。但是后来我很感谢他们，因为他们促使我更加独立。”