3. Dear Son, What Is the Matter with You?
THE MORNING CHAI ROUTINE involved listening to petitions. Out-
side the local court building, petitioners lined up early enough to
get the ears of one of the scribes. These officers of the court were
responsible for selling the official court stationary on which legal ,
writs were required to be filed. They also wrote, in longhand, the
petition. Their annotations distinguished the "story" from the "facts"
of the case.
I had begun my day at the courtyard listening to Murad Sahib, who
was widely known as a historian of Uch. I had come to him to gather
information about the local families who had textual sources in their
archives. My query was open ended, and Murad Sahib had no concrete
information for me. The families of U ch, he explained, do not traffic
in manuscripts. I sat quietly, listening to him as he began to tell the
story of Uch: "Uch was Iskandria. When Iskander began to look for
Ab-e Hayat (Water of Life), he began from here and was lost in the des-
erts of Cholistan. He was looking for Khizr (the immortal Prophet) at
the confluences of the rivers, and it was here that he founded this city
with his soldiers."^1 I said something about similar stories of Greek
bloodlines in the northwest regions of Kafirstan, but Murad Sahib gave
no indication of having heard me.