Muhammad Seyaar, polish wala | Political Economy

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The T is 10am on Saturday morning and the shoe Shineman, Mohammad Seyar, has hardly welcomed any customer. At the end of the week, the University of Peshawar’s campus is still unusual. Lectures live with the usual joy of the students running between tea stalls, laughing with hot tea and hostels and hostel corridors.

At the gate of Rehman Baba Hostel, also known as the Hostel -2, he is sitting in Polish, Mohammad Seyar. His back is against the polished and brush wooden wooden box, his knees pulled near, his eyes stood on the empty road. There is no fall today. The weekends are rare when students and professors retreat. For the planet, leisure means hunger.

Seyyar has occupied the place for more than thirty years, and in view of the students’ breeds, their shoes collided with the dust of the streets of Peshawar. Many of them became bureaucrats, judges, businesses and politicians. Some people asked his name, very few still ask about his story. Why will they do? As Sear said, “They needed me for my stories, not for my stories.”

Peshawar University Hostels are the world for themselves, with crowded tea stalls flowing with gossip, bursting with cricket matches in the TV lounge, late night study sessions, and occasional, guitar and tapa maize. In all this, the shoes are everywhere: shoes kicked at the entrance, outside the Sandal Prayer room, polishing black and brown oxfords necessary for government work. And then there are amulets of lovers who need leather cover for the dual purpose of safety and decoration.

Students are a water shedding moment of the hostel, where they move from youth to youth, and from dependence to freedom. Students keep their ambitions on their shoulders and their worries in their anxious feet. Seyar is sitting at the gate, watching the life of these young people, like their dreams. He has little time to think about his children, some of which have mental disabilities.

“Social stability is a reality,” says Anab Khan, a former resident of Hostel -2. He confessed, “We remember our rooms, but not the person who polished our shoes every day, they are really hidden in front of our eyes”, they confessed.

In thirty years, the planet has polished thousands of shoes. They say they miss the shoes more than the faces. Heavy shoes of soldiers, excellent leather of professors, dust sandals of brake students. “Shoes tell you more than faces.” “They identify their wearer.”

Seyar is now about sixty. Her hair is white, her face stands, her eyes have gone like a cloud like a blurred signboard of the hostel. He came to Peshawar as a young man from Sobi with great dreams and strong ambitions. He got shelter by a kind man, a professor from Islamia College, Peshawar, who offered the Sear’s family to stay in the servants’ residence at the professor’s residence. His wife and children performed domestic work, while the Sear lived with shiny shoes.

“The professor was like a saint,” the Sear said, trembling his voice. “When we were ill, he took us to the hospital. Even once he donated blood to us. He introduced us to doctors, we were his family, not his servant.”

Such welfare is rare. Perhaps this is why Siyar remembers him so clearly. But kindness has its own limits. When the professor retired, the planet had to move forward while looking for new employers and new residences. Like a domestic occupation, he was handed over to another professor, then the second, then the other. Seyyar never dreamed of having his roof, but his late wife did. “He dreamed that he could keep his two rooms home,” Siyar remembers with tears in his eyes.

His Shusen business never went beyond his survival. Kovade 19 lockdowns were particularly severe. Campuses were closed, roads were empty, shoes used to collect dust in the cabinets instead of polishing it. When he was trying to deal with it, the tragedy attacked.

His wife became ill. The Sear sold his wife to some of the assets deposited to buy his house. He sold cows, some jewelry and miscellaneous household goods to pay for his treatment. For fifteen days, Sear stood at his bed at the hospital. On the sixteenth, she was gone.

When he tells this part of the story, he stops. For a person who has polished thousands of shoes, words are harder than labor. “She was my strength,” he whispered.

In thirty years, the planet has polished thousands of shoes. They say they miss the shoes more than the faces. Heavy shoes of soldiers, excellent leather of professors, dust sandals of brake students. “Shoes tell you more than faces.” “They identify their wearer.”

Iron is painful. When shining to others, his own life is slow.

The author has studied English literature, history and politics. It can be arrived at Nadeemkhankpk13@gmail.com