雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第4章8:真正的婚禮
Occasionally there would be real weddings with big feasts which went on for days and left the family bankrupt or in debt. The brides would wear exquisite clothes and be draped in gold, necklaces and bangles given by both sides of the family. I read that Benazir Bhutto insisted on wearing glass bangles at her wedding to set an example but the tradition of adorning the bride still continued. Sometimes a plywood coffin would be brought back from one of the mines. The women would gather at the house of the dead man’s wife or mother and a terrible wailing would start and echo round the valley, which made my skin crawl.
有時，村裏會有真正的婚禮，慶祝活動連續進行好幾天，這會讓新人家裏破產或負債。新娘會穿上精美的服飾，全身掛滿金飾，兩方家庭都會送她項鍊和手鐲。我看過一篇報道，是關於貝.布托堅持在她的婚禮上戴上玻璃手環，以開創新的風氣。但是，贈新娘以金飾，以表達對新娘的疼愛的傳統沒有改變。有時，也會有夾板棺材從礦坑被送回來。婦女們就會到去世的男人的太太或母親家，一起放聲大哭。悲悽的哭聲迴盪在山谷中，令我全身起雞皮疙瘩。
At night the village was very dark with just oil lamps twinkling in houses on the hills. None of the older women had any education but they all told stories and recited what we call tapey, Pashto couplets.
夜裏，整個村子黑漆漆的，只有山丘上的屋裏有點點油燈閃爍。村裏年紀比較大的婦女全都沒有受過教育，但她們都會說故事，也會轉述拓帕，也就是普什圖的兩行詩。
My grandmother was particularly good at them. They were usually about love or being a Pashtun. ‘No Pashtun leaves his land of his own sweet will, ’ she would say. ‘Either he leaves from poverty or he leaves for love.’ Our aunts scared us with ghost stories, like the one about Shalgwatay, the twenty-fingered man, who they warned would sleep in our beds. We would cry in terror, though in fact as ‘toe’ and ‘finger’ in Pashto is the same, we were all twenty-fingered, but we didn’t realise.
我的外祖母特別擅長講拓帕。拓帕通常講的是愛情故事，或是怎樣成爲一個普什圖人。“沒有任何一個普什圖人會自願離開他的家園，”她說道，“不論是因爲貧困，還是爲了愛。”我的姑姑們則拿鬼故事嚇我們，例如蕭谷帝的故事，講的是一個有着20只指頭的男人。她們說他會爬上我們的牀，跟我們一起睡覺。我們會嚇得大叫。在普什圖語裏，“手指”和“腳趾”都被稱作“指頭”，因此，其實大家都是二十個指頭，但我們當時卻沒有認識到這一點。
