雙語暢銷書《我是馬拉拉》第2章6:祖父
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.
父親很敬畏祖父，他跟我說了很多關於祖父了不起的事蹟，但他也告訴我，祖父自己都無法達到他對別人設下的高標準。他是個很受歡迎又充滿熱忱的演說家，如果他可以多用點心思在人際交往上，少花點時間跟表親以及其他比他優異的人較勁，他或許可以成爲很優秀的領導人物。在普什圖社會，親戚比自己受歡迎、富有或是比自己更有影響力，是一般人很難忍受的事。祖父有個親戚也在他服務的學校裏當老師。當他得到那份工作時，他將自己的年齡填寫爲比我祖父年輕許多。我們一般不會記得自己確切的生日，比如我母親就不知道她是何時出生的。我們習慣於用大事件來記住出生年，比如說一次地震。但我祖父知道他的親戚其實比他年長許多。他對此非常憤怒，搭了整整一天的車，跑到明戈拉去找斯瓦特的教育部長。“薩比，”他跟部長說，“我有個親戚比我大十歲，你卻在證書上把他寫成比我小十歲。”部長就問他：“好啊，毛拉，那我們要怎麼幫你寫呢？你想要出生在奎達地震那一年嗎？”我祖父答應了，於是他得到了新的出生年份--1935年，比那個親戚年輕很多。
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.
家族內互相較勁造成父親常常被表兄弟們欺凌。他們知道他對自己的外表缺乏自信，學校裏的老師也都比較疼愛長相好看的男孩。這些男孩子們會在我父親下課回家的路上攔住他，取笑他個子又矮、皮膚又黑。在我們的社會裏，遇到這種欺凌是一定要報復的，但我父親比他的親戚們瘦小多了，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.
那時候，父親覺得自己永遠都無法讓祖父滿意。祖父寫一手很漂亮的字，因此父親會花好幾個小時費盡心力地描繪每個字，但祖父從沒給過他一句稱讚。
