KEYWORDS: TAPPAH, POETRY, WOMAN, AFFECT, SWARAH, BODY, SOMA, FLOWER

I do, I live: the tappa quieting the pangs of pain When I chose to write about the Tappah, I was initially surprised at the great grief present in the poems when heard during funerals or wedding rukhsatis. The /h/ sound that elongated the last word, emphasised it enough to make me think this was a pleading - a sort of concession to authority or some god. I realised after reading and hearing so many, that this was really much less about grief and ones tragic positions in life than about many emotions and events, varied reflections: occasions - burials, engagements, weddings, reminiscing friendship, rural architecture (Godar, mud-houses), motherhood, soma harvests; bodily autonomy; nature - flowers, gardens; on protest against state-induced violence, stereotyping, poverty; vividly illustrating customs - funeral rites, Swarah, Eid-day visits, monthly flower harvesting, marriage - khaal, wearing red; moon sightings for Ramadan.

The Tappah which is impromptu poetry orally transmitted and therefore uncensored, reveals a more complex Pashtun woman and an archive of womanhood. In this essay, I choose two customs historically practiced by Pashtuns: soma-plant harvesting and Swarah to elaborate on the role of female literature in understanding customary practice. This results, through an understanding of affect theory present in this poetry, varied angles through which the Pashtun woman is complicated and thoroughly archived. Therefore, with my “little richer… thicker - contextualisation” (Appiah), I immerse myself in this exercise of translating text from Pashto to English of the given Tappay. The original Pashto versions are available at the end of this essay.