Friday Feature-Khes aur Cambal Wale

Asalamu Alaikum,

The wale(door to door salesmen) sell different things according to the seasons. When it starts to cool down and all during the winter there are wale that sell Khes(sounds like "case") and cambal. Cambals are just soft comforter types of blankets, thick and usually fuzzy. The khes is a thinner woven blanket(here is a very detailed article on khes and other woven fabrics common in Southeast Asia), that is very common in the Sindh and Punjab ares of Pakistan.

A cambal wala, mostly they carry the blankets tied onto their back instead of on a cart like many other wale.
A khes wala, taking a little rest.

The khes wale usually come on bicycles, with the khes tied in a stack on the back and a couple on the front handle bars for display. Khes come in sets of two or four, and the plainer ones are usually still in one big piece that you have to cut and finish the edges yourself. There are fancier khes that have already been cut and have a finished edge, sometimes a fringe or tassels.

One side
and the reverse

The less expensive, plain types of khes are generally only two to three colors and have a very basic checker type pattern. Other khes have elaborate floral motifs with five or more colors, and most are reversible.

Fancy design on the long sides
The shorter edges with tassels.

The single khes is roughly four feet wide by six feet long, so the un-separated khes are about four feet wide by twenty four feet long.

This is one of the set of khes that Tariq bought for me last winter.

Samp Wala-Snake Charmer

Asalam Alaikum,

This morning I heard the sound of a pipe being played outside, and since Tariq was sleeping and his dad was out for a walk, I was sure I was going to miss this one. Alhamdulillah my father in law came back just as the samp wala was walking past our door and my sister in law and I quickly asked him to stop him for us to see.


When my father in law asked about the snake, the wala said it was five years old and had the venom sacks had been removed. He didn't stay very long, just about five minutes. It was pretty cool to see the snake come up and sway around a bit. The samp wala had to tap it a little to get him to come up out of the basket. I don't know if it was sleeping or just annoyed at having to do this all the time. After he got the snake up and did his little performance my father in law gave him some money and then he put the snake back in and left.

He's selling what on his bicycle?

Asalam Alaikum,

Remember my post about walay? Since then I have taken some more pictures, while we hang out on the roof, of the door to door salesmen that frequent our neighborhood. It is always interesting to see who's coming down the street.

Who wants to guess whats inside?

This is a Qur'an wale. He has in this bundle on the front of his bicycle all sorts of different Qur'ans. He has the regular type of book that is what we normally read, and also the type that is separated into 30 little books called "sipara". The only time I ever see the second type is when people are having "Qur'an Khanees"(where a bunch of people gather to read Qur'an together and then eat food), and on bursees(death anniversaries when people get together to read Qur'an and then eat more food). It is pretty helpful, as each person can take one little book at a time and the gathering can very quickly complete a full Qur'an reading(or sometimes more than one). I do try to avoid going to bursees, as I am pretty sure it may be a bidah, and so to be on the safe side I just avoid them as much as possible. No one ever says anything about my non participation, and I kind of prefer it that way.

This Qur'an wale seems very dedicated. He comes down our street usually 3-4 times a week, and has been since we first came to Pakistan.