Ustaad Sikandar Khan’s rabab workshop in Peshawar’s Dabgari Bazaar is known far and wide for its special, handcrafted rababs made from the finest Afghan wood by skilful artisans who have kept their ancestral craft alive till this day.

It is the same bazaar from where musicians were forcefully displaced a decade ago as Peshawar became embroiled in conflict and militancy. But as art critic Ihtesham Turo put it, “the musicians [haven’t] stopped playing music” in the bazaar. Some singers still have their offices there. And of course, Ustad Samandar Khan kept his workshop open during this time.

“We will keep making rababs for as long as people’s love for [it] is alive,” says Ustad Samandar’s 26-year-old grandson Khurram Shehzad.

If their sales are anything to go by, people’s passion for the rabab is alive and well. Ustad Samandar’s shop doesn’t advertise nor do they have a website, but amateur rabab players from across the country and abroad place orders at their shop.

Their popularity is by word of mouth: customers hear about their handcrafted, high quality rababs and they place orders every month. rabab prices can be as low as Rs8,000 but can cost more than Rs100, 000.

The tradition of rababs is actually about 2,000 years old; over time, it has become a symbol of living Pashto music and culture. Critics have argued that Talibanisation and militancy in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) were an attack on Pakhtun culture. The fact that rababs were still being sold when Peshawar’s soul was being ripped apart could, therefore, be read as an act of defiance.

Perhaps it is from the same spirit of resilience that the government is now rebuilding Peshawar’s cultural fabric. The provincial archaeology department is now teaching the art of making rabab as well as other endangered cultural arts and crafts at the historic Gor Khatri in Peshawar city. The trainer and the students are being paid an honorarium.

“I am not a musicians but being Pakhtun, I love the rabab. I have learnt to play it because it is actually part of our culture, our very blood,” says Abdul Samad, an archaeologist by profession.

In fact, slowly but surely, Peshawar’s cultural scene is showing signs of resuscitation. Few will believe that just recently, the city lit up with fireworks and laughter when a cultural festival was arranged by the KP tourism and culture department.

Despite threats to educational institutions, a fair was held for families. And in spite of the imminent danger of terrorist attacks and violence, people have come out in great numbers whenever any festive occasion has been organised in the recent past.

Another festival was held exclusively for women who exhibited the handicrafts, fashion sense, cuisine and music of the province. Young students from various universities volunteered to organise and even took part in a fashion show as models.

This is a far cry from the days of the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) government when even billboards carrying women model’s faces were intolerable. It was also during the MMA government that Peshawar’s sole theatre or cultural hall, Nishtar Hall, was shut.

Musicians and singers living in the Dabgari area of the Peshawar City fled due to fear of a clampdown of vigilantes. Even mannequins were removed from shops. Playing music in public transport was forbidden. Billboards depicting women were torn down; even tourism billboards depicting Kalash women were smeared with black paint.

The MMA was voted out subsequently and in came the Awami National Party (ANP). Although the ANP’s reign was marked by bombings and terrorism, in a calculated move, the provincial tourism and culture departments started organising events and festivals in areas of the city whose populace had been worst-hit by the wave of terrorism.

In 2010-11, the Tourism Corporation of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (TCKP) started the Revival of Indigenous Cultural Heritage (RICH) programme that aimed at rehabilitating cultural activities at the grassroots level as communities tended to come out in their thousands to celebrate indigenous expressions of culture and performance.

Traditional festivals, traditional sports and local customs were revived as part of the plan. The traditional institution of hujra — a community place of recreation, discourse on collective issues and place of hospitality at every village — was also revived under the RICH project. Recent poetry and rabab sessions held in various villages with the support of the provincial culture department also fall under the RICH programme.

Despite the change of government in 2013, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaaf led government kept the tourism and culture department team together. As a result, there is continuity in the policies for the revival of cultural and historic spaces.

The Nishtar Hall, for example, is being redesigned and will open soon for cultural events. For the first time, the culture directorate has been revamped with a team of young experts, who will be documenting Pakhtun cultural heritage and conducting various activities to revive cultural festivals and traditions in the province.

For the first time in the history of the province, artists, poets, writers, singers, and actors have been honoured as ‘Living treasures of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’ and have been awarded a monthly honorarium of Rs30,000.

In December 2008, the Taliban in Swat killed a singer named Shabana simply because of her profession. Recently, Nabila Wadood from the same locality took part in a province-wide talent hunt competition; she bagged the second prize in a folk song competition ‘Ya Qurban’.

Indeed, over the last few years, Peshawar has seen more literary, cultural, recreational and other purposeful activities for youth and families which are unmatched in the city’s history. The revival of indigenous cultural activities proved to be psychologically therapeutic and morale boosters for a population that found itself in the midst of an endless conflict zone.

Naeem Saafi, a consultant with the culture department, however, feels that there is a need for more long-term initiatives in a city that has seen ugliness and death from so close.

“The cultural [milieu] of the entire city has been disturbed during all these years. People’s tastes have been affected so it would take sustainable efforts to revive culture,” says Saafi, arguing that for the youth — an increasing segment of KP’s population — it is culture that can ‘save’ them.

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has gone through decades of turmoil and bloodshed but has still given birth to people who have fought back by keeping culture and tradition alive. Despite having witnessed terror, Peshawar is on its way to rising from the ashes.