Every so often, a piece of real oral history surfaces that's worth more than any amount of general regional research — a story with real names, a real place, and someone who was actually there to tell it. This is one of those stories. It comes to us from Raja Sajid Mehmood, shared originally on Facebook, and it centers on a shrine many residents of this village know well: the dargah of the late Raja Sain Arif Sahib, spiritual custodian, or gaddi-nashin, of what locals often call Thoha Sharif — Thoha Khalsa's own, commonly used local name, tied directly to this very shrine.
What follows is a retelling of the story as shared by Raja Sajid Mehmood, drawn from an account passed down to him by Chacha Banka Sahib, a respected instrumentalist who served at the shrine and witnessed these events firsthand.
The Shrine and Its Keeper
Raja Sain Arif Sahib held a position of deep spiritual respect in the village as the gaddi-nashin of the local dargah — a role distinct from the village mosque and its Imam, covered elsewhere on this site, but carrying its own long-standing significance in Thoha Khalsa's religious and cultural life. Chacha Banka Sahib, remembered as a master of a traditional performance style connected to the shrine, served there for years and was a direct witness to the story that follows.
A Chance Encounter at Mankiala
As the story goes, Raja Sain Arif Sahib had ridden on horseback to Rawalpindi and was returning home when he stopped at a modest roadside stall near the Mankiala railway station for a cup of tea. There, he noticed a small boy — dark-skinned, dressed in worn, simple clothes, clearly from a poor family, tending animals nearby — reciting verses aloud to whoever would listen.
The moment Sain Arif Sahib heard the boy's voice, something about it struck him immediately, almost as if under a spell. He asked who the child was. He learned the boy was the son of a local man, Chaudhry Azam Sahib, from Mankiala, known locally by a nickname reflecting how strikingly his young voice carried.
A Sleepless Night
Sain Arif Sahib returned home to Thoha Khalsa, but couldn't settle. Chacha Banka Sahib, noticing him pacing the courtyard late into the night, asked what was wrong. Sain Arif Sahib reportedly told him he'd seen a "bulbul" — a nightingale — that day, and its voice wouldn't let him rest.
By morning, his mind was made up. He told Chacha Banka to have two sets of new clothes prepared, saddled his horse, and rode back to Mankiala himself to bring the boy home, saying the child had already taken hold of his heart.
Welcomed Into the Shrine's Care
When the boy arrived, Chacha Banka Sahib admits he was doubtful — a small child who could barely reach past his knee, hardly looking like someone capable of the voice Sain Arif Sahib had described. Chacha Banka personally bathed him, trimmed his nails, and dressed him in the new clothes himself.
That night, with instruments brought out and two of the shrine's resident poet-reciters present — one remembered by the nickname Jhala — the boy performed for the first time in front of an audience, accompanied by music for the very first time in his life. And yet, by every account, he sang as though he had been doing it for years. Chacha Banka Sahib recalled being genuinely stunned, unable to explain where such a voice had come from in a child so young.
Becoming "Gujar"
That boy grew up to become the singer remembered across the Pothohar region as Gujar — later identified in the same account as Chaudhry Akram. According to Raja Sajid Mehmood's retelling, Gujar went on to reach heights in Pothohari folk singing that, in his words, no one since has come close to matching — not through imitation, not through technical effort, but through a combination of natural gift and a fiercely principled character that shaped how he carried himself as an artist.
A Living Thread: Meeting Raja Khushal Sahib
Raja Sajid Mehmood connects this story to his own memory. In 1983, at a shop in Dhok Khabba, he was introduced to Raja Khushal Sahib — remembered locally as Bani-e-Saqafat, a founding figure in preserving Pothohari cultural and musical tradition — through Chacha Fazal Dad Jhala Sahib. Asked to recite a few verses himself, the young Sajid did so, and Raja Khushal Sahib immediately recognized the influence: the boy was singing in Gujar's style, a style he clearly loved and had absorbed.
It's a small, personal detail, but it says something larger — decades after Gujar's own discovery at that tea stall in Mankiala, his voice and style were still shaping the next generation of Pothohari singers who followed him.
What Made Gujar's Art Endure
The account closes with real reverence for what made Gujar's artistry lasting: not flattery, not chasing approval, but a kind of uncompromising integrity — a refusal to perform for anyone's validation, and a fierce pride in his craft that, as the story tells it, no imitator has ever fully replicated. Whatever the technical name for his style or instrument, what comes through clearly in this account is respect: for a man discovered as a poor shepherd boy who became one of the defining voices of Pothohari song, remembered still today by the community that first heard him.
A Note on This Article
This piece is a retelling, in our own words, of an oral history account shared publicly on Facebook by Raja Sajid Mehmood, based on a story told to him directly by Chacha Banka Sahib. A few specific terms in the original account — including the name of the performance style Chacha Banka was known for, and the boy's original nickname at Mankiala — involve Pothohari and Urdu terminology we want to render accurately rather than guess at. If Raja Sajid Mehmood or anyone from the community can confirm the precise spelling, meaning, or additional detail behind these terms, we would gladly correct and expand this piece. We're genuinely grateful for this contribution — this is exactly the kind of firsthand, community-sourced history that makes a page like this meaningful, and we'd welcome more stories like it.
A Voice That Still Echoes in Thoha Khalsa
Long before recordings or written records, this is how music and memory survived in villages like Thoha Khalsa — one person telling another, faithfully, what they saw and heard. Gujar's discovery at a roadside tea stall, and the shrine that took him in and shaped him, isn't just a nice story. It's a real thread connecting a shepherd boy from Mankiala to a tradition of Pothohari singing that's still remembered and referenced by name in the village today.
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