Description

Qissa Khawani Bazaar was described in the mid-19th century by the British Commissioner in Peshawar, Sir Herbert Edwardes, as the Piccadilly of Central Asia. Towering over the street are tall, narrow buildings with intricately carved balconies and window frames. Before the advent of radios and television, the art of professional story telling flourished in the traditional tea houses and balakhanas in the bazaar. The storyteller relied on his tongue and his imagination to earn his livelihood. The tales were partly narrated, partly sung to an audience of traders and travelers arriving with their caravans from distant corners of the world.