PESHAWAR: Inside a small workshop near Peshawar’s Kohati Gate, surrounded by sawdust and the sweet smell of wood in the air, Niaz Ali’s hands move with precision over a block of sheesham wood.

For forty-two years, he has shaped wood, straw, and palm leaves into wonders, crafting small tongas, trucks, bowls, and rubabs.

“I was only eight years old when I developed a passion for crafting things,” he says.

A child’s pure desire to create. While other children played, Niaz would search local junk dealers for old radio cells, breaking them open just to get the small internal parts to use as tires for his cardboard trucks.

Niaz comes from a long line of craftsmen. His father, grandfather, and great-grandfather were traditional carpenters who made the legs of local beds called charpais, as well as tables and chairs.

When Niaz was a young boy, his grandfather asked him to join the stable family trade. But Niaz, driven by an artistic spark, resisted. He wanted more.

“I told him that I wanted to create things that would amaze people,” he shares.

There are visible emotions in the way Niaz speaks about his work. To him, these objects are not mere products.

“Every item I make comes from these fingers,” he says, holding up his hands, a note of pride in his voice.

Work of patience

He loves every single piece that leaves his workbench because each one requires a piece of his patience, love, and soul.

Friends who watch him work often marvel at his patience because of the focus it takes to carve and assemble dozens of small pieces into one beautiful object.

Instead of seeing tedious work, Niaz finds a sense of calm. A few streets from his workshop is his display area.

The walls and shelves are covered with wooden carvings, toys, decorations, straw bookshelves, and palm-leaf implements for daily use, while the floor is barely visible under the jumble of furniture, footstools, ottomans, and tables.

Every single piece was handcrafted by him. He recalls a customer asking for a replica of a specific commercial truck, a piece he had never attempted before.

Niaz delivered a piece so beautiful that the customer insisted on paying an extra 4,000 rupees out of appreciation.

For Niaz, that gesture was proof that his emotional investment had successfully translated through the wood.

Keeping heritage alive

“In a world saturated with cheap, mass-produced plastic knockoffs, I have a responsibility to keep this heritage alive,” he says.

He has watched people grow tired of artificial materials and slowly return to tradition and culture, seeking out his large, beautifully carved wooden platters and straw-made almirahs, or buying hand-decorated palm-leaf fans meant for new brides.

Knowing that his craft will outlast his own lifetime brings him peace. He has already passed these skills down to his sons, ensuring the line does not break.

For Niaz, every piece of shaped wood is a bridge connecting the hard work and talent of the artisans of old to the generation of tomorrow.

Peshawar’s Kohati Gate

In a plastic world, one Pakistani artisan keeps handmade traditions alive