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For 20 years Rashid waited for this day. But instead of boarding the plane, he returned his tickets. It all seemed so meaningless to him after reading how a 14-year old girl, Malala Yousufzai, was gunned down for seeking education.

Rashid’s daughter always wanted to visit his village with him but he always said no. “Complete your education, get a nice job and then come with me,” he argued.

She did as he desired: a master’s degree, in economics, from an Ivy League college and a job with the World Bank. Now he was ready to take her along.

Shamila was 5 when she came to America. Her father, Rashid Ahmed Khan came to this country on a visit visa but never went back. There was nothing to go back to.

In the village he was known as Sheeda but once he became a successful realtor in America, he repossessed the name his father gave him, Rashid Ahmed. He added Khan too because his mother once told him they were known as Khans before they were poor.

And when somebody calls him Khan Sahib – as most of his new friends do – he feels good.

But for him going back to the village with his daughter was more significant than being called Khan Sahib.

He wanted the whole village to see that the granddaughter of a woman who washed their dishes had graduated from an American university. She spoke better English than the sons of the local zamindars and also had a better job.

His village did not have big land lords. Most were middle class people who made enough to live comfortably. But because he was the son of a farm worker and a dishwasher, he was looked down upon.

His desire to take his daughter back to the village was linked to the way his mother was treated by these people.

Although her parents named her Fatima, everybody called his mother Phataan, as they called him Sheeda. People of their social status were not called by their proper names.

I first met Rashid Khan at Islamabad’s Marriot Hotel. I was waiting for a friend in the restaurant when I heard a loud noise. It startled everyone. When we searched for the source, we saw pieces of a plate on the floor. We also saw the man who threw it on the floor.

The waiter came running and asked what was wrong. Rashid asked for the manager and when the manager came, he picked one of the pieces and showed him.

“See these spots? You are charging hundred dollars a person for dinner and this is how you wash your dishes?” he shouted.

The manager calmed him down and brought him a clean plate.

But his action intrigued me. So I went to him while he was waiting for food and asked if I could share the table with him.

When he asked why, I said I guessed from his accent that he was from America. Since I also lived there, I wanted to join him.

“Where in America do you live?” he asked.

“In Virginia, near Washington,” I said.

“Oh, I live nearby. In Baltimore,” he said and asked me to join him.

By the time we finished our dinner, we were friends.

He said he wanted to have tea, and not the “gora chai” the hotel served but the real “doodh patti.”

I said I knew a place where they served the best ‘doodh patti’ in town and I that I could take him there if he did not mind my old Volkswagen.

On the way to the chai shop, he asked me: “Do you know why I threw the plate on the floor?”

I said I wanted to but did not know how to ask.

He chuckled and said: “Before going to America, I came here once. I was wearing clean clothes but not clean enough for them, so they threw me out. Today, I got even with them.”

“That you did,” I said.

While having tea, we exchanged phone numbers and addresses and stayed in touch in America too, particularly after he too moved to Northern Virginia.

He often said he was grateful to God for giving him a daughter, his only child. “I see my mother in her. And it makes me very happy when I see her going to school. I want her to be the most educated woman in our village and the best too.”

So I was surprised when he came to our travel agency to return the tickets he had purchased to take his daughter to his village.

“Yaar, I am sorry but I do not want to visit my village. Actually, I do not want to go to that country with my daughter,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

He put a copy of the New York Times on my table and said: “Check the lead story.”

I read the headline: “Taliban Gun Down Girl Who Spoke Up for Rights.”

“Did it scare you?” I asked.

“Scared me? Yes, it did,” he said. “But it is not about fear.”

“What else then?” I asked.

“I think Shamila will not be respected there, no,” he said. “It remains the place where my mother was reduced from Fatima to Phataan. I thought all that had changed but it did not.”

I said he was paranoid. There were no Taliban in his village and his daughter will enjoy the trip. So he must go.