Hardly any fair in Chakwal these days is complete without the sideshow of Mirchon Wali Sarkar. Nawab Khan Pathan has found the novel way of stealing the limelight – he eats chillies whenever there is any carnival in Chakwal.

At a bull show, Mirchon Wali Sarkar would eat 30 to 50 green chillies. At the end of a kabaddi match, the spectators do not leave. They wait for the show of Pathan, watching him in awe as he eats chilli after chilli. “I have eaten 555 chillies in the last three months at different fairs in Chakwal,” Pathan tells Dawn.

Present at any public gathering, he never fails to stun the people when he gobbles down in great numbers the bitter chillies.

He boasts that no one in Pakistan eats chillies like him. And if there is one, he would like to come face to face with him, and have a peppery match.

Apart from putting up his show in Chakwal, Mirchon Wali Sarkar dances on the annual Urs of saints. This showmanship brings him money.

But he is alive to the fact that others need help, especially the people who lost everything to floods. “For the last few months whatever money I had made, I donated it for the relief of flood victims.” Otherwise most part of his money goes to shrines where he dances.

Khan frankly admits that his chilli eating show is to make name for himself in the district.

He has not failed. Today everybody knows him more as Mirchon Wali Sarkar than Nawab Khan Pathan.