Ring of Fire
Under the dilapidated ceiling of the Taji Khan Hazara Sports Complex—its white paint now grey and peeling—72-year-old Habibullah Jaferi practised punches with a young student. A spot of sunlight lit the cold, concrete ground. The two danced around it. As his narrowed eyes followed her movements from behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses, she positioned her gloves close to her face, swung a left, then a hurried right. He parried the blows, before shifting his focus to the next student.
For six days a week, Habibullah holds free coaching classes at this club on Quetta’s Alamdar Road—one of four boxing clubs in the neighbourhood. A washed-out poster of the “father of boxing,” as he is known here, standing next to
