"Shaban Qosja from Permet"!

Shaban Qosja or "Shaboni" was a mythical figure of Tirona in the 50s-60s. I don't believe that the new generation has ever heard of this picturesque figure roaming the streets of Tirana's Bazaar.

As a child, I often heard Non Ije's stories about Shabon. Non Ija, a noble Tironse old woman of the Xhepai ??tribe who lived surrounded by a large courtyard of flowers behind Demner's legendary shop, said that Shabon was a middle-aged man with a huge nose.

Dressed in old clothes and equally old Opinga, he was known as a character without whom Tirona Bazaar could not be understood. He had a small shop on Rruga e Kavaja and sold fruit which he bought from the townspeople of Tirona.

Shaboni wandered through Pazar from one corner to another, where at better times and at worse times he quarreled with the villagers who came down from their villages, who curiously looked at his legendary nose.

Shabon's huge nose was an object of curiosity and in Tirona at that time, half town and half village, the fame of Shabon's nose was spread everywhere. Often the Kalamaites chased him from behind, calling them O Shabon Hundderri.

Once, the shopkeepers of the Pazar made a promise that when Shabon passed through their alleys, they would not speak to him at all, nor would they look at him, laughing at his nose.

Shabon came as usual and after wandering from shop to shop, surprised that no one laughed at him and no one spoke to him, he couldn't stand it but started shouting louder out of anger that the shopkeepers weren't paying any attention to him. .

Shaboni ran away and from that day on, the old women of Tirona said, Shaboni became obsessed and quarreled with anyone who did not pay attention to his nose.

The half-true, half-legend story of Shabon reminded me of a modern "Shabon" from Permet, the city I love so much.

"Shaboni" from Permet, which is a caricature of the old Shaban Qosa, is a charlatan, to whom, like the shopkeepers of Tirona, once after Shabon got out of prison, they gave him some summer coffee, we modestly helped him.

Well, gratitude in these times is an unknown virtue for these provincial charlatans.

"Shabon Permeti" is unfortunately a phenomenon of the time we live in, where anti-value is sold for virtue and where to pay the rent of the house, you have to curse the world.