I want to die, tears coming out of his blue eyes acted like a tiny prisms refracting the sun light, all the color of life so evident to me were so oblivious to his understanding. We all carry an invisible cloud of preordained perception around us, every reality is filtered through this invisible circle of ingrained conviction before it becomes our truth, I could imagine he being dragged by a black hole of hope, a black hole of trust in his fellow human beings.
I want to die, he repeated with a grim voice, not because I am suicidal or I have lost every hope in life but because I am enraged by the brutality of the conflicting parties and by the paranoia of righteousness, we the common people have become dust on the pavement, a dispensable life form lowest in the food chain, lowest in the quest to power.
Rustum Khan a juvenile was talking like a philosopher, but Rustum don’t you thinks life is precious, you only get it once. Indeed, said Rustum, it is precious for all those who have the ability to enjoy it every moment; it is sacred for those who have power to make it dispensable for us.
I was youngest in my family with one elder brother and a sister, we were happy and content with our lives even when we had bare minimum to live with; bare minimum to cherish, but at least we had a roof over our heads. My father was a school teacher; he was religious man though without growing a beard. I had seen many a times him crying during prayer, he was honest and often prayed with wet eyes for the well being of his family, just like any other honest who would believe in the justice of God, who would believe that good days are not far. Life was hard but we never lost our grip on the golden string of hope.
He was standing in front of me looking deep into his past, and then came the menace of Taliban, he murmured. I remember the day when they started down pouring into our village from the mountains all of them carried guns; we were told that they are good Muslims and were here for a better cause of enforcing Shariah laws, deep down we all knew that they are not even Muslims, they were like aliens trying to mimic us but we were scared to confront them because they were not only armed and powerful but had links with state agencies.
What happened then Rustum, I asked him, they started enforcing Shariah, said Rustum, and in its first practical manifestation they blew up my father’s school leaving him jobless, in one month we went penniless, the stove of our kitchen went lifeless leaving us to fend for ourselves without getting any financial or moral support from authorities.
Threatened by Taliban and poverty life started to become miserable for us, in a quest to look for different opportunities my father decided to migrate to different village but we were not fortunate to see that day, one morning I woke up amidst wailing cries of my mother who was frantically crying overt mutilated body of my father, he was murdered for an unknown reason by a murderer who left no traces of his innocent blood on his hands, a poor victim of power struggle didn’t make a single column story in the local newspapers, it seems justice will prevail but only in the dying hopes of poor common people, how long we will wait for a savior, how long will our blood be nectar for political gains.
My mother stopped speaking after that day; she had seen uselessness of her cries, her eyes went dry, perhaps she lost all the tears that day, or perhaps she had seen the vanity of her wailings.
My elder brother who now had responsibility to take care of the family capitulated under the aggressive preaching of Talibans to join the ranks, he was not alone to unwillingly condone the brutal tactics employed by these so called Taliban, many weak like us caved in because they were not provided security against alien war lords who were strangling our livelihood. These guys purposely destroyed social and economic structure of our village so that they can hire powerless people as new recruits.
My sister who wanted to be a doctor found her wishes come true, she had to take care of her ailing speechless mother who was dying everyday, inch by inch her body was releasing her soul, a painful journey to her destiny where she would hope to find peace and tranquility and finally on one unfortunate day the hands that were always raised for our safety and life dropped dead.
Sir, story of our miseries doesn’t stop here, in a strange twist of events state authorities who were in a tacit agreement with Taliban turned against them, army was called in to soften the insurgency; soon our village was devastated by the roaring guns of our own Army and by the thundering jets flying low spotting and destroying any and every suspected. Phantom of “Taliban” provides justification for every mass murder, a terrorist or an innocent, a gunship helicopter can not and will not distinguish, a bullet does not carry name of its recipient, one such tag less bullet sucked life out of my brothers body, an insurgent whose death was celebrated as victory, a Talib who was Talib of livelihood, a terrorist who lost his life without shooting a bullet in space.
The irony of these operations is that most of those who lost their lives as Talib are either innocent civilians or new recruits, rarely a hard core Talib is captured of killed, they flee much earlier than the commencement of actual operation. In fact those who want to carry on this war to next millennium would not dare let anyone capture of kill a real terrorist, a phantom breathing fire is much too desired for the game of this grand chess board.
All that left in my family is myself and my sister, we were forced to leave our village without giving us any protection against the forces involved in operation, we crawled our way through woods and mountain to reach in this camp. My sister who was respected like a true sister in my village is now a victim of hungry gazes, hunters of human flesh scavenge the area in the disguise of social workers, aid workers and many other helpful names. They find her and thousands of other innocent girls as easy pray. These licentious are bigger terrorist than those who we are fighting with but unfortunately these liberal talibs represent a culture of morality less freedom, a culture of obscenity practiced and propagated by their masters.
Rustum khan left me shocked with his story, it is not him alone who has lost his loved ones in this great war against terror, tens of thousands of people has lost either one or more members of their family. 2.5 million People are creeping in these camps like worms; they have to stand in queues for hour for a loaf of bread, for a glass of water, no school for their kids and hardly any medical assistance for their ailing family members.
While we are keeping ourselves busy against Taliban, a new breed of insurgents is getting ready in these camps; a never ending war which we can not fight with our resources is inching towards our liberal cities. We have pushed ourselves into a foreign war funded by some one else without knowing how to get out of this quagmire. We are standing on the edge of roaring volcano with a bucket of water borrowed from our masters with a hope of putting it down.
God Bless Pakistan.