Farah

The pain hit her stronger than anything she had ever felt before. Before she could comprehend anything going on around her, she saw her own leg hanging limply over the side of the cot. All that she could feel was the stinging pain and the heat below her feet. She tried jerking off her leg before it caught on fire, but it just registered a shearing pain. She held her leg by her hands and pulled it to safety. She could see her cot being engulfed by the fire, which seemed to be spreading everywhere in no time. The hay-thatched roof was sagging above her. She couldn't breathe now. Her lungs so full with carbonic ash, couldn't take anymore of it. She tried suck in air, but ended up crying with helplessness. She could see everything around her growing darker and darker, until there was only blackness.
The weak wall of clay was axed down and a strong pair of hands lifted her limp body off the cot, just before the roof caved in. Her lungs inhaling deeply all the fresh air it could get. Her eyelids fluttered open. She was jerking up and down, in the hands of a man she didn't recognize. She tried to take in the scene around her. All she could see was fire and smoke everywhere. People screaming. Bodies alight with fire screeching, making her blood curl. She went back thankfully into deep unconsciousness.

She got up, awoken by the loud altercation. She looked around her and didn't understand where she was.
"We have to get back at these bastards. What have we done wrong? Why are they killing us for?" shouted a man startling her.
"But that is impossible Ali, and you know what you're saying is nonsense. Pakistan and India are waging a war against each other. We are caught in the crossfire. It's not our Pakistan's fault nor is it the Indian's," said another man with a soothing voice.
" But Omar, we were sitting ducks there. With shells being dropped on us from both sides. Doesn't that mean anything to you?" Ali screamed back. He grabbed Omar by his arm and pulled him into her room. "Look at this poor child. Look at her leg. Will she be able to walk again? What has this innocent child done?" he cried out emphatically.
He bent down on his knees. He raised his hands in the air and looking up said, "Allah! What have we done? Why are you butchering us this way? Please forgive our past sins, whatever they may be. Please..Allah!.." He crumpled down on the floor weeping.
Omar tried to console his friend. She started weeping too. Omar went to her and hugged her trying to comfort her as much as he could.
"Farah, listen to me," he said to the frightened child. "You have to be brave. We are the only people left in the village. The war is drifting in this direction. We have to leave now. Do you understand?"
She nodded her head.
"Ali, lets leave. Bring yourself together. Allah will never leave us. Let us put our fate in his hand and try to save ourselves," said Omar looking at Ali.

Ali acquiesced and they left, Farah safe in Omar's hands. For a while Omar could support her weight and when he couldn't he hoisted her upon his shoulders. They ran for how long? She didn't know. She slept half the way. She woke up to find out they were in a bus. Her leg hurt very badly and it was swollen. Omar was slowly and gently wrapping it with a bandage.
She knew their village was about a hundred kilometers from Jhelum, which is a small city about two hundred kilometers from Islamabad. "Could we be going to Jhelum now?" she thought. She decided upon not asking Omar incase she might anger him.
Suddenly the bus screeched to a halt and she jerked forward hitting her head on the hand-rest bar on the forward seat. She tasted blood. Suddenly there was a loud explosion to her right. She looked out of the window and saw a blinding ball of flame consuming a small shop. She heard an ear-splitting scream of a man. And from the shop emerged a man flailing and thrashing about alight with fire. She could feel tears well up in her eyes. Omar finished bandaging her leg and started swabbing the wound on her forehead, with a wet cloth. Her wrapped the cloth around her forehead and hugging her begged her to go to sleep.
She closed her eyes and tried to go to sleep, but it kept evading her. Then she heard the shrill whistle of a mortar shell. Preparing herself for the loud explosion she closed her ears with her hands and shut her eyes as tightly as she could.
The front part of the bus exploded and she could feel herself being propelled into the air. She flew right out the back of the bus, shattering the glass. The next second the remainder of the bus exploded right in front of her. She shielded herself from the intense heat blast.

Hot tears welled up in her eyes. Now she was all alone in a strange world, which she hadn't seen ever before. She cried out loud, "Abba where are you? Abba!...Abba! Come here and take me with you!Please..." She curled up a ball and cried herself to unconsciousness right on the center of the road.

She awoke at the back of a car. She could see another girl about her age sleeping, resting her head on the car rear window. She lifted her head and tried to look at the people sitting in front. She caught a glimpse of a man and woman. Praying that these people should get her to safety she lay back on the seat and tried alleviate the searing pain in her leg.
The man saw that she had gotten up and asked his wife to tend to her. His wife reached back and gently lifted her to the front. She looked under the bandages on her leg and examined the cut on her forehead. She held her close to her breast and asked to her to go to sleep.
When the man saw that she wasn't sleeping; he asked her, her name.
"Farah, how old are you?" he asked her as softly as possible.
"Nine years old, sir," she replied.
He turned away shocked and looked straight ahead at the road.
The bloody war, he thought. What was its necessity? Why had there to be an East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in the first place? Why fight to rule a place so far away? Why fight over a wasteland ? Siachen Glacier? Does it really matter whether the countries are provoked or persuaded to wage? Doesn?t it just boil down to the loss of lives? Will it require another nuclear devastation to end everything?

"Miyan, what do we do with her?" his wife enquired, interrupting his thoughts.
"Is she awake?" he asked.
"Yes sir," Farah said.
"Do you have a family?"
"No sir, they are all dead."
"Allah! Please have mercy," he exclaimed. "Okay, we will take you with us. Try to forget the past. We will take care of you now. Do you understand?"
"Yes sir," she managed to say.
The woman gave her tight hug and lifting her nimbly, placed her at the back seat.
"That is Salsa," she said pointing at her sleeping daughter. "When she wakes up, I hope u people will become good friends."

The man stopped the car at the side of the road, while the woman raised her eyebrows questioningly. He walked over to a bush and undid his zippers to pee. The woman turned back to look at the two girls. The sound of a sniper rifle came echoing through the woods. Almost instantly she heard the cry of a man. She turned around and didn?t see her husband in view. She got out of the car, and found him lying in a pool of blood.
"NOOO.... " she cried out hysterically.
The two girls got out of the car too, hearing the woman cry. One ran and the other hobbled over to the woman. The whistle of a mortar shell resounded through the air. The next second their car exploded with such force, it threw the three people off their feet.

The world was spinning around her head. The woman wailing hysterically; Salsa crying feverishly, hugging her mother. She felt that she didn't belong there. She turned and started hobbling away. She could feel the wet tears against her cheeks.
The woman and Salsa were so consumed with sorrow that they didn't see the child walk away.

The pain in her leg was tearing her apart. She didn't know where she got the determination but she kept going on. All the time she heard the whistles of mortar shells, gunfire. The sounds sometimes so deafening she had to shut her ears with her hands and collapse on the ground. She lost count of the number of times she slipped. She didn't know for how long she had walked or how far. But soon the sun began its slow ascent up the horizon. But all she could think of was trudging forward. One painful step after the other.

Far off to her left she saw the barracks of the infantry. Which country were they? She had no idea. But something told her to keep away from them as much as she could.

She heard the sound of an airplane above her. She mustered up enough strength to run clumsily under a tree. She hit the ground and crumpled herself into ball. When the sound receded away, she slowly stood up crying out with the pain that shot through her body. She stood rooted at the spot to let the pain subside a bit. She finally hobbled along the dirt trail left behind by army tanks.
Apart from the pain in her leg, she had to battle another problem - thirst. She hadn't had a drop to drink for hours. She saw a well in the far off infantry barracks. Should she risk sneaking up to the well? She wondered. But decided against it and putting the natural torment aside, she limped forward.
She heard someone shouting behind her. It sounded surprisingly close by. She tried hobbling faster. The shouts kept coming. The last thing she wanted was get captured. She made humongous efforts at running, stifling the screams of pain that followed it.
The shrill pitch of a mortar shell and loud gunfire ended all the shouts behind her.

On and on she went. The terrain was getting tougher and tougher to tread on. The trail curved and arched. She had no idea where it led.
Finally when she felt she couldn't take it anymore, the trail twisted into a blind curve. She trudged along it and then in the clearing she saw the sentry post. A lone man with a holstered gun stood there gaping at her.

Grave sense of desperation hit her. She tried turning and walking back. But the tired dump that she was, just dropped down on the ground. Hitting the ground with her knees, she didn't in have the strength to blubber in pain. She rolled onto her side and held her leg and whimpered to Allah for clemency, to end it all now . She lay there looking at the man.
He approached her slowly. She kept shrinking, crawling away from him like a scared animal. He took her in his arms and walked back to his sentry post. He covered the whimpering child with a blanket.
They walked past the gate. The last thing she saw before she passed out was the Tricoloured flag with the 24 spoked wheel in its center [on the sentry tower].


She dropped her bag [returning from school] and ran to her hug her mother. "I made your favourite today, Kababs," she said beaming at her daughter.
"Thanks Ma!" she called out on her way to the living room to see her father.
She hugged her father who was reading the newspaper sitting on the easy chair. She switched on the TV and sat down on the sofa stretching her legs.
He looked at her, reflected back and thought about the dilapidated figure he had seen at the border.