Author: Sami Sahil Baloch
Sitting in the shadow of a green oak tree situated at the bottom of the mountain near a broken well, he was lost in nostalgia. He whispered what can be the worst feeling in the world? “The most unfortunate and miserable feeling one can have is while owning many precious treasures but getting no benefit out of them.” he told himself, “you bewilder whom to blame when you firmly believe that your owned resources are enough to fulfil any of your desires, but they don’t,” he continued.
He was leaning against the stem of the tree. It was his first day of being a shepherd. He thought to make some new friends, so he started telling his story to the sheep, which were sitting scattered around the well. He started from his introduction, “Dear new friends, I’m Shehmureed and I belong to a place where I apparently own billions of money worth treasures in terms of my rich land. It contains all kinds of precious mineral that are more than sufficient to provide every facility to my people.” His voice lowered, “But these all resources were apparently not enough to fulfil a tiny dream of mine that was becoming a doctor.”
He was again in his memories, his merry reminiscences of how he had done his matriculation from his native city Nokkundi, and had a keen interest in reading. “I would spend hours in the sole library of the city, which had no electricity.” He said facing the hanging shoots of the tree. “In my initial ten years of education I had read a lot of books including The Communist Manifesto. Contemplating on the injustices, inequalities and unfair behaviour of the state towards us.” He smiled and continued, “I even wanted my province to be ruled by a communist party. Because I believed that a communist regime would at least do something for me; either it would make education free for all and provide equal health facilities or offer employment opportunities.” He had a great interest in reading socialist material and was prone towards the ideology of Marx, who he thought was a messenger for bringing welfare to the poor.
He laughed at himself and thought talking about communism might be hard for the flock of sheep to understand. Then he continued his story, “My father’s unemployment, my halt in education and extreme poverty pushed me in the eternal darkness of financial crisis. There is still no medical college in my city, where I could study.” He paused.
“Do you know, initially I had a desire to travel entire Balochistan, in order to have personal experience of the backwardness that I had only heard or read.” He continued. “I wanted to experience like Ernesto Guevara (Dr. Che) and his friend who travelled from Argentine towards northern Latin America, passing through several places and observing their sad circumstances.” He also wanted to become a revolutionary like him.
He threw a look over the herd and felt as if the sheep were keenly listening to his story. Because most of them were facing the tree. “I was inspired from Che due to his role in Cuban revolution and his later altruistic feelings and actions to support people’s struggle in Congo and Bolivia.” He started again. “I often contemplated how Mario Teran had gained the courage to shoot one of the greatest personalities of the twentieth century, who ultimately earned an immense noble respect around the globe.”
“You know”, he said while pointing to one of his keen listeners, “My wish of becoming a doctor had two reasons; first- because Ernesto Guevara was a doctor, and second because I lost my only brother two years ago when he met an accident and no doctor was available in my city to provide even the first aid.” He regretfully said with a trembling voice having tears in his eyes, “As long as I can remember, there has been no doctor in my city.”
He wiped his tears and started another chapter of the story, “In my school time we visited Saindak Gold project and Rekodiq (The fifth largest copper project in the world) near my city. I used to feel glad while thinking of those treasures which nature had conferred upon my region.”
He took out the water bottle and drank a sip, “But as I grew there was no development despite the presence of all those resources. I used to ask myself that who was responsible for our backwardness? Sometimes, I would get an answer from my subconscious that all my people who were unaware about their fortune, were responsible for their miserable conditions.” In his city colleges, universities and well-equipped hospitals were beyond dreams, not even sufficient drinking water was available for those 25,000 dwellers. He always cursed their luck.
The other time, he said he would advocate his naive people and blame the state and authorities of those projects. He felt angry while saying to himself, “How inhumane were those organizations who despite extracting all the resources and knowing the ground realities, did not bother to play their role at least as a CSR stakeholder to spend a share on local people?”
He threw a stone towards one of the sheep who was leaving the herd. He again addressed to his audience, “two years after finishing college, I found no job in my city and decided to migrate.” He only focused on finding some subsistent job that could help them earn their bread and butter. Opening his arms, he said, “Aand now I’m here finally in Chariban; a beautiful valley at the verge of Pak-Afghan border.”
He stopped the story, and looked around at the well, high mountains, sheep, the tree, and himself. Leaning against the oak tree, he recalled it was the symbol of strength, morale, resistance and knowledge. He now was a shepherd, a knowledgeable shepherd.
He clearly remembered the day when he entered this life. The day when their neighbour had reached their hut and said, “Our shepherd has run away, if you want, we can hire you as his replacement.” He remembered how his heart had sunk from disappointment at that point and had thought of all his dreams – from studying in a medical college till becoming a doctor. A tear had rolled down from his eyes that contained all the screams, which his dreams had just silently whispered to his cheek.
Now the cattle started moving here and there. He thought, he should take the herd back to the village, and stop talking about old memories that can only hurt. He had not found any remedy that could heal his wounds, which his broken dreams had given to his soul.
Days passed, in the routine of taking the herd to pastures in morning and coming back home in the evening. One of his habits that still remained was reading books. Now he was reading “The Alchemist” and was dreaming about treasures. But he knew his real treasures were Saindak and Rekodiq who were taken away.
One evening, he found himself far away in the desert where the grass had attracted his cattle. “Tonight” he thought, “I won’t be able to go back to the village.”
He climbed a sand dune, put down his stick and the sack which contained a water bottle, the book of Paulo Coelho, his kettle with some jaggery and a cup. He laid on the sand, facing the yellow horizon in the desert, which seemed as if the sun is sinking in the sand dunes. He turned his face to the sky and closed his eyes to take some rest.
Later when he woke-up, he saw the moon in the sky with millions of other twinkling stars facing him. It felt amazing. He remembered two books that he had read “A Brief History of Time” and “The Grand Design” by Stephen Hawking which were all about space, stars, galaxies, and time and everything within them.
He was still laying at the sand facing the illuminous sky where he could easily locate those eight stars that help find the directions. He remembered his dream again. Pointing his index finger towards those stars he said, “Hopefully one day I will find someone who like these stars will direct me towards my destination of becoming a doctor.” But another fact shattered his hope, as he already knew his direction, but to his misfortune, he still couldn’t reach his target. A feeling of disappointment entered his veins and travelled through his blood, as if piercing needles in his heart. Then he thought, there are hundreds of more students in his city who are also unable to make true what they dream. “Hundreds of dreams are made impossible; how unfair” he regretted.
Then he murmured, “It is waste of time to cry over spilt milk.” He sat, took out his kettle along with water bottle from his sack and came down from the peak of sand dune to prepare tea. His herd had slept around the sand dune. He gathered some sticks and lit the fire placing his small black kettle over it. His eyes were stuck at the smoke, which could be seen brandishing out of the flames in the moonlight. He felt as if his dream was burning in those flames. He remembered the verses of his favourite poet, Sahir Ludhyanvi, and started orating them to the slept herd:
Main zindagi ka saath nibhata chala gaya
Har fikr ko dhooyen me uratha chala gaya
Gham aur khushi me farq na mehsoos ho jahan
Mai dil ko us maqam pay lata chala gaya…
Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of The Balochistan Post or any of its editors.