Author: Manzoor Baloch
This burnt room in the mud house that you see in this picture was my mother’s room. There was a cradle in this room, it was painted red and green. My father had bought the cradle along with a bed from Karachi. These were the few furniture in our house. The cradle was stored under the bed since approximately 20 years. Every time she swept the room, she would pull out the cradle look for spider nets, clean it and put it back in its place. My mother would always praise how the cradle was strong. The cradle which belonged to my brother Noora, had its yellow hanging rope still intact. When Noora was away from us in Lahore his chest of Books would also be stored under the bed. My mother would clean the cradle more frequently then. My mother’s eyes would always sparkle upon seeing the cradle and a long-lost smile would come upon her face. One would imagine as if Noora was still lying there and smiling back to her.
We also called Noora as Peerak.
In 2009 we sent Noora to one of the most prestigious colleges of Pakistan, i.e King Edward Medical University Lahore in the department of Ophthalmology to train as an ophthalmologist. We were poor but somehow, we managed to pay for his expenses.
Noora was one of the few who had first-hand experienced the discrepancies between the lives of the Baloch people like his mother and of those who ruled them from Punjab. So, he joined the Baloch students in Punjab in their protests for the safe release of enforced disappeared people.
Then as it always happens, Noora’s room in Lahore was raided by the ISI in 2010 and he was abducted. He was tortured, humiliated and forced to conduct a press conference in Lahore against Mama Qadeer and all the other enforced disappeared people of Balochistan. This press conference was then fed to Punjab’s media to discredit the families of Baloch missing persons.
Noora left Punjab after his traumatic ordeal but the raids never actually left him. He resorted to the mountains of Balochistan and never ever turned back to Punjab. The Pakistani army, which we believe is Punjab’s army did not stop. Now the raids were focussed on our mud house in Parom, Panjgur. Noora would now be away from home for weeks and months and my mother’s cleaning of the cradle would get more frequent. I knew mother’s pretext to clean the cradle was actually the love and care she had for Noora.
With time, the army would come and loot our houses on the pretext of searching for Noora. After every raid we would decrease our essential things so as to keep minimum belongings at home for the army’s next loot.
The last time the army came we saw it coming from distance. I like all the men in the house jumped on our motorcycles and rode fast to the nearby hills. The women and children gathered outside our mud compound. This time the army had brought a huge number of personnel.
After reaching the hills we the men climbed a hill and lay there looking at our mud houses from a distance. The army might have been irritated by our clever trick of keeping nothing at home except the old bed, cradle and a few books, for them to loot. So, this time they burned our house completely. Our house was not the only one of the few, which was burned. There had been thousands of other Baloch whose pleasant memories and family belongings had been burnt. And as when the army was burning our house there were still others who were expecting their houses to be burnt in the next few days and were running from one neighbour to other and this relative to that to trust their things of valuable memories.
I could see the smoke rising from the burning house from top of the hill where I sat thinking about the cradle and my books. I had an awkward feeling that if my mother had a chance, she would pull the cradle from the room to save it. I wished at that time that she saves our chest of books. But then I thought how my mother could carry the heavy chest of books. And if she wanted to save a few ones how she could know which books to save for me and which books to save for Noora. I hoped my mother had saved the cradle…
When the smoke settled down and the army was gone, we rushed back to our burnt house. I saw my mother sitting next to my chest of books with a half-burnt book in her hand. The chest had been opened and books scattered and burnt. She stretched her hand and said “Take this. the fire did not allow me. I could not save your books. I could only save this Quran from the fire.”
My father used to read the Quran.
I know it would have been difficult for her to decide either to save her son’s cradle or his books or Allah’s book. I did not take the Quran but instead pulled my mobile and clicked this picture of my mother. I am sharing it with love on this Mother’s day.
Noora was martyred this year on 26 April 2020 in a gun battle in Parom. He was a Major by then in Balochistan Liberation front instead of an ophthalmologist from King Edward.
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.