The Dolour Blew
Banul Baloch
The Balochistan Post
I am a wretched sister, living an abasement life with extreme despair, but not faint yet. My hopes are clenched like a cedar pole as a cedar controls the center of a tent and pole is the sureness of soul and soul is reliable and tent is always tied with many ropes. With same conditions, I am bound with nodes of hope and struggling for my missing brother Shabir Baloch aka Lakhmir—a student leader— who is in torture cells for those crimes that he never committed.
As usual, I was fetching water and filling water into the canes. I remember, it was a hazy night. I felt tiredness and was on the verge of fragility and pique from life and its hurdles. I sat under the sky and devour the silence of infinite stars, gazed them and just tried to have a conversation with the stars.
As I began my conversation, I told the stars, “you are so far and unreachable, but you still shine so bright and smoothly.” When I encountered darkness with a gentle smile on my face and I solaced myself that Shabir’s smile is also garnishing in the mist torture cells.
Shabir might be wounded and exhausted of physical and psychological torture, but he would be expanding his glamour to other missing persons who are as tortured as him.
Once, I asked stars, “do you know Shabir, my handsome brother?” loaded another question, “Do you know who is he and why he isn’t with me today?” While communicating with stars, I felt a tumult amid stars as if they were whispering to each other about Shabir, and at this moment, the whispering stars were looking brighter; making sky more luminous as if they wanted to listen more about my brother.
Like friends, they were listening to me and I continued telling them about my brother. I told the listening stars, “my brother’s name is Shabir Baloch and his friends call him Lakhmir, and you know, Lakhmir is a student leader of Baloch Students Organization Azad, the utterly peace loving and soul organization of all Baloch students.” They were listening me very quietly, showing their interest to hear more about Lakhmir.
“You know, my brother Shabir has gone missing two years ago.” I asked the stars, and they nodded in affirmation. But I started sobbing in open sky alone and I couldn’t speak a word. I looked here and there, tried not to dismay my hope, at the moment, I got no one to console me and assure me that Shabir will be back, he is fine. I sobbed and continued to talk to the carefully listening stars by telling them that Shabir is missing since October 18, 2016. Neither I know anything about his life nor can do anything for his safe release. In the middle of this talk, I broke wholly, I just sobbed for a long time.
I told the listening stars, “I only know one thing about Lakhmir that he is fine. When wind breezes smoothly, tousling my hairs and I get a bland touch of wind on my cheeks that reminds me of my brother’s love for me, making me believe that he is fine, missing me, and has not relinquished hope and is quelling tyranny even in the torture cells. But he must be in need of his books which he left behind. While I was saying these words, a star rushed downward, and I lost no time in making a wish for the safe recovery of my loving brother.
Ending conversation with stars, I looked around and saw the thick darkness of the night which quite frightened me because I have always been frightened of darkness and Shabir always mocked me for that, but today in his absence I am sitting in darkness.
When I remind myself the struggle of my brother which was and is for a great cause, then I can feel that his struggle was also not easy, and today he is in torture cells, but his cause of struggle is alive among us.
Savoring the calmness of sky, I started talking with sky. I asked it, “Can you feel my pain which I have for my enforced disappeared brother?” The sky remained silent for a moment and didn’t answer me, because I knew no one can soothe my pain, and then my tears shattered on my cheeks, but I kept telling the sky about my brother. I told sky, “People might be accusing Shabir of a crime which caused him missing today, but I want to tell such people, is having a pen instead of a gun a crime, if yes then that is fine, consider my brother a criminal for such beautiful crimes. Is having books instead of harmful missile and bombs a crime, if yes, then it’s alright, keep him in captivity.”
Suddenly, I heard swaying of trees leaves as if they were too listening to me quietly. Then I had conversation with trees also, and asked them, “When autumn season arrives and many of your leaves fell and turn yellow, and then winds take them away from you, do you feel the pain? In response, trees leaves blew faster as if a thunderstorm had struck them, but I understoodd that they also feel the same pain which I am feeling since last two years.
And then, I remained silent, wiped my tears and just told my heart to calm down because we live in a country where courts are just buildings which have no authority; where police stations are just infrastructures of showpiece for providing entertainment to the public by taking bribes, but can’t do anything; where people decay awaiting for their missing sons, spouses do know that either they are widows or not; where political leaders are tortured badly and face worst inhuman torture.
As it is declared in International Human Rights Standards Governing the Treatment of Political Prisoners that the principle international human rights documents clearly protect the human rights of political prisoners.
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (hereinafter, the Torture Convention) both prohibit the use of torture and cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment or punishment, without exception or derogation.
Article 10 of the ICCPR, in addition, mandates that “all persons deprived of their liberty shall be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person.” It also requires that “the reform and social re-adaptation of prisoners be an essential aim of imprisonment.”
But I know, no such rule is being followed in the critical condition my brother would be suffering. And then, I entered in my room murmuring that as this murky night will end and sun will rise again tomorrow, maybe one day this sun will bring my brother back and he will rise again.
“Then something struck my mind hard, that I consoled myself but how can I solace Zareena, Shabir’s wife, that he is fine. Will she trust me?” I asked myself. Her dried lips, whimpering eyes often compel me to think that not only Shabir is in torture cells but her wife and entire family is in torture and oppressed in the memory of our young brother, about whom we don’t know of his life. Shabir’s wife has no idea if she is a widow yet or not.
Grumblingly, I took my mobile and received a notification from WhatsApp which was a text message of Pushtun Tahafuz Movement (PTM, Pushtun Protection Movement) public gathering news. Well, I didn’t know anything about PTM. I didn’t know what it is, but it caprice me of missing persons that they talk about missing persons, like thousands of other missing persons, my brother is also missing and I shrieked, and said to Zareena that we will also go to Karachi and join this gathering. Zareena said okay in reply with a weakling smile.
We prepared for the PTM public gathering, and next morning, we traveled to Karachi for it. When the gathering began, we reached the venue. There was a huge crowd in PTM gathering, thousands of people were gazing the three Baloch ladies holding pictures of missing brothers and husband. Some captured our pictures and some interviewed us, and then we returned to our village.
Zareena asked me, why we went to the PTM gathering? I told her that we can’t be just silent, I will speak for my brother and your husband. She said, “no one will help us to retain my husband back, there won’t be morning, sun is down and it would not rise, meadow is not for us.” I told her what Shabir will be thinking that her wife is fragile and dismaying? She said, “yes his wife is now tired, she doesn’t know either to wail or not?” I remained silent and whiningly told her that how dark the night is, but sun will rise with more intensity and power.