“Sometimes
when my uncles got together, they would
go into a corner and talk about a
mysterious thing called sex. It sounded
wonderful. I prayed that it would not go
away before I grew up.”
[The Other Side of Me, Sidney Sheldon]
I was born during Zia-ul-Haq’s military
regime. Normally many of us in Pakistan
these days take pride in citing such
coincidences. It looks like leaving a
‘positive impression’ on one’s readers
or listeners that ‘yes, I grew up during
the gruesome martial law days. I was
born as a Muslim and the State of
Pakistan forced me to be a re-born
Muslim.”
I was only five when Zia, the
ultra-Islamic dictator, perished in an
air crash in August 1988.
Yet, Zia’s legacy continued. I was
brainwashed and spoon-fed a lot of
Islamic stuff at home as well as at
school. While children of our age
elsewhere in the world delightedly
harped about cartoons and music, we
spent a considerable amount of time
discussing with our compatriots about
Life after Death. We coveted Janaat
(Paradise). We endlessly speculated
about the beauty of the Hoors
(the beautiful women promised to the
‘faithful men’ who would qualify to
Paradise).
Among all topics that we kept guessing
about the First Night of Grave (Qabar ki
Pheli raath) topped the list. We spent
hours and hours discussing how the first
night inside the grave would possibly
feel like. Would we wake up inside the
grave once we are buried? Would we
converse in Arabic, even if we can’t
speak that language, with Munkir Nakeer,
the angels, according to the Islamic
belief, assigned to inquire the dead man
about his life performance? Will we have
the same memory and senses while we
interact with the angels? These
questions increased as I grew up.
Then there was the 1990s when I entered
my teens. Pakistan had resumed its
journey towards democracy. We were
entering an age of ‘liberalization’ and
openness of the society. Our VCRs (Video
Cassette Recorders) played Indian
movies. We mimicked all that we watched.
Now, the interest of people of my age
slightly diverted from hardcore religion
to more intrinsic matters such as girls,
beauty, romance and marriage.
The next mysterious thing my peers and I
kept on talking about at the college
cafeteria at recess time was the first
night of wedding which is so beautifully
called Sohagrat in Hindi/Urdu. “What
actually happens on that particular
night,” was the starting question that
continued for years with guesses and
“strategies.”
The first night of Grave.
The first Night of wedding
The first night of Grave
The first night of wedding
Wedding. Grave. Grave. Wedding. Grave.
Wedding. The first night.
? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?
………………………………………………..
I entered my 20s with another martial
law in place. Pervez Musharraf, the
military ruler, had publicly declared
war with the people of my province,
Balochistan.
“I will hit you [the Baloch leaders] in
a way that you don’t know what hit you,”
thundered the General on a TV channel.
The state intelligence agencies began to
whisk away people and put them into
torture cells. It was the first time we,
as university students, had heard about
the agencies. Agencies were a new but
fascinating topic for us to discuss
inside our hostel rooms. Agencies were a
new phenomenon. Discussing about them
was just like talking about ghosts. Some
of us believed in their existence. The
others did not. “But I don’t believe
that the agencies do exist,” said one of
my friends as we sipped black tea in my
Room No 10 at the 2nd Block of
University of Balochistan in Quetta one
winter evening.
“Why don’t you believe in agencies,” I
slapped.
“What is this you guys keep talking
about? Agencies. Agencies. Agencies. I
don’t believe in agencies. You guys are
simply scared. It is ridiculous when you
say some people dressed in plains
clothes come like a UFO (unidentified
flying object) and take people away. And
people suddenly go ‘missing’,” he
argued.
As time passed, discussions whether
agencies exited or not echoed in
Balochistan’s class rooms, hotels,
shops, mosques, homes and even kitchens.
While we debated the existence of
‘Faristhas’ (Angels), as we locally
called them, the latter rapidly captured
the whole of Balochistan. Their
influence increased. They began to
engineer elections. They approved and
disapproved transfer and posting of all
officials. They tapped journalists’
phone calls and invited them for
‘friendly advice’ in cantonment area.
They followed political leaders’
movements. They whisked away five
thousand people. Put them into torture
cells. Denied them access to judicial
justice. No body knew where they had
gone. We called them ‘disappeared’
people. There were so many of them that
it was hard to keep a right count on all
of them. ………………………………
Now many of us believe in the existence
of agencies. But that is not what we
keep talking about.
The first night of Grave.
The first Night of wedding
The first night of Grave
The first night of wedding
No. No. These days we do not talk about
the first night of grave or wedding. We
imagine about the first night of torture
cell. We keep talking to ourselves and
our friends how the first night of
torture cell would feel like. Many
Balochs are certain about being taken to
a torture cell one day or the other. So
all that we keep talking about is what
questions the hosting intelligence
agencies would ask. How severe the
torture would feel like. How much space
the small and dark cabin ‘reserved’ for
one’s confinement would occupy?
Today,
I met a lot of people who talked about
Qambar Chakar’s first night at torture
cell. “What do you think they could have
asked him,” asked a class fellow of
Chakar. The other said, “do you think
they have beaten him up severely? “ Do
you think he has met Zakir Majeed and
Chakar Qambarani inside the torture
cell?
I don’t know, guys.
I have experienced none:
The First Night of Grave
The First Night of Wedding
The First Night of Torture Cell
