PukhtunWomen

There was a girl with dreamy eyes, eyes so full of such a faraway look that we mostly forgot she was there. She never told us what she dreamed of and we in our arrogance never bothered to ask. She spoke little, but would smile with her perfect cupid bow lips and her small button nose, giving her a doll like look.

She grew into a beautiful young woman with the silkiest hair that hung low, down to her knees. She never grew very tall and if it bothered her we never knew. She was there and yet she was never there, her presence most days was like the soft scent of some far away rose carried on the wind. You could never be sure whether it was real or imagined.

This girl, who we forgot most days loved to dance. So content and unaware of all, she would twirl to the rhythm lost in her own world, that it would hurt to watch, holding our breath, as if afraid that this mesmerizing vision of beauty would vanish. Wallah, even the fairies must have watched!

One day an extraordinarily handsome young man claimed her as his wife and carried her far away to his home. We were shocked by this void she had left, but because she was happy we were happy for her. Her husband cared for her and loved her as tenderly as she deserved, and she loved him back with a passion to match his. The dreamy looks of her eyes was replaced by an impatient yearning every time he left her side.

Together they had a beautiful daughter, and as is custom amongst the Pukhtuns, no one was thrilled, except for the father who adoringly would look at his wife and child and would claim over and over again that nothing could ever make him happier.

The nature of her husband’s job kept him away from home a lot and this started to become a source of tension between the two. The nature of his job was such that he could not share anything with her and he would beg her not to ask questions he could not answer. She would fight, and scream that every time he left she was terrified that all she would have left of him would be the last glimpse of his back as he walked out that door. He would come back and laugh at her fears and wipe away her tears.

One day as he left, she ran after him and said that this time she had a really bad feeling and that he should not go. She would not let go of his hand, so he was forced to delay his departure and assure her that he had worked very hard and a treaty was in the signing and soon there would be peace and he would be transferred to a place where it would be safe for him to take her and their daughter and their unborn child.

He kissed her on the forehead and told her that she had to be brave otherwise how could all their children be brave and he left.

Half way across the world her cousin was reading the live feed off the AP and she said “surely this must be a mistake, for how can this be?” A continent away another cousin ran to her laptop to log into various blogs to verify the news online, while five villages away her father was watching the evening news, when he cried out “Oh my poor child, what will I do with you now!”

Cautiously the parents, siblings, cousins, uncles and aunts converged and waited outside her home, they wanted to protect her and keep her unaware for as long as possible. The body was in no shape for a viewing, so they kept him in the mosque till dawn.

As she watched her brother and uncle come in, she did not greet them, she only whispered as she fell to the floor, “I knew he was near, and if he didn’t come to me it can only mean one thing.”