Neelum Afridi's Canvas: May 2015

“My Success Story”

She was standing in the balcony, her hands wrapped around the railings, dressed in a fusion of western and eastern. The fair complexion, the pointed perfect nose and the greenish blue eyes; indicated that she was a northwestern Asian. Looking at the stars of the night, her eyes visualizing something beyond what they were looking at. The sea beneath the stars was showing its distress to see the moon, the different sounds of the waves were telling a story unheard for decades.

A voice from the back startled her, “Ma’am all the guests are waiting for you.” The organizer informed her.

"I'll be there in a while." she replied.

She swam out of the ocean of her thoughts, threw a last glance at the scenery she was talking to, went inside and passed through the lobby of one of the most famous hotels of New York. The moment she entered, the hall echoed with claps. All the guests warmly welcomed her with their smiles and praising words, their eyes filled with admiration. Every person in the hall wished to meet her and to capture the moment with her in the lenses of a camera. She met everyone, one after the other. All of them were praising her stories, poetry and travelogues. They appreciated and esteemed the very different themes of her writings. While busy talking to her guests, someone tugged her dupatta from a side and a soft, sweet voice from the back asked, "Would I be like you someday?"

While she turned towards the tugged side of the dupatta, she found a young twelve years old Somalian girl with curly black hair, a dark face and large white eyes, waiting for the question to be answered.

She knelt towards the young girl, pressed her cheeks between her palms, and whispered in her ear, "If I can do it, why can't you?"

Durkhanai was a writer, a world famous writer from the Northwestern region of Asia, known as "FATA". Tonight a dinner was arranged in her honor by a book publishing company of New York, who admired her writing skills.

Through her pen, Durkhanai, made her place and position in the world. Her stories were based on realities, experiences, ground facts and with a many encouraging themes; telling people about their hidden selves, asking them to discover those and use them to rise up to the top.

It was early morning, lala was sitting in the traditional cot of Pakhtoons, with the green mountains to the front, the high length trees around and the sound of the stream was filling the atmosphere with a mesmerizing musicality. In the background, a sound of a broom could be heard. It sounded like someone was cleaning up the veranda and the backyard. Sun struck the earth with its early rays. Lala called out, "Durkhanai, chaye rawra." (Durkhanai get me the breakfast)

The broom sound stopped, after a few minutes, a girl with a shkur in her hand was coming towards lala. She was wearing a voluminous ghagra with those traditional tribal cuts and embellishments. Long brown hair braided in peyaway which were covered with a red paruny. She placed the shkur before lala.

“Lala, what am I going to do now?” asked Durkhanai.

“Everything would be fine, khyr b shy. I’m on your back, don’t worry my little chunk.” Lala replied.

“But what about the people, how are we going to deal with them? Everyone would talk about it. We just can’t take the risk. I think I should give up on it.” Durkhanai said anxiously.

“No!” lala said, “Don’t you even dare to think of giving up! Don’t you trust me, your lala? Don’t you have faith over me? Are you so scared of the people that you’d turn down such an important offer just to escape their taunting words? Did I brought you up as a coward, to give away things only because what would people say? I’m so disappointed Durkhanai, extremely disappointed.” Lala exclaimed with a louder voice in an angry mood.

Lala was the elder brother of Durkhanai who have brought up and guarded Durkhanai after the death of their father. Their mother, Marjan, was an old, simple lady who was uneducated but very wise. She reared her children in the best possible manner and taught them the whole life long to stand for themselves and fight, no matter what. Now, both of her children have grown up. Gul Khan (lala) was her elder son and Durkhanai was the younger daughter. Durkhanai was born after the death of her father.

Gul khan that Durkhanai called as lala was her father, guardian and the best of friends. Lala supported Durkhanai at every step of her life. Lala, himself could not pursue his education due to the unfavorable economic conditions. At an early age he had to be the bread runner for the family. He always wanted to study and to be educated, so he tried to accomplish this dream through Durkhanai. Durkhanai was given the best possible education in less resources but the determination was as high as it touched the sky.

Durkhanai, was now a grown up college girl studying at the nearby girls college of the village where only a few of the girls were studying who were mostly married, as young tribal girls were engaged at the time of their birth and married right after adolescence not concerning their young age, regardless of their education. In spite of all these taboos, Durkhanai continued studying with the back of her brother. Additionally, she was a born writer who started writing in Pashto language but with the passage of time extended her skills to other languages as Urdu and English. Durkhanai, living in the farthest of mountains had a literary sense and a joy for aesthetic beauty. At the very young age, she had written English poems, short stories and essays. Themes of all these genera were very unique and expressed in a very eloquent way that no one would expect a tribal girl to have this skill at such an early stage.

Lala was well aware of the talents of her sister. He tried to promote her writing skills and for that purpose he took help of social media with the help of his little primary school education. With growing age, he also taught Durkhanai the use of social media to promote her skills.

One day, Durkhanai came across a creative writing competition held by an international organization which was advertised on social media. She decided to apply for it, instantly submitted her entries for two categories, i.e., short story writing and poetry. After a month when results were announced, Durkhanai secured third position in short story writing and first in poetry writing competition among Pakistani writers. Moreover, she was invited to Germany for the final round of the competition. When Durkhanai saw this, she felt as if every single bone of her body was in the air and every single clot of her blood was rejuvenated. She ran towards lala who was chopping woods in the back yard. She was shouting at the top of her lungs and squeaked the happening to him. Out of joy, lala threw away the axe and hugged her. They were both very happy but after a moment of tranquility; the ecstatic happiness of Durkhanai was molded into a black anguish, when she thought of the reaction of her family, her uncles, male cousins and the foremost her tribe. It made her insanely agitated when an opportunity like once in a life time comes and you have to turn it down because of the so called social norms.

Lala was in a fret too. There was silence for a long time in the house as if someone has snatched a treasure out of the house and they were lamenting for it. The next morning, lala decided that Durkhanai would go, irrespective of the reaction of the family and tribe. He was determined to make his sister an inspiration for all the tribal girls. Durkhanai was very scared but lala forced her and ensured her that as long as he is alive, no one can dare to speak a word. Their mother was equally happy and worried. Though, they had to take a stand which they did.

After a week Durkhanai was packing up for Germany, the village gathered around her house, some to see her off with pride and wishing to be there in spite of her while others were there to scoff her. Unconcerned of the surroundings, with the trust and support of her family Durkhanai left for Peshawar where she’d take the flight to Germany. Lala accompanied her till Peshawar and from there on she took the ride of a journey that no one ever knew she’d take all the way from the mountains of the Terrah valley.

At Germany, the final round had many twists and turns. They evaluated the participants in different ways to crave a way for the best ones to come out. Young writers, around the globe were competing, Durkhanai was one of them. At the grammar testing round, she suffered a lot because she knew plane language rules only that she’d use to create images with but was never so strong in grammar due to her schooling and less practice. She excelled in imagery rounds but her grammar created problems for her. In poetry, mostly the poetic license would rescue her but in short story, she suffered.

At the second last round, Durkhanai was out of the competition due to the same reason. Although, the imagery, the supercilious thoughts and the unusual themes of her work; were praised undoubtedly. She could not make it to the finals though was highly appreciated and recognized, she made her presence somehow. In the meanwhile, an international magazine offered her to write for them, she agreed to it.

After 25 years today, when it’s Durkhanai’s 45^th birthday. She is a world class writer belonging to the driest and strongest mountains of FATA. She traversed her journey of the stony rail accompanied by the scoffing, taunting words from the surroundings. She continued, hence she worked no matter what and whatever. Her lala was with her, her aday (mother) was with her. She walked every time she was stopped and she stood every time she fell off.