The Getaway

As the night falls in, the orchestra of life starts to play the most rhythmic tune ever heard by mankind. The owls start to hoot, snakes are playing hiss, wind starts to swirl and the distant chirp of birds is also audible in the background.

Moon showers its spotlight on the Ailanthus Altissima (Tree of Heaven). Sitting under the tree Elena kisses Hussain and says “isn't it the most beautiful night of our life". “What can be more beautiful than a true love’s kiss" Hussain thinks in his heart kissing her back. Moon gets excited after reading the boy's thought and starts to shine brightly and soon notices that its eternal love ( The Earth ) is gorgeous than ever.

Looking at the young couple together a sudden jealousy erupts in the heart of the moon. At this point it failed to realize that since the day of creation its soul is bonded to earth and that a true love requires no medium. So close to heaven and yet it failed to get the whole idea. It wasn't the fault of the moon at all because to understand something you need not to be close or far. How many of us understand why the earth nourishes a seed to grow it into a tree of heaven. We could never comprehend the love of moon which creates tides in the oceans and name it the gravitational pull. We never realized that why the sun rays never needed the medium to warm the earth's soul. Our only answer to all these visualizations of The Creator has been "Maktab".

 It had been days since this young couple had left their tribe. “Why they couldn't accept us?" asks Elena. Innocence prevails in the air and the tree of heaven gets curious to know their story.

They belonged to Kata tribe of Bashgal valley located in Nuristan, Afghanistan. Kata people were non-believers and called "Kafirs" until they were forced to convert to Islam in the late 19th century. Major occupation of Kata people is Farming. Husain and Elena were married according to Islamic ritual and yet they were declared Kafirs as they did not consult their Chief for the wedding and resented to break up their marriage. This young couple had no choice but to flee their tribe and migrate to Pakistan which is having the largest population of Afghan immigrants. They decided to follow the Bashgal River which would eventually lead them to River Kunar that flows across the Pak-Afghan border.

The treacherous Hindu-Kush range never seemed to be ending. Death was following them all the way across. They both knew that the Chief Abdullah must have sent a search party to capture them or kill them but it was a leap of faith that kept them going. They were among those who try to make it to the other side of the ledge. “If God willing in two nights we will get across Pakistan" Hussain told Elena. He added" we are the children of farmers why don't they understand the meaning of love? How could they have forgotten that the very first reason behind adopting this most ancient skill was love for the family? Why couldn’t they ever witness the love shared by the crops, the birds, the insects, the earth and the sun each of them giving a life to the other? "

Now suddenly the orchestra had stopped playing because the wind of Bashgal which is called “dimi" was broadcasting the story of this brave couple in the whole valley. The owls and the birds quietly began to assemble under the Tree of Heaven. Snakes were afraid that they would startle the couple by their hissing so they decided to stay in their pits and requested “dimi" to relay the story to them.

Ironically, creatures who have a mere purpose of creating a balance of life were trying to understand the true purpose of the" Ashraful Makhluqat" (greatest of all creations). Resting his back on the trunk of tree, Hussain remembered that Abdullah always knew when to plant the seed in the fields, when to irrigate them, when to harvest them, he always knew which days would bring rain by merely looking at the sky and the wind direction. Hussain also had heard his chief saying that when the wind is blowing from the setting sun it will bring rain and snow. All of his life Hussain had thought that farmers were the most intelligent people but now he knew that their wisdom was so much limited.

Owls overheard him and started hooting about the human weakness.

Elena was quietly observing the river rapids and said "our elders are like a steady stream, following the path that has been chosen for them and we are like these river rapids, pushing across the stones, making our way through them even though we get hurt".

Human history has been absurdly violent, always crushing through the purpose of their creation. Right from the story of Habeel and Qabeel, love has been treated as a disease rather than cure. An old crow started to tell the story to its clan in a hushed tone, it was afraid that other birds might come to know that a crow was involved in the murder of LOVE. There are three forms of human love. In childhood every human receives love, youth is spent in finding love and old age is spent in spreading the love they collected in their entire life. Experience of love is more dangerous than experiencing a free fall from a cliff, if we strike earth during our fall we die and our matter is sent to God, but if love strikes us then we are on our own.

"Why do we have to migrate to Pakistan? Is it so necessary? I am kind of feeling lonely and the fear of the unknown is taking over my heart" Elena asked almost sobbing with sadness. Hussain took her in his arms and tried to comfort her" migration is not an evil ritual, even Prophets had to leave their homelands, it doesn't mean that they were not strong or Allah was weak to protect them, it’s because Almighty wanted their followers to know that being weak and leaving a place of cruelty doesn't mean that you are coward. Besides obligations to our soul we also have an obligation to our body. We must protect it too even though it’s not immortal. Migration has been embedded in human instincts just like the birds from the North. In every winters we see them migrating to the South."

“Look Elena I cannot foresee the future, I am neither a gypsy nor a saint, I am a man of mountains just like our fathers. We have never been accustomed to look for the future, we climb the mountains daily to gather woods for our houses and bring back only what will suffice for the day, if we were to cut down the trees to store wood it would create imbalance in the nature and the same mountains that provided us shade from the harsh winter winds would fall down upon us."

Tree of heaven could understand what this young boy was trying to tell his wife and it wanted to shed down all its branches to provide them wood for warmth, the mountain gripped the roots of Ailanthus Altissima more strongly, fruit trees started to shake down their ripe fruit, as of this moment they all could understand the laws of nature better than ever.

“My present is with you and together we can accomplish what we have chosen in our lives and that is to live beyond these mountains forever," He said.

Elena looked towards him, her blue eyes were full of hope and faith, she said " I have chosen you to be my husband and I have put my future in your hands".

“My mother used to tell me that someday you will marry a boy, bind your destiny to him, be the harmony of his life and he will make you prosperous by giving you a life within yourself, don’t try to stop him to pursue his dreams, men are like wild horses, they are faithful but they don’t like to be tamed," She said.

The search party included the best guides of the Bashgal valley, and the chief Abdullah had promised to give 5 goats to each of the seven men if they captured the defaulters. Aaban Ali, a guide and trekker among them, said “Hussain will not chose a difficult path as a girl is along with him, look for the paths near the river". Fatigue was setting in as the party was searching for the couple fruitlessly for six days. Arguments were raised that what difference would it make that someone had married without the consent of the tribe chief, but the greed of reward kept them going.

All the men of the Kata tribe are excellent guides as they learn to hike the mountains to search for food, hunt and wood. They knew that life gives the presence of other life forms, so they looked for slaughtered birds or small animals during the day and listened to their voices during the night.

Elena said “everything has gone so quiet suddenly".

Hussain put out the small fire they had lit to keep themselves warm and said" we have to move immediately".

He had already been acquainted with this silence; it was the fear that the animals felt when they sensed danger. But this time the danger was not for the animals, they were trying to warn the couple who had taught them so much about love, about life and about the purpose of their creation. The wind had started to blow again and this time it was bringing them the echoes of the search party so that they may know where to go to mislead them. The old crow asked his clan to keep quiet and hide themselves in their nests because he did not want his specie to be responsible for another murder of love.

As they started to walk, Hussain held Elena’s hand, she was trembling, he kissed her hand and said" there is nothing wrong in fear; it is human instinct to survive".

“I am not afraid of death," she replied." If they capture us they will separate us. I can understand that men have to leave to pursue their destiny and I will cherish that longing along with other women, but this separation will be different".

A tear ran down her cheeks and was collected by the soil. It might be the very last allegory of love and earth desired to preserve this tear forever.

Members of the search party were getting furious by each passing minute due to their desperation. Human rage is symbolical to the rivers, if it finds a desired path like plains it dies down but if it doesn't it transforms into rampage just like the ferocious currents of the Mountain Rivers. Rage starts as a seed called passion, each human being plants this seed in his mind, it’s then up to the environment provided to help this seed grow. This rear seed has the mutant ability to transform itself right from the start of its growth. If it is nourished with patience it grows out to become success and satisfaction but if impatience takes over the environment of human mind it becomes rage.

This battle between search and escape was getting strenuous for the both sides, it was time for the seed to shoot out and the result could be any of the above.

Hussain asked Elena to climb up the hill so that they could have a better idea of their location and avoid search party as they would be looking for them closer to the river banks. 

Though this young couple seemed quite astute and brainy yet there are some situations in our lives when our knowledge is undertaken by the power of unknown and these kids were falling right into its nefarious trap. And it is but what God desires. Mankind is the supreme of all creations, Allah gave us endless knowledge and power but in His plans he also included the fear of unknown, it's not because that Allah has fear of rebellion rather it's His love for us to herd us back from the dark paths of life. And the biggest clarification to this fact is that He kept secrets from his Messengers and even from His most beloved Prophet Muhammad (PBUM).

Whenever we fall in love we tend to forget two very important things. Love is like a ripe fruit besides its perks of being the sweetest and transcending other feelings it has a disadvantage of not being accepted by the ones around it, so either is falls down on earth, left alone to rot or it becomes a mark for the birds of prey. Another problem with true love is that it grows like a wild flower in the harsh deserts, defying the very laws of nature it abides by and its obviousness becomes its own killer.

"I think we should camp here for the night and start our search in the morning, we are quite close to them" said one of the search members. Aaban Ali turned towards this boy and said “the distance for the world might be measured in terms of miles, yards or kilometers but for us it is in term of time and keeping that in account we have few hours at a stretch". “We all are trekkers and we can easily cover the distances, we must get rest and resume in the morning" the young boy insisted.

"People judge you on what you achieve in the end rather than on your capabilities, our goal is to capture this couple and their aim is to flee this country and avoid getting captured, this puts us on a disadvantage because their goal is more valuable, its failure involves loss of life and desire" replied Aaban Ali.

"Che soomra kholey hoomra khabarey (as many men as many words)" he mumbled crossing over a small stream flowing towards the river.

Upon reaching the hilltop Hussain gazed his eyes towards south and he could see the distant blurry lights of the Kunar Valley. He wanted to fly along the chilling Siberian winds and touch those lights. Many a men lose their heart upon the sight of their destiny; some of them are those who didn’t expect they will make it, many are those who are let down by their expectations, there are very few who embrace it with their heart and soul. Triumph of dream is itself another scuffle, at this point one has to let go of the past and inherit his new destiny, letting go is one of the biggest human weaknesses.

“Your country is like an alluring witch, even if it scares you away, its memories will haunt you for whole life" a sudden thought touched his heart.

Birthplaces are like the first doll houses owned by the young girls.  It doesn’t matter if it is beautiful or raw, expensive or cheap its design is embossed onto their minds and its color is imprinted onto their hearts. No matter how many of them they own after that even though they might appear the same what if they have identical bedrooms for their dolls the first one will always stays with them. Birthplace helps us to nourish the feeling of attachment and we become embodied by this feeling. We might be able to suppress it but we can never free ourselves from its possession. Hindu-Kush range has identical features throughout Pakistan and Afghanistan but for this couple it was the case of accepting an identical doll house.

The feeling of quiet was getting itchy and Elena broke the silence by saying” I have always dreamed of going to places with you in my youth but those dreams were so different and romantic”.

“Dreams or daydreams of youth play a very important role in our lives; they create a sphere of positive energy in us which diminishes the negative aura aroused by the romantic frustrations of adolescence. Fragmentation of this aura is quite necessary: because it is easily catalyzed by our social and moral pressures and gives birth to diseases like prostitution.” Hussain said almost laughing so as not to embarrass her.

“Youth fantasies contain your personal legend and I am happy to be the one for you” he added.

Earth listening to this conversation engulfed itself into the veil of clouds and moon started to glow more brightly and joyfully as it could understand why the earth was trying to hide its shyness and who its personal legend was. Moon always felt agitated by the appearance of clouds but tonight it praised them and thanked them as they had revealed that its love was not one-sided anymore.  

Feeling a sensation of wariness in the atmosphere Elena tried to change the topic and said “I wish we could be like these clouds.”

“Look at that cloud patch moving across the horizon, how it has transformed itself, now it will move across the earth observing its beauties from above and wherever love happened it will come down with full fervor to embrace it and after collecting its part of love it will flow down to its origin to be loved again” she continued.

Resting his back on a big metamorphic rock Hussain took Elena is his lap; her face was glowing with an invisible light of pure love.

He said to her, “transformation and seeking of true love is easier for the water than us because it is helped by the universe at each point, firstly sun helps water to transform into vapors and then atmosphere helps it to transform into clouds through condensation, thereafter winds carries these clouds along to far reaching places and sun again helps it to find love by directing it to the warmth of its love.”

For us on the other hand, whenever someone seeks out love he is diagnosed as mad, sociopath or even disbeliever; like us and if such a person may ever find love the last accusation put forth by the society is “Forbidden” or “Impossible”, whatever seems right. This accusation has always been successful as it needed no court or law house to hold a trial and its unannounced sentence has always been exile or death.

In spite of the cold winter night his throat was parched with thirst and as he put his hand inside his satchel to reach for the water bottle he came to know that it was empty and they were left with no more water. He could feel sweat running down his forehead. Imagination of suffering does not produce stress it’s the possibility of its realization that produces it.

Whenever we feel helpless or are in a trouble help does always arrive from God, may it be in any form, omens are always there for us to be seen and interpreted. The clarity of omens depends upon the belief that there will be one for you when you need it. Even though every love story may appear the same in the end but every single one of them has its own soul and that soul is nurtured by the decisions taken during each chapter of the book of life. This couple took a very strange decision which was indiscernible. They took on the very fear that made them flee their tribe, the fear of death.

Hussain collected some woods from around the hill and set up a huge fire. He and Elena sat down beside the fire. Aaban Ali saw rising flames and directed his men to climb up towards the fire. Hussain and Elena prayed to Allah for forgiveness. Neither of them uttered a word after that, they quietly kissed each other. In those moments they both felt happy and satisfied as they had never felt before. They had unveiled the curtain of death and had known the fact that they were traveling from projection to reality, the life after death. They had made to the other side of ledge.