"Life is neither the same for everyone, nor everyone for life", said the shepherd to himself while he was grazing his sheep.
He was a tall man, grey-bearded and slim moustaches. His cloak was as long as his feet and hands. His head was round, face long and colour fair. He was neither thin nor fat: neither tall nor so short. He was the inhabitant of Darra where the brave tribe of Afridis was living. He was an educated mad person, called by each and every one in Darra. He had studied literature and philosophy in his graduation, but he was a shepherd then. He was known as Kochai- a Pashto name meaning shepherd. His own name was Meer Afzal and he loved to live alone. That's why he always tried to be in the hills or mountains of Darra and to only speak and have sheep around him.
He was walking in a valley and further said, "Life is a teacher. As each and every student in this life faces different kinds of teachers in their perusals, same is the case with life because life has two angles; one is just to teach us and the other is to make us understand things."
He stoned one of the sheep with a loud voice "hrrrrrrrr" and further stated to himself, "Life for some people is very strange and different and for some people, very nice and special. Some people go through life in ease, where they don't get physical or mental stress and we can experience people of that kind around, while some people are stressed all their lives and cannot get a day of happiness and rest."
He would start his small journey in his town at 4am and then stay there the whole day till twilight. Dawn and twilight would always brim him with an unending solace. He would smell each and every creature of God in dawn; he would smell the rocks on his way to the hills and hill tops; he would grow through all the herbs and shrubs in the ways; he would speak to the beautiful birds of the area and especially would talk to his favorite thing—the satiating breeze in the morning. At twilights, he would write down all his day in his small brown book. His book looked like the heavy books of the fifteenth century. He had an old ink-pen which would colour his fingers while writing but that was his favorite pen. He would write with that in curved English writing style. The pen was gifted in his university by a girl. His favorite clothe would be white but by working all day long, he used brown colour. He always gave a long look to the front high mountain whenever he wrote on one of the hill tops in evening and would sigh for a long time. That was his habit. And no one ever spoke to him in Darra without any need because he was different—so different.
When the weather became flooding and cyclonic he thought that a student is going to be born for learning some lessons of life and those will be harsh.
His idea was correct and in the same village a baby opened its eyes. The nature, that time, was helping the life to create that creature for its lessons. That day, it was raining but not calmly, it was the rain of darkness; where clouds were not showing the beautiful face of nature but the darkest side of it; where thunders were not laughing with kids but shouting on people; where there was not a bloomy and cold breeze like the soft hands of our grandparents touching our cheeks but the wind with whistles in the mouths and touching our souls with harshness. The time was closer to evening which is twilight but not the best of that. That was the upside down.
The place where there were no vehicles for any kind of patients and kept no hospitals attached to that particular village 'Darra'. The women of the area were known to all these happenings and that is why there was no concept of a doctor or nurse for their ease in giving birth to their children. They were only known to the old women of the village from whom they could find a little help with some home-made medicines. The inhabitants were not that poor that they couldn't support and handle those useful instruments but they were used to that and was the custom of the area too.
Many women would laugh at newly married girls if they were somehow taken to hospitals for fast recovery in their pregnancy because they thought that they were stronger than the girls of that day's world. They mimicked them for so many times whenever they visited them. They served the newly married girls with their old brave stories. One of the most famous stories which had taken place in Darra was:
"There was a lady in old time in Afridis. She was a real woman--a real Afridi. She would work all day long in the mountains and would graze her sheep and other cattle. She would spend all the day in the hill sides and at evening, go home and prepare things for her kids and husband. Once, when she was pregnant, she did the same at morning and went to the hillside. There she got the pain of her pregnancy but she was used to it and took a side in her working place. She gave birth to a child without a doctor or anyone's help or any medicine. She took the child in a piece of shawl to her home after completing her duty and informed people at evening. She was a real Afridi woman."
The power was divided into some categories which is called a myth. Afridis called 'brave' a man who is a good shooter; a person who is picking up heavy stones or lifting good weights. On the other hand, women were stronger if they were good with illness and they did not visit a doctor. If a woman took rest in her illness, she was considered to be cunning and weak. She was not good for being a daughter-in-law. She couldn't make a good wife.
Zainab was also one of the females of the village and had two children by then. She was a clever and unknown-to-the-world woman of the village where everyone would praise her for her deeds and good behavior. Her eyes were dark-colored, big and long. She was neither so long nor short. Her face was enlightened with correctness but her words were harsh. She spoke serious about things but her thoughts were clean and tidy.
Zainab had a son, Younas, who was five years old by then and after him, a daughter, Sadia, who was two by then. And it was the third time to give birth to her third child. Her husband, Noor Gul, was in Arabia, who drove there and provided everything he could to his wife and kids. He was the only son of his parents and his mother had passed away in his childhood, when he was rarely eight years of age.
Noor Gul had a step-mother and five step-brothers as well as sisters. They were three to four kilometers away from Noor Gul's house. He was an independent person who helped his brothers before marriage and after marriage, but after knowing the fact that his kids couldn't study or learn some better things at the old house, he left his brothers and shifted to their own land in a small village among mountains. The village was Jansy.
That time also, as for the first two times of Zainab, she was alone and her husband was not home. She was just helped by the elders of Jansy in her pregnancy and in child birth. She was praying at the time of pain for a second son because her husband was alone and she was afraid of her step family for everything. She was closer to Allah that he was going to get her a second son but there was the creature as well; for whom she was there and pregnant for the last time. Her husband would be cut into pieces by the surrounded people for his money and properties if he had only one son or two, she thought.
The shepherd had always said, "Afridis, like other Pakhtun tribes, did whatever their minds suggested. They killed their friends for money, kidnapped them, cut them into pieces; even destroyed the whole families sometimes. They also worked in kidnapping their own brothers if they were weak or had good properties. Step-brothers were always hated by them and if a step-brother was only one, then…"
At home, Zainab was helped by the elder women and she gave birth to the wheatish girl, Lailuma. When she came to kno about a second daughter, she forgot her pain and crossed her fingers to Allah Almighty, "Ya Allah, help me and my husband in these situations, otherwise it will trouble us both". That didn't take more than an hour that she felt the pain again and at last she gave birth to a son, Saif.
Noor Gul was alone. Darra was a place of orthodox and stern and stubborn Pakhtuns. They killed each other not for money only but for proving themselves more powerful; they kidnapped for ransom and especially if someone was abroad and made good money. There were very good facilities of armors and hashish. Noor Gul worked as a labour in Arab. He wished only to take good care of his wife and kids, provide them with good education and stuff.
Younas at that time was very happy for two, two kids and that was because of his loneliness in a big house like a fort made by British government in the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries. Sadia was only three but she was also sensitive and could realize the happiness of her sister and brother.
Then, they were four at the house and their mother, Zainab, was fit too. She thought of her husband to acknowledge him of their happiness but there was no concept of calls or telephone at that time, though he was known then by a tape recorded cassette which was sent by his friend. The cassette was for informing him to send his friends some presents in his son's happiness. It was also called a ceremony there. People wished their joys for their sons' birth, but not for a daughter.
Noor Gul's brothers and sisters as well as mother came to congratulate Zainab , and also had taken gifts for the kids. Zainab was knew everything about them: their artfulness which was only for the sake of the people around them- not for the sake of Zainab or Noor Gul's happiness.
Hunar Shah was the eldest of all brothers and was a serious and dashing man having gray beard. He was respected by everyone in Darra and had a lot of friends. He got seven sons and one daughter.
The step mother-in-law, who was more than sixty by the time, was the most cunning lady of the century. She was weak and couldn't walk well and had vitiligo. That disease of her skin was famous around so many villages and it was not her face but an old-used grey clothe of someone which was used for so long. The readers can also imagine her face by thinking of rainbows of only two colors, red and wheat in the sky. It had started from her feet to face and everyone in the village called her 'Browny'.
She gave Zainab her prayers which were, of course, a custom and not by heart and also said, "Alhamdulillah, Allah heard my prayers for my only son, Noor Gul but if this time too, you would become a mother of a daughter then I must had ordered Noor Gul for a second marriage. As you know that I am very much sad for his only son." And Zainab gave a calm face with so many words but the mother-in-law was not free to read them.
The second day when Zainab realized that she couldn't do any home chores and filling waters' pots she started thinking of one's help and whispered with herself to take someone's help. Water was also a big trouble for her. In Darra, there was deficiency of water. Wells were dug near every house. It was a dry place. She then sent a massage to Shaziba's mother to get Shaziba for her help.
Shaziba was, at that time, eight and was one of the daughters of Noor Gul's step brothers and she was a nice and modest girl, as she would help her aunt, Zainab in need. She had a long face with so many pimples on that. Her nose and lips were same. She was always interested to visit Zainab and help her there because it was a kind of exploration for those girls who were living in watery areas or there they had canals of water.
When she reached Darra by feet, she started with water and everything which was tough or impossible for her aunt, Zainab, to do. And that was the time when Shaziba impressed her aunt by her modesty and silence and a lot of hard work that Zainab decided to ask Noor Gul for the engagement of Shaziba and Younas.
Noor Gul also liked her. He loved her as a daughter. She was, since her childhood, selected by him for Younas. He gave her gifts in her childhood and her parents had assured Noor Gul's love too. Her parents wanted to place this engagement because Noor Gul's house was liked them.
Afridis loved to get their daughters and sons engaged in early ages. Marriage was also a town's talk for them. They always wished to be fathers and mothers-in-law and had daughters-in-law as soon as possible for them. Fifteen or at least seventeen and eighteen were perfect ages considered by them for marriages. Firstly, there was the concept of not committing any sin in a young age because with marriage, a person can be controlled. Secondly, the concept was of filling blank places in families. They liked to have kids around and many people at houses.