The intensity of Pain

By Basheer Shohaz Baloch

Translated from Baluchi to English

We are not familiar with the intensity of Pain. If you pick up the mobile and write pain or finish the ink of our pen.

Comrade Yousaf’s one brother and two sons have sacrificed their lives for the freedom of Balochistan. Comrade has buried his younger brother with teary eyes but didn’t even have the opportunity to pay his last respects to his both sons. These feeling cannot be put into words.

Shahsawar has witnessed the burial of his five sons’ right before his eyes. What would have been his feeling at that moment? Who knows? Ghulam Qadir could not even attend the burial and funeral of his three sons. How does one measure such feelings?

A friend told me: ‘after a month of the murder of Shaheed Dawood Baloch. we went to see his father and informed him about the death of his son [Dawood] that his son has become a martyr for Balochistan.

He looked at me, laughed and then said: ‘I walk with the help of a walking stick otherwise I would have picked his gun. But you in mountains [Baloch sarmachars] are my sons.’

He did not cry but his pain was visible in each of his words that he uttered and it felt as if there was a heavy burden of pain on his chest.

I still have not forgotten that event the sorrow and intense pain of which has been haunting me from past 12 years of my life. As for as I remember it was a cloudy day in 2006 and it was raining outside, I had fallen in a puddle and my motorcycle’s engine had become full of water. I was changing its oil outside our house. My mother called me and said, ‘Basheer go get some tomatoes.’ I replied, ‘I will change the oil of my bike and then I will go, mother.’ At that moment my 12-year-old brother ‘Mohim Jan’ told me, ‘brother you will be late. I will go [get tomatoes].’ I gave him the money. Mohim Jan got on his cycle and paddled away.

About fifteen minutes later someone brought us the news that Mohim Jan had an accident on the main road and he passed away.

In these 12 years whenever I closed my eyes at night it occurred to me that maybe natural accident and incident are coincidences. If a person is not at the place of an incident he could survive. Is it possible that human beings have invented the philosophy of fate and luck to ease their pain and to contain their heart?

I thought if my bike hadn’t fallen in the paddle and I had gone to buy the tomatoes and had taken Mohim Jan with me, maybe this incident would not have happened because he would not be there at the time of the accident. But, again I realised that the law of nature is like a film or movie. Wherever and whenever nature wants something to happen, it will fit that incident for that part of the film. It is beyond human control to interfere in the law of nature. With such thought, I with a heavy heart accepted the philosophy of fate and luck and kept myself alive despite these sorrows and haunting thoughts.

However, after 12 years of that incident, while I am in exile, I heard the news that my brother Attaullah and my sister Zahra had also passed away in an accident; these pains cannot be expressed and put into words. Such incidents break people from inside and ignite a fire within. Such painful incidents completely change the human perspective on life.

These pains, however, taught me one fact that the pain of comrade Yousaf’s brother and son, Shahsawar’s sons and Ghulam Qadir’s sons’ cannot be expressed in words. Those sisters whose brothers are being tortured in dark cells of the enemy, those mothers whose sons have sacrificed their lives for the freedom of Balochistan – many of whom weren’t able to pay their last respects to their loved ones. When Mobarek Qazi buried his son Kambar Qazi, whom he had brought up with love and care, with his own hands, what were his feelings at that moment?

The brave leader Baba Marri [Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri] said, ‘If the pain of other Baloch sons haunts me for three days, the pain of Balach [his son Balach Marri] haunt me for about 10 days.’ Baba Marri was a brave leader and his words can be a lesson. But, even death cannot reduce the pain of Balach absence. Is there anyone who can measure these pains with words?

Today, the enemy has attacked Baloch land and they have ignited a fire in every nook and corner of Balochistan. There is no such mother and sister whose son or brother has not been abducted or killed and dumped in desolated areas and on roadsides. There is an unending flow of blood everywhere. Today’s enemy abducts our mothers and sister, puts them in secret dungeons and does not hesitate to subject them to inhuman torture and pain. On the other hand, Baloch sisters and mothers are knocking at the doors of outsiders in search of their loved ones. But, the world is deaf. They cannot hear the voice and plea of Baloch mothers and sister.

We understand and feel the pain of every Baloch mother and sister and struggle to put their pains into words. But, if we put ourselves in the shoes of those mothers for only five minutes – the pain of four sons, two sons – whom she prepared and sent to join the resistance for freedom. We can see that our words do not suffice these pains.

It is true. We are not familiar with the intensity of pain but as activists, we can try to contain our words and out tongue just not to harm and disrespect the feeling of such brave sisters and mothers of Balochistan who have sacrificed their loved ones for freedom and bright future of this nation – the Baloch nation. It is a treasure for us if our words are not disrespecting the blood of martyrs and heroes of the freedom struggle.

Note: Pain cannot be shared but pain can be put in the column of words to reduce its intensity. By this I mean you can at least understand my feelings.