Let's give her back all lost dreams !!!

Horrifying images of death and destruction haunt the internally displaced persons, especially the women and the children, who are the most vulnerable segments of the society. Maina (name of a beautiful singing bird, which is a common name in the Pashtun culture) wakes up one night to the deafening explosions of artillery shells and staccato of gunfire. Shortly before, when she, a pretty girl of 11 years, was asleep, she was perhaps dreaming about the serene and benign nature surrounding her home, mostly made of wooden slabs and logs. Shaken out of her deep slumber and sweet dream, she was terrified. The entire hamlet had been reverberating with intense firing. She had heard about the infiltration of insurgents into the locality during the day before.

Shortly after, her house was jolted. A shell fell near it and exploded with a big bang. She did not know what to do. Soon the chaos among the villagers subsided as the explosions had caused no damage or casualty. She could not figure out who had fired the shell. She said to herself, perhaps, it is the end of the world. Her dream was shattered. She could not recall the contours of the place she was seeing in the dream. But, there was God’s plenty – the nature in its abundance, pure, benign and serene. Tears welling up in her shining eyes trickled down her cheeks leaving behind a trail of watery woes.

Before the day break, she had to take a flight, a flight for safety along with her family of four siblings and parents as all the other villagers did, walking hours and hours at a stretch to reach to relative safety. Her family ended up under a tree on the sidelines of a relief camp set up for the internally displaced persons in the Swabi district. Her family had to struggle hard to get a tent, but in vain.

Not knowing what to do, the family sought shelter at a relative in his tent. At night, the balmy sleep again takes over Maina, whose face is as radiant from the long trek as an angel. It seems she slept after a pretty long time between when she was having the sweet dream in her house and now when she is sleeping in a tent. She was again dreaming of her home, playing in the shade of pine trees on the bank of a cool stream. The music of nature she was used to hear had evaporated like her dream. She is missing all her belongings, the Mother Nature, her home, the beautiful lush green environs and springs of cold and refreshing water. She draws a long breath and sighs in her sleep. Perhaps, she is dreaming if anything can bring the sweet dreams back - a question written large on her innocent face and calling upon the humanity to come to her rescue.