In First Person
Hafsa Masoodi*
In the tumultuous cradle of Neelum Valley, where mountains stood like sentinels between Indian and Pakistani administered territories, as a little girl, I had dreams as large as the apple orchards that framed my world.
My father, a school teacher, was a wanderer by necessity. He frequently journeyed to Muzaffarabad along a perilous road shadowed by cross-fire between the armies of two nuclear powered countries, India and Pakistan.
The Line of Control (LoC) is the de facto border between India and Pakistan in the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir. The skirmishes, cross-border shelling, and other military activities along the LoC have resulted in significant human costs on both sides.
My world blossomed the day my father brought me Laali – a red doll with hypnotic hazel eyes that blinked and cheeks rivalling the valley’s ripest apples. Its little red cheeks and small hands with nail polish attracted me more than anything else.
A representational imageI was a little village girl whose world was confined to school and home – where I spent my time playing with my doll under apple trees. In winters, I kept my doll covered in a red blanket inside the room. But when the sun shone on a sunny day after the snow, I brought her out to see the beauty of snow and feel the tenderness of sunshine.
My mother’s stern gaze restricted my social sphere. Laali became my world—until the day my maternal cousin Nadia visited, a cherubic child everyone doted upon. Nadia’s eyes widened at the sight of Laali. “Give it to me,” she demanded.
Initially, I hid Laali in my brother’s cupboard, but when Nadia’s tears flowed, my mother’s heart melted and my resistance shattered under my mother’s directive. Reluctantly, I surrendered Laali, hugging her one last time—my heart breaking with the weight of a painful goodbye.
Days passed, and each moment deepened my melancholy.
I don’t exactly remember, but my mom tells me that one day my father was at home, and at night I was sobbing in my bed. Abba ji asked why I was sobbing, and I told him that I was missing my Laali.
Upon hearing the reason, he turned to my mother with a fierce anger: “Why did you give her Laali away? Don’t you know how much she loves that doll?”
Before dawn broke the next day, he set off for Muzaffarabad, on the road skirted with the scent of death, to bring another Laali for his daughter. The news horrified my mother.
“You’ve sent your father to his death!” she cried, her words slicing my soul like a blade.
In those days, the journey from my village to Muzaffarabad was a journey of death because of frequent LoC firing. 80% of the road from my village to Muzaffarabad was in direct firing range, and firing was routine in those days. Due to the persistent shelling, many villages had been evacuated. Families were forced to move to safer areas, leaving behind their homes and possessions.
My mother’s admonishing words invoked anxiety and worries. I was filled with self-blame. What if something untoward happens to my father? How will I forgive myself? I could hear the echoes of these worries everywhere. The walls whispered accusations, the apples in the orchard glared at me, and the very sunshine felt heavy. I turned to prayer, asking for my father’s safety, pledging to forsake Laali and all future desires.
The next two days stretched longer than years. On the third day, my heart pounded like a drum, as I stood on a large stone that provided a vantage point to glimpse the approaching road. Just when despair was about to swallow me, a boy from the village approached.
“Ustad ji is on the way,” he announced. A wave of euphoria surged through Aisha. Her prayers were answered. She raced down the path to meet her father, shouting to the heavens, “Abba ji aa gaey, Abba ji aa gaey!”
I rushed into his arms, my tears a mixture of relief and joy. As I embraced him, I kept crying. Perplexed, he handed me a new Laali, and said, “Don’t cry, I have brought the doll for you now.”
Inside the house, I stored the doll away and never played with it. No earthly possession was worth the risk of my father’s life or the agony I had suffered. I never played with any doll ever in my life.
My family, frozen in a tableau of muted anxiety, suddenly sprang to life, their faces transforming from grim masks of worry to radiant beacons of relief and gratitude. For a moment, no one spoke; the profound weight of what could have been lost hung in the air, filling the room with a palpable tension.
The walls of the home itself seemed to heave a sigh in relief; the spectre of death that had been haunting us had been vanquished, at least for now, and in its place stood the indomitable spirit of family and the enduring power of home.”
My father had returned home unharmed after narrowly escaping the shelling from across the LoC a situation that could have resulted in their death.
In the Neelum Valley, amid a conflict woven with bullets and echoed in artillery fire, the true cost is often measured in smaller, untold tragedies. Emotional traumas, shattered dreams, and stolen childhoods are the hidden scars of a land yearning for peace.
From that day, my heart turned from Laali to the dangers of the conflict we lived so close to. Ever since, I pray – let us not live in the shadows of guns and death, but in the sunlight that glistens our peaceful valleys.
*Hafsa Masoodi hails from Lawat Neelum Valley and is pursuing PhD from NUST. She’s the proud daughter of a brave and caring father.
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