I did not want this (1)

The following is a memoir of my life which would be published in some series of parts. 

When I was studying hard enough to become someone who I dreamed, I never thought that life has so many complicated faces in reality. My entire education has a very sad, adventurous and strange story. I never had the luxury of having any support that most of the children have in this world in their childhood.

I studied my primary school with gaps and interruption in my district school. Some years I was laboring for helping my family in the village. Once, my father bought a falcon. He fed it for almost 4 months with lamb and goat meats until the falcon dealers camp in Qarghanato of Bamyan. Finally the time came and my father called me in a morning to give up the work which I was busy with in the plantation. He ordered my mother to give me two pairs of cloths as I was having a journey ahead. Later on I found out a cage on my shoulder inside of which was the falcon. My father was riding his mare horse and while I was stepping after the horse, I was changing the cage from left shoulder to right and vice versa as it was heavy to my capacity. Finally, after 4 days we arrived in Qarghanato of Bamyan where there were white tents in everywhere specially in far-reaching corners of the desert. Our falcon had a flaw; one of its wings was damaged during hunting.
It was from a decent origin but this made it of no worth in the eyes of the dealers. My father freed it in the sky and asked me to go home with one of the neighbors who was heading to my district. Whole the world collapsed on me. I wanted to see Mazar-e- Sharif where my father had to go for getting his check and bringing the winter commodities to his shop. He was so stingy a man (may God bless him) to pay for my journey. A man the same age to my father who was very kind and a friend and a company of him to Mazar-e- Sharif, urged him to accept my appeal and take me with him to see a new world-the city.

Finally he agreed to take me with him to Mazar-e- Sharif. All the main ways to north –Mazar-e Sharif- was closed due to civil war and conflict among different parties for dominating more areas. We were obliged to turn back to Yakawlang and then travel by truck all the way through the mountains-Tirband-e- Turkistan/Baba’s Mountains Range. There was no car in whole Hazarajat that time. I had seen rarely a jeep in our district and we- the kids- were following it throughout the Bazaar. We were calling any car a jeep as we had no idea which brand was called jeep or else. Anyhow, we ate our lunch in Yakawlang bazaar and then moved to Zarsang Pass. Our truck was following the track of other vehicles which had already passed it. Some parts were only the track of the cattle and too steep. After 7 days night and day march, eventually we reached to Mazar-e- Sharif where I chose to live for three other years and those years were the most fruitful of my educational life. I found out the city like a paradise-though none of Afghanistan cities resemble the city in real meaning now to me.  Seeing the kids going to schools their bags on their backs, I was crying in my heart and longing for such an opportunity to go to school and become literate. Ultimately, my father check was paid and we should have left that city. I cried naively and humbly in front of my father and mediated Murawji; one of our relatives to support me for getting my father’s agreement for staying there under his guardianship. Many people supported me in this cause. My father complied with my wish and said only few words to make me noticed of this hard decision. He said: “I should not hear anything wrong about you. Just your attention should be paid on your lessons nothing else. If I hear any deviation about you, you will be peeled. My name and fame should not be ruined.” I nodded my head and burst into tears. I had no one else in that city to love me, to care me and to protect me. I chose the hardest option. The day that his truck left Saray-e- Chuqorak, I was looking after him till the curve of the alley. I wept and found myself as a kid alone in a rather big city with no caressing hand on my head. I started studying the text books voraciously. I had no tiredness. I knew no limit in passing hours on books. I don’t know what for I was so hungry for books and education. Maybe, I had heard lots of praises for literacy or naturally I was so.

I stayed three years in Mazar and learnt lots of precious things. I learnt calligraphy, English and enriched my understanding from several issues. Besides, I was very dominant on school text books. Most of the mathematical and chemistry and other subjects were carved in my mind and I had no need for books to express them for someone. In chemistry, I equaled to sophomores of medical colleges and engineering. Everyone was praising me. I was just marching ahead with great success that the tornado of ignorance overlapped our city; Taliban captured the city and I fled to mountains. I was a Hazara and my life was at stake. No matter if I was a child yet. I and many similar kids were just a joke for them to flag us on their spears.

It took me days to pass the arduous and impassable mountains and reach to Bamyan. I found Bamyan under bombardment everyday and left it for seeing my family. When I reached to my birthplace, it was about to call for a fatiha to my family as they had no news of my survival and had heard lots of news from radio about Hazaras massacre by Taliban. My family was totally broken. They had no expectation that I would be alive. The hunger and famine were just outraging whole Hazarajat. I was feeling a deep grief of what happened to my ethnicity and my destiny. I was dreaming of becoming someone of great capability in bringing fundamental changes in my ethnicity’s life, now I was seeing every dream gone with the wind. I start working like a laborer. Yet, I was thinking of pursuit of my education out of Afghanistan. I made a decision to leave Afghanistan and go to Pakistan; I already hated Iran due to misconduct with our people...

...continues