Bed of Roses

Bed of Roses

Syed Jamal Shah

Where is the horizon of nature? How I can find it? When can I see and meet? The romance of horizon, clouds and mountains standing shoulder to shoulder, hugging each other and giving its audience a sense of love and happiness? To view and experience the first rays of Sun, the king of light, rising above the cold peaks, lightens the woods and glows the white pink cheeks of its inhabitants? This was all a dream of young man busy in capital rat race.

    Summer, August 2018 at 9am on fine bright day, I was heading to mountainous country side with my elder brother Dr Ali Abbas alias abba and nephew Salman.  Here, the story begins from the night before we took start. Salman said “why not to visit a place where we can hang out with natural wonders, place of calmness and wildlife. As he announced his scheme, Abbas added sugar to tea by showing encouragement to his plan. I was thinking with myself that either they are serious or only making castles in the air.

   However, they betrayed my intelligence, proved my projection wrong by waking me up next day early in the morning by at 8 am. We did our breakfast at home, by hitting main road; From the main city mart, we did shopping of food item and chillers. I began to see the light as the trip was catching the fire. Salman alias Okhismbol took charge of the wheel from abba with ambition to reach soon, and we start offering our funeral prayers with ourselves due to his scary driving. In addition, we were at deaths door.

   Although, Salman is studying doctor of medicines degree in abroad at second year; he is young, energetic and always tries to explore daily life experiences according to his own standard of mind and social exposure. His father is delivering management responsibilities on senior position in a business firm at kingdom, on other hand, his mother is pursuing her Phd in biochemistry from the University of Moscow, being an elder in siblings, and by such position, Salman gains numerous amount of luxuries because of his parents privilege’s. Moreover, Salman is a rolling stone and a ball of fire.

    Another, Dr. Ali Abbas, has earned Phd in Wireless communication form Seoul, Korea; and previously secured Master degree from London. Nowadays, Abbas performs full time responsibilities of associate professor at offshore campus of Coventry University in Muscat Oman. He is in his late 30 years, and with experience of how to tackle daily life obstacle with single smile.

    Now, as we came to the valley, pine trees on high mountains, meadows and waterfalls, spring water were at every turn. We were discussing something of our status-co world, suddenly the cold fresh breeze seized the moment of our non-achieved goals and targets, we began to recognize the beauty of nature while in passenger seats, I told myself that now you are able to breathe easily again, this is life and here everything goes by flow of nature.

    Above all, “khan”, our tour guide told us to take stop nearby waterfall, while listening him about the beauty of valley, the natural wildlife that resides among woods and life of locals are behind the times. At first blush, my eyes captured the sight of three young’s girls wearing government school foreseeable uniform blue color, holding school bags on shoulders. At once, I became astonished that in such intense sun they are walking by feet’s while we are crossing these zigzag roads by vehicle. Next, they hit us in around twenty minutes of walk, I shacked hand with them and asked their names. They were primary school students of grade 3, names were Gul nara, shreena & malgaraa.

    Following, I questioned, “how far away is your school”, Malgarara smiled & said “at least an hour form one side”. I replied that you three are stronger than the boys of my city are.

    To know more about the valley, I Offer them a leave through vehicle until their home street and they accepted it. I said, “How do you want to change the world after education”; acting high and mighty Malgara said, “I want to become a doctor and wish to treat the sick ones. Shreena, being a jet pilot, I will take my family and other nomads of valley regularly to warm regions beyond valley in winter, and Gul Sanga expressed that “I wish to become a teacher, to build a school near my home is my dream, where I can teach to young girls”. While dropping them, they enjoyed the ride of car with us.

     After dropping the young ladies to their destination, again we continued our journey with beauty of wild, our next stop was restaurant which were typically like hut made from woods and pine tree hairs. As we step in the hut, I only saw two employees there; one was a chef and another was helper and waiter. This restaurant is on a main road near waterfall and in the shade of old pine trees with few chairs and traditional charpai (bed). We order food and waited to dine out. In the wait for food, Salman took out flame and his special cigarettes from pocket. Moreover, our tour guide started song in his local language and helper was beating the dishes like drums.

    Therefore, I asked about the economic conditions of the people from the tour guide. He told me that cattle and farming are two main source of income while female economic income arrives through handicraft skills. Mostly people are reluctant to change their profession to increase economic income because their firm believe is not money, despite the fact that whole world is running towards luxuries, money and protection. My next question was that what is the perception of local people for visitors? Their perception for visitors is that “these visitors are poor from us and had very limited peace of mind”. For instance, I was at a loss for words as I heard local perception.

   Indeed, Dr. Waheed Asghar in his essay, “Country life is better than urban life” writes, Man by nature is a social animal and with passage of time witnessing growth of human civilization. Since ‘Adman’ was been created, we are all his pedigree and will remain until the hereafter. A man is compelled to not live in solitude and needs a surrounding which including those things that can fulfill the man’s solitude.

   Further, he writes that country life is full of tranquility, contentment, nature and harmony. People dwell here does care about the nature, land and surrounding of the country life. People does not seem to bother about petty anxieties and trivial matters, rather they live their life here with a plain sailing. However, it does not mean that they do not come across perplexities, but they do focus less. Culture maintenance is a matter of concern here. People do care about their values and safeguard them conscientiously. Thus, they do not bear breach of their dynastic and inherent essentials. That is, or might be, the reason that most of the world heritage sites are located in this part of the land. In addition, folks of countryside possess numerous positive characters and immense amount of logical wisdom, such characters and wisdom gives them an identity of genuine behavior.

    All over the place, On city life Dr. Waheed Asghar, writes that the people remains so busy in their lives that do not get time for their family and fellow which cause segregation from attachments and subsequently results into realization of  the feelings. Many of the excuses are heard from the people that they are unable to get time for their families but in a literal sense, they waste time being entertained with such illusory things. Consequently, they fall a prey to sever anxiety and depression. In spite of big achievements and attainment of successful life, people now then feel insecure and pessimist. Next, they become prey of illogical rat race and further exploit them in endemic worst conditions.

   Much have been written on country life and urban life but both are different societies purely depends on one desires, which one road he or she want to take. Even though in cities we had fast cars and jets, tablets to cure stress and machines to diagnose blood, largest libraries and Universities, clubs and bars, parks and gyms, swimming pools and fountains, and etc. Nevertheless, still we feel incomplete, seeking for a life on moon and mars. Thus for me, it is very simple that if we townsman were rich, we will have never wish to visit countryside’s. For the locals of valley we are becoming black sheep in their bed of roses.