Beyond the Hills

Home is the place where the heart first learned to differentiate the real from the unreal and the known from what might never be encountered.

BY MAHIN ZIA

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AS A CHILD, I THOUGHT THAT THE WORLD ended where my own hilly region ended; my hometown, Domeli. Along with other nearby villages, it is surrounded by mountains on three sides, and on the fourth side is a way out, a road that leads to several different cities.

So, as a child, I believed that my town was the end of the world, that it was situated at the edge of a circular flat earth. I believed there was nothing after those mountains, and that the whole world was ahead through that one connecting road, and that I would never find anything besides those hills. To move to anywhere in the world, I would need to take that road. I assumed that climbing up those hills would mean falling off into space. Whenever children disappeared, my parents said and the elders said, “See, they didn’t listen to their elders; they went out and got lost. That’s why we say that you must stay at home and must not take anything from strangers.” Or they might say, “Jinn took that child and threw him into purgatory.”

 I believed that missing children must be taken to the other side of mountains, and that they then fell off into space and died. 20 years later, when I talked about this with my siblings, I was overwhelmed to hear that they had also believed that our town was on the edge of the earth. We all thought that Allah must have surrounded earth with mountains so that people wouldn’t fall off the planet.

Domeli is a hilly area in central Punjab in Pakistan. It has villages with mud houses, tandoors, swaying fields of wheat, maize, mustard and leafy greens; there is poverty here, but this is often unknown to the innocent, scabby cheeked and too-white villagers. My town has good facilities and a broad population, so the people living in surrounding villages consider it a nice little city. My town is not plain; it is gritty, upside ways, slopes down, zigzag paths with mostly old-style houses. It has only one market; otherwise, it is just sections and alleys that all lead to one road that comes after the market. It’s the road where buses and wagons stand to pick up commuters and take them to their everyday jobs.

My town is not as green as the northern areas, nor it is cool and snowy like the mountains. My town’s hills are not so big, neither are they lush with trees. They are dry with sparse little herb bushes. I would be being subjective if I called it beautiful so, I’ll tell you instead that my town is sublime. Along with the villages’ fields, it has open grounds where boys play in the afternoon. Across those grassy plains are the hills, sublime hills that are empty but for the herbs.

Right in front of me is a carved-out hill with houses built all over it from top to bottom. It was gritty once; served by an old stony path, but that was later cemented into smooth lanes due to the dangers of falling to old people and children. I remember running up this hill to get to the big house located on top, my Nani’s house. She would take me forcefully into her lap and slick my hair with mustard oil to make two side ponytails. Then she would fill my eyes with kohl.  As per the tradition of the village, the neighbors watched me with surprise and smiled. Walking back down the path to get home, I felt embarrassed. I never looked back to see my Nani with her sore legs come stumbling to watch us go, something she would do every day when we came and went, to make sure that we were going safely.

To my left are pastures and behind me, the whole town which opens out to other villages and the mountains. I have heard that there is a waterfall behind these mountains and then, more hills. I have heard that there is a trench between two mountains, a home for wild birds, for scary eagles. I have heard that there is a tiger lurking in the dry woods of the hills. A woodcutter encountered the tiger one time and after that it was never seen again.

I heard that the waterfall behind the mountains was discovered by my father’s friend. After learning about the story of Christopher Colombus discovering America, I realized that it was not only Columbus who discovered something, and it was not only America that had been discovered; a peasant from an ordinary town had also gone beyond the hills in his adventures and discovered a waterfall. My Baba too, with a big group of 17 friends, often climbed these hills and had picnics.

 One time, Baba and his friends lost their way in forest; dusk appeared, and fear crept through their veins. My Baba had memorized the Quran, and he recited the chapters that related to searching for a way until he found the way out. That incident gave my Baba and his friends a sense of loss that made them all more responsible to their families as a result.

In my grandparents’ time, people went to the grassy plains to hunt. Baba told me this was also where his father, my Dada, would take cold showers even in the chilly months of March and April. The hunters would catch deer and eat their meat while sitting beside the fire.

I have heard that this region was a place of seekers: Buddhist monks and Hindu sages in their tattered robes and with sacks on shoulders came here to meditate on the edge of hills. Once we found the ruins of a temple on one of the hills, along with the ruins of several houses. It is believed a civilization lived here in ancient times.

There was a time when I wanted to take the front road that crossed the market, to take the bus to the railway station. I would take the train to Lahore, and there I wanted to amble about in the old bazaars among the clattering and the colors, at night, among the green, blue, yellow colors; the lights of the stalls. There was a time when I wanted to take the road to Bahawalpur and sit in the shrines, listening to the Sufi songs, watching the uncanny dance of the unconscious Sufis.

Once I wanted to move across the roads of Chiniot, smelling the freshly polished wood furniture. I wanted to stand at some tomb in the city of Multan watching the spirit of a beautiful young boy, in the same way as elders see beauty in youth that is soon to disappear. I wanted to taste the sweet rice that is made once a year at Data Darbar in the immense cauldron.

But now when I’m asked, ‘Where do you want to go?’ or ‘What is your dream place?’ I want to say that I don’t want to get on a plane to enter the whitewashed walls and painted blue doors of blessed places like Santorini and Mykonos; that I don’t want to take the train and be among the green dressed rows of charged novices at Data Darbaar, paying homage to Sufi Hujweri. Neither do I want to be in the busy, colorful bazaars of Lahore.

Nani died. And they say that waterfall has dried up; the tigers have run away. I now know that there’s a whole series of villages behind the hills and after that series of villages, a whole other world. But still I want to go to the same place I believed once existed, the place at the edge of the hills.

I want to remain in the home where I was born and raised. I don’t want to take the front road to the outside world, instead I want to go right, to climb the carved-out hill of smooth alleys, to reach the top, and to go inside my Nani’s house to throw myself willingly in her lap. I want to come back proudly with oil slicked hair and look behind again and again to see the longing in her eyes, to just once say goodbye to her smile.

I want to go to the plains of grass, to stay there for a while when soft wind blows. I want to sit near the pond that is muddied and filled with trash, to walk on and on until the hills start to show. I want to climb those hills, climb up and up till I reach the top. I want to go down the other side of hills, go down and down till I reach new plains. I want to cross those plains, to rediscover the cascade that no human hands have touched, and which must be as clear as crystal in its form.

 I want to encounter more deer in the front hill forest, and the family of that lone tiger who was discovered once by the woodcutter. I want to reach the middle open cave among two big mounds to have a glimpse of the place where the scary eagles live. I want to touch the earth of that silent place, where maybe a monk in an underground cave achieved immortality, where he still might be breathing in his meditative state. I want to walk barefoot on those top hills, perhaps to find the ruins of a whole other civilized city.

I want to cross the mountains. Crossing after crossing till I reach the edge, the edge of the world. When they ask, what is your favorite place, I want to say that I want to reach those mountains, that edge. I want to fall from the earth. I want to fall off into space.

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