Prisoner Of War

By Fizza Ali

My story…is the story of a useless old man who wasted his youth in pointless suffering. Good enough?

No?

Oh, details, of course.

So… I was a soldier, a common sipahi, sent into Indian territory along with a few others, to harass the Indian Army. On one of the missions in the dense jungle, I got separated from my team.

In a war, your priority is not your comrade, it’s your country. Just your country. So my comrades left without me.

I’m told they came back with reinforcements to search for me, but by that time, I was in an Indian jail, kept there unofficially, with not even word of my imprisonment or even my existence sent back home.

I was a common soldier, unable to help them in any way. So they tortured me to vent their frustration. And the torture…you cannot imagine. Just because I was a Pakistani.

They plucked my nails out with a pair of tongs. One by one. Slowly. Painfully. I was whipped, needles were stuck into my flesh, my bare arms burnt with lighted cigarette. And I bore it all. All in the name of my country, my nation.

For more than forty years I bore all that torture, “Pakistan Zindabad” being the only words on my lips, the only thought in my head. And now I’ve come back to my Pakistan, only to see your generation’s indifference.

A young captain, before embracing Shahadat only recently, said, “I am going to die for a nation whose heroes are those that shine on cellular screens and in playgrounds, not the soldiers who sacrifice their youthful lives for their country, silently and voluntarily.”

I salute him.