Daily Times

Travelling to Xona had been a good experience for the travelling historian. He had never been to a city that had lost its wealth due to its own people. He shared his experience with others whilst taking a break at the Sajjada inn – a joint popular among the travellers. “You must then go to Rahaba next if you were so dejected by Xona,” someone had suggested to him. Accepting the suggestion, he then headed for Rahaba after spending seven days and six nights at the joint. Before his departure, the historian that had suggested Rahaba to him as the next stop warned him not to listen to the people of the town under any circumstances otherwise this experience too shall not go well.

This intrigued the travelling historian as he asked himself what they could say to him to make him feel dejected. He headed to the Middle East where Rahaba was situated. Rahaba was a big town between the river and a mountainous range. The town was literally in a valley by the river. The very location of the town made it a must go destination for travelling historians.

Once he reached the bazaar that was situated outside the town, he immediately noticed how well dressed the common people were. Everyone seemed to be very rich. People were wearing the finest silk clothes, together with jewellery that was adorned with precious stones. He had not visited a town lately where people were so conscious about how they looked and how they carried themselves. The citizens of the town were the manufacturers of weapons of all kinds. He heard a shopkeeper telling one of the buyers that no one manufactures more ruthless weapons then the people of this town. They were proud of the ruthlessness of their produce.

He noticed one strange habit of the citizens of the town. Every day from Monday to Thursday, the locals would come out dressed in their best outfits, and would arrange their stalls and would display the weapons that they had produced. People from far-flung areas would come and buy the weapons in large quantities. The buyers would often be poor people from various tribes belonging to various towns, cities and countries. They looked poor and malnourished however they would buy the weapons anyways at any cost. The strange thing was that the citizens of the town would keep their shops closed on three days from Friday to Sunday and on those three days what they used to do was the most intriguing part.

Every Friday, before the sun will rise, men would come out of the main gate of the town and would go in various directions in groups to other towns, cities and countries. They would return only a few hours before sunrise on Monday. After taking a few hours of nap they would be back to their stalls to display their weapons. Soon the buyers such as poor countrymen and the tribal people would again start to come and buy the weapons of their choice.

By this time, the historian was too inquisitive about where the men go to, from Friday to Sunday in the dark of the night. Since he was the stranger in that land, therefore he didn’t have the courage to ask about it. Moreover he looked too inferior before the citizens of the town and had a fear that he might be badly insulted if he would ask. He noticed that the number of buyers was ever so increasing every week in comparison to the previous week; this had further raised his curiosity and somehow started connecting the sojourns of the town men and this demand for their produces. One morning when he was consuming his breakfast, two town men went past him whilst talking about the urgent need for more weapons. One of them asked if the entourage to the South was already successful. The other man said it went extraordinarily successful and the tribes have decided to resolve the matter in the battlefield.

This gave the historian an idea of where exactly these citizens go every Friday. He immediately felt sick. To confirm his assumption, he decided to follow a group himself on the coming Thursday. So when the various groups of citizens were leaving the town in the dark of the night a few hours before Friday, he too joined one group covering himself under his shawl. He maintained a distance from them. Soon, the group that he was following entered a poor town and went up to the town elder’s hut. Already there were many people gathered at the hut. From a distance he heard that the group was inciting hatred among them against the neighbouring town. The leader of the group was asking them to wage a war against them and termed it as the only solution to acquire more water for their crops. He told them to buy the weapons from Rahaba as he said they are the best producers of the weapons.

The historian now knew that other groups must have been in the neighbouring towns enticing them too to take up the arms and engage in conflicts. He returned to his place by the mid of the next day. He wanted to leave the town already and remembered that the other historian who directed him to this town asked him not to hear the conversation of the people. He had a very good idea by now why he said that. Months went by and every week from Monday to Thursday poor, beaten and malnourished people would come and buy weapons to fight a war that was incited by the sellers themselves.

The historian was trying to decide if he should leave the town and venture to the next destination or wait to see if there shall be any divine retribution, which he wished should happen. One day when everyone was busy selling weapons to the poor men, a group of men entered the bazaar on horse back. Many empty horse carts tied to each other that were pulled by tens of horses followed them. The men were very handsome and had very fair skin. They were wearing black robes and had very good heights. The presence of these men attracted every citizen of the town. When everyone had surrounded the group, one man from the group stood up on the back of the horse and said, “We are here from a very distant town. We need 50 times as much weapons as you have on your stalls very soon. We shall pay in gold whatever the producer shall demand.”

As a token of confidence, the group leader asked his group members to pay 10 times more in gold for the weapons on all the stalls of the bazaar and collect the weapons immediately. The men told the citizens that they are leaving the empty push carts with the horses in the town and wanted every manufacturer to separately load their weapons on a push cart so that each one can be paid according to the quality and quantity of his weapons. They also announced that the horses too were gifts for everyone. The horses were very different from what the town had ever seen. They were as high as six feet at shoulder length and were well built. They said that they should come back in a month. They also told that whoever will manufacture the most weapons shall be rewarded at an even higher rate than those that shall produce less weapons.

There were rumours that some villagers had seen horses flying in the air in the middle of the night as if an army was descending from the heavens. Others say, they were the descendants of the people perished in wars incited by the people of Rahaba

This was the first time since the historian had come here that the people didn’t left for their three-day weekly evil sojourns. The citizens got very busy in manufacturing 50 times more weapons. During this time they didn’t even sell any weapons to the poor and malnourished people and tribes’ men of the nearby towns that were infighting after the incitement from the citizens of this town. When the tribes’ men use to come to buy the weapons, they were told that their differences were only superficial and that they should stop fighting. Some of them even offered to facilitate a peace contract among them. Within days, the tribes’ men stopped coming to buy the weapons.

In their greed for higher rewards, the citizens invested all their time, energy and money in the production of the highest number of weapons. They even mortgaged their lands and production facilities to obtain loans to produce more. One night he saw that some boys set a cart full of weapons on fire to damage the produce of their rival producer. The next day there was a huge commotion in the bazaar as the one who lost his goods was threatening others of dire consequences. That night another fire broke in another pushcart. Soon the historian noticed that the people of the town started to form groups and started fighting with each other. Everyday there was a fight between the people and every day tens were found dead and buried without proper formalities. This consignment had turned a town that was once inciting war among others only to sell their weapons, into a war zone and the citizens found themselves in the middle of a deadly conflict.

Within 15 days, the town that was once known for its best-dressed citizens and beautiful bazaars was already destroyed. Since they had already invested their money and energies in the production of these weapons they were no more as affluent as before. Before the end of the month, half of the town’s population was already consumed in the deadly riots in which the weapons produced for selling were freely used. The other half of citizens were too poor to do anything themselves until their weapons were sold. The weapons produced for sale were too largely consumed to settle the infighting in the town.

Instead of a month, several months passed by but no one came back to pick the reaming weapons. After witnessing all this mayhem and God’s retribution, the travelling historian decided to move. At this stage, the historian stood up, he struck off the dust from his clothes. Gradually he started packing his stuff, he placed his pen in his breast pocket and the notebook in the backpack. He nicely folded his mat and stuffed it too in his backpack. Before finally leaving for his next destination, he took a long look at the town, its people and the weapons they had produced so that others may go to war. He took a deep sigh of happiness and took the first step towards his next destination.

On the way, he went past those towns that were deeply at war against each other only due to the conspiracy of the people of Rahaba. There was no more fear in the environment; people were mixing well with each other and life was as normal in those towns as if it had never been tense. Years afterwards, when he met another historian who had traversed the same route but only recently, he asked about the town, its people, the remaining cache of weapons and the men on the horse backs. The other travelling historian replied, “What town? Which weapons and what people? There are only ruins in that place and nothing more.” About the men on the horseback, nobody knew where they had come from and where they went. There were rumours that some villagers had seen some horses flying in the air in the middle of the night as if an army was descending from the heavens above. Others say, they were the descendants of the people perished in wars incited by the people of Rahaba, yet others say they were legitimate warriors that were killed in a war so they never returned to pick the weapons. No one really knew for sure who they were however they did brought an end to the tactics of an evil nation. To this, the travelling historian looked directly into the readers’ eyes and said, “If only they would have been the mediators!”

Soon after the travelling historian left Rahaba, another old travelling historian suggested him to go to ‘Efseen’ – a town that the old historian’s grandfather used to talk about. The older historian told him to go and inquire about those lovers that were distinguishable from all romantic stories ever told. He only referred to them as ‘Efseen Couples’. Intrigued by this, he decided to travel to ‘Efseen’.

The writer is an assistant professor. He can be reached at m.khalid.shaikh@gmail.com