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The neem tree stood in all its majesty engulfed in mystery, like nothing Aalia had seen before. She remembered tales her Dadi used to tell her as a child — of the jinns and chudails that lived in such trees by day and preyed on vivacious young children by night, but it wasn’t a sight she had ever seen before. This neem tree brought back those memories, as if a strong wind swished across her face, making her lose her balance.
She had always believed that the stories her Dadi narrated were just that — stories. Man-made tales to entertain children as mere trifles to pass the time but, recent experiences, much like the neem tree before her, begged to differ.
She couldn’t wrap her head around the fact that all she believed to be true, and all she believed to be figments of her imagination were in fact an alternate reality in a parallel dimension. What struck her as the most shocking of ordeals was that she was somehow connected to these beings and this alternate reality — which for reasons known only to mankind, were best thought hidden or non-existent.
As Aalia stood rooted in front of the tree, somewhat entranced by its beauty, she felt a strange sensation. On instinct, she turned to see if there was someone behind her, but she was the only one there. Her sixth sense cautioned that she should remain alert, a feeling she decided should be taken seriously. After all, she had no one left to depend on but herself. All her loved ones — her family and friends had been lost to the deadly floods that left nothing but destruction behind.
Her village, Saidpur, once a lesser-known yet thriving community in the rural outskirts of Sialkot, was completely devastated by the floods caused by the relentless rains that didn’t stop until one day, nothing remained as it was. Houses collapsed, trees uprooted, cattle drowned — people’s livelihoods were gone overnight. Once the rescue operations were declared complete, authorities confirmed that Aalia and a distant older cousin were the only two survivors from Saidpur — but even they got separated after reaching the relief camp set up for survivors and families displaced by the floods.
Barely at the age of womanhood, having turned thirteen earlier in the year, Aalia was still getting used to the transformations her body was going through — having to deal with her changing needs accompanied by her mother’s loss at such a tender age, only added to her list of troubles.
As she stood near the tree, the hair at the nape of her neck became matted with sweat as she grew increasingly uneasy. Reminiscing on her last moments with her mother, Aalia wiped a lone tear as she reached out a hand toward the solitary tree trunk, or what remained of it, its roots exposed: “I miss you Ammi, I wish you were here”.
An unusual melody floated through the air toward her, but upon inspection, she found herself utterly alone. “All of my loved ones are gone; will I be next?” she questioned into the nothingness but the melody continued as if the wind itself was carrying words of comfort like a mother to her distressed child — urging Aalia to understand that she was not alone but how could she think otherwise?
Her Dadi had left years ago taken away by old age, her mother, too, swept away by the floods. Who could she turn to when in need of their wisdom or concern? Her chest tightened as she struggled hard to hold her tears at bay. Just then she heard the sound of wood cracking followed by a childlike, melodic laugh, and a girl around Aalia’s age stepped out from the crack in the tree. She seemed delicate, almost angelic, yet not human.
If only for a moment, Aalia felt threatened by this sudden appearance of the strange girl before her. The girl laughed again and Aalia’s shoulders relaxed without conscious effort, before she asked, “Who are you?”
“Don’t worry,” the girl cautioned, “I am not from this world, but I am not what you think.”
“Are you not human?” Aalia questioned, taking an involuntary step back.
The girl shook her head.
“Then, what are you? Are you a jinn?” Aalia rephrased her thoughts.
The girl shook her head once more, but this time she smiled before replying, “What I am is not important — names don’t matter to my kind. What you need to know is that you are different — you can hear me and communicate — not many from your kind can.”
Aalia stood transfixed, unable to move further or respond. She opened her mouth, then closed it, and blinked several times. She hoped that the girl would vanish as if she were a figment of her imagination. A hallucination of some kind that her mind had created to help her cope with the loss, yet when she looked again the girl was still there. Looking at Aalia with her peculiar eyes. Her presence largely foreign yet real. It was a phenomenon unlike any other, Aalia felt out of place as the girl continued to look into her eyes, much like when she initially stepped out from the crack in the tree.
“Wh-Why or how are you here?” Aalia managed to ask as she finally found her voice.
“That is an interesting question!” the girl responded, “You see, the floods that devastated your village, managed to open the gates that connected our worlds yet kept them apart… and it seems to me, like you are somehow connected to it — like a bridge of sorts.”
“What do you mean? Why me?” Aalia inquired.
“It is because you are between two things — neither a girl nor a woman, you are transitioning much like both of our worlds, by the floods — you are constantly searching, learning. Much like my kind.”
Aalia shivered, her cheeks flushed in excitement at the response. Ever since she had reached puberty and her body began to change, she had felt trapped within herself. Her mother being the only person to truly understand her had attempted to soothe her: “This is a rite of passage, your journey to womanhood. Soon you’ll bloom into a beautiful young woman and wear a dupatta to cover yourself. Just like me.”
Although Aalia’s uncertainty was somewhat satisfied she remained unsure as to whether she wanted to follow in her mother’s footsteps. The very thought of becoming a woman was an experience she felt wholly unprepared for. On the one hand, she wanted to imitate her mother in everything. On the other, the list of growing responsibilities was a burden she felt she couldn’t carry. It was this fear of the obligations she was sure to take on in the years to come, that not only made her feel inadequate, but ill-equipped to embrace the adjustments. With her mother now gone, she felt abandoned like she had no one to offer her words of comfort any longer. This hopeless prospect further isolated her.
Aalia dropped her head low. There were days when she hoped she could disappear, or become invisible at the very least, but neither of those things were an option. But here was someone — or something — that seemed to understand.
Just as she lifted her head back up to look at the girl, she beckoned Aalia to come closer. Unsure how to react, Aalia took a step toward the girl before she could change her mind.
The girl spoke again, and this time, Aalia noticed that although her figure was feminine like that of an adolescent woman. Her voice was childlike, with an almost velvet tone to it, as if a woman was speaking to a child but, Aalia was no child.
Before she could probe her further, the girl said: “Do you know why your world is suffering from the floods? Why each year it seems to get worse?”
“It’s the rains, of course,” Aalia responded. “The rivers are angry at us. We are being punished by Allah for our sins, for failing to help those in need”.
She merely repeated the rumors she had picked up during her time at the camp. People had referred to the floods as divine intervention, as Allah’s wrath striking them down for the follies of the rich and powerful by using the rivers to display his anger.
“The rivers are not angry. I cannot say with certainty, if Allah is angry, but I can say that He is disappointed,” responded the girl. She continued with an almost sinister tone, “You see, your kind doesn’t value the lives of any species other than your own. Your people cut the trees, pollute the air, kill the fish and slaughter animals for your personal benefit.”
“You are damaging the planet that was gifted to you by Allah — meant for your survival so you could peacefully exist with His other creations — and yet, here we stand, with the world seemingly on the brink of collapse”, the girl stated matter-of-factly.
Before Aalia could retort, she continued sternly, “You see, it is not punishment. It is consequence. By cutting the trees, choking the rivers with waste, polluting the air, building walls where they don’t belong, and for damaging the living system. Your kind has devastated the balance of things. This is the consequence of these actions”.
Frustrated with the answer, Aalia touched her forehead to the neem tree before arguing: “But why take away my family, my mother, for the actions of mankind? My mother meant no harm to anyone.”
The girl’s eyes softened, she responded, “We cannot choose who remains and who pays the price of this consequence. Be grateful that you survived, that you got a chance to fix things”.
Aalia’s voice trembled as she said: “But what can I do? I am only thirteen!”
“You’re enough. You see, it is the young boys and girls who withstand disasters that are chosen to carry the burden of keeping the stories alive, passing them on to the coming generations.”
Concern evident in her voice, the girl added, “You have been chosen from your generation. It is your duty to ensure that this story lives on. Will you do it?”
Aalia thought of her Dadi, the tales of jinns and chudails she used to narrate, and wondered if they weren’t stories meant to scare children, but rather meant to be messages for people to learn from and to remember.
She closed her eyes, and exhaled.
The melody could be heard once again, as if it had become a part of her and was emanating from within. When she opened her eyes, the girl had vanished.
Aalia looked everywhere but she couldn’t find her. Perhaps, the girl was a figment of Aalia’s imagination, but the crack in the tree remained — leaving her shaken. As the twilight hour drew near, she made her way back to camp struggling internally with the episode that had transpired in the forest earlier.
Days passed as the situation in the camp declined with more and more refugees forced to go on without food. The rising hunger brought with it the risk of disease. Aalia frequently saw people at the camp whispering about disease and shortage of food, they prayed to Allah day in and out hoping for a miracle that could take them back to life before the floods. Children like Aalia, some even younger, orphaned by the devastation cried for their parents to return.
Aalia silently walked among them, listening and watching.
One night, as she sat lazily drawing sketches of the neem tree in the dirt, she tried to remember the girl, and her surroundings. Suddenly she heard a strange wailing sound, as she looked up from the place where she sat on the ground, she noticed a gathering outside the nearby tents — people huddled together, whispering to each other.
Among the crowd one woman stood out. She sang as tears streaked down her face, hair unkempt, dupatta tilted at an odd angle as it barely stayed atop her head, she moved her arms from side-to-side as though rocking a cradled baby. Her voice quivered every time she sung the verse: “Raja beta, Raja beta, Raaj Dulara” in memory of her child lost to the floods. The people standing close to her, expressed grief, but continued to whisper to each other about her tragedy. They relented to others joining the crowd about how she had given birth days before the floods hit.
They whispered about the baby going under by the sheer force of the rainwater, snatched away by nature’s wrath from his father’s arms, and how its cries were drowned out by the water. They conceded that the father was battling to survive in a government facility, miles away from the camp, in a coma because he had jumped in using up his strength to save his child but getting injured in the process. They described in detail the chaos that the rain water mixed with the overflowing rivers had caused as it swept away any sign of life across the village.
“I heard from the rescue officials that brought her here, that her baby was only seven days old,” one woman claimed, as her eyes held unshed tears.
“The refugees that came in her group detailed that when she regained consciousness, she only asked about her family,” said another.
An older man passing by, stopped and said, “I know the young man that rescued her. He told me that when they informed her about her husband and child, she became absolutely frantic.”
He shook his head in anguish as he walked away.
From the hushed voices, Aalia understood that the woman’s family never had the chance to survive. They had moments to escape before the gushing water came and their mud house was swept away leaving her husband in a coma, with doctors concerned he wouldn’t live to see another year.
“Be grateful that you survived, at least you didn’t get swept away,” a young boy commented.
“At least, your husband is alive, I’m sure he will get better”, remarked a young woman. As the throng urged her to count her blessings, some named her the haunted woman. But they agreed on one thing — it would take her a long time, years perhaps, before she could move past her troubles toward a better future.
Aalia’s heart tugged at the woman’s wails. Even though she felt helpless, she thought back to the day she met the strange girl. Involuntarily, she remarked, “Is the suffering of women and children truly a consequence of mankind’s actions?”
Sighing, she made her way back to her sketch. Once back at the place she drew the neem tree, Aalia noticed that she had also drawn its branches stretching into what she imagined were the two worlds, the tree bandaged yet surrounded by the rivers that wounded it, and herself, standing in the middle atop an arched bridge, holding the worlds together.
An old woman saw her drawing and gasped, “Child, where did you learn this?”
She responded, “From the neem tree.”
The woman gently touched her shoulder and said, “Then you must remember it. Someday, when people forget why the floods came, you can remind them.”
The older woman’s wisdom gave Aalia an idea. As the seasons turned and Aalia grew into a young woman, she promised she would help her community rebuild, that she would help to make a change. The waters had long receded but her village, Saidpur, was never the same. Families that took refuge in the camp with her, had moved away to find work in the cities — as the fields lay barren, and the cattle gone, Aalia remained.
She took it upon herself to plant as many trees as she could — neem, fig, and pine — anything she could find. She helped aid workers in their efforts by watering the saplings by day and whispering to them by night. From the moment the floods had turned her life upside down, she had become attuned to nature.
She believed the trees could hear what she said, and sometimes when she was alone, she swore she could hear the melody again.
Through the years, her body was not the only thing that grew, Aalia gained certainty as well.
She no longer sought to fit into a mold, rather she felt free like the river choosing where to go — sometimes overflowing, other times retreating, but always moving. She carried within her a softness, inherited from her mother, and a fire, from her Dadi that helped her truly appreciate her found freedom.
Whenever a neighbour would question her on her behavior or casual attire she would shrug it off, saying: “The neem tree told me who I am”. They would often laugh, in response, or think it another one of her tales, but she knew.
She finally believed that she was the bridge, and as long as the neem tree stood, whispering across the worlds, Aalia could carry its story forward — of floods born from neglect, of jinns and chudails or other worldly beings that could be guardian angels, and of children who refused to be defined by the limits of gender.
“So, what if you are born a girl? You, too, can survive and pave the path to a promising future,” Aalia told a young girl on an occasion.
As time passed, and Aalia gained more wisdom, people learned to listen to her. Girls that had wanted to climb trees and go on adventures instead of working in the kitchens with their mothers were given the freedom to decide for themselves. Boys that wanted to cry were allowed the safe environment to express their emotions freely.
Slowly, the community began to relate to her stories, began to recognize melodies of their own, and eventually began to heal the wounds of the land broken by consequence.
One night, as Aalia stood in the shade of the neem tree — accompanied by her husband and children — its roots deeper than ever, she placed her palm against the trunk and said: “Dadi was right. The stories were never just stories.” From deep within the tree, the melody rose again, and Aalia knew that although the floods had taken much from them, they had also planted the seed of truth sprouting within her, growing toward a world that allowed everyone to coexist with nature in peace.
*Originally published on my profile Medium.
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