By Mujtaba Javaid

“Your cousin was in the mosque which has been attacked by terrorists,” said the panicked voice over the phone and a shiver ran down my spine. I was only 12 years old and was left in a state of dilemma, thinking about the friends and family we met every Friday at Jumma prayers. That day my father was out of the city on a business trip and so we (my brothers and I) hadn’t gone to the mosque.

How should a 12-year-old boy react in such a situation? Should he be scared? Or stoic? When my elder brother and I went outside after the attack, we saw chaos everywhere. We saw our neighbours talking to people passing by on motorbikes whose clothes were covered in blood — perhaps they had been helping the injured. The situation was not an ideal one for a pre-teen boy. At the time I was not mature enough to grasp the gravity of the situation. In fact, I grew up with a spate of brutal attacks since 2003, like thousands of other youngsters who grew up faster and beyond their years. We have come to understand that nothing is as good or as bad as it seems.

In 2004, a terrorist attack took place on Moharram 10, at Bacha Khan Chowk, Quetta. This was the first time I was a direct victim of a suicide bomb attack — something a 13-year-old wouldn’t want to know — for no words can describe the reality and the feelings of a young boy at such a horrific time.

A Quetta resident recalls growing up in a conflict-ridden city

Dr Hassan Majeed, a child and adolescent psychiatrist, in Connecticut, USA, says, “Acute stress disorder and post traumatic disorder can affect children psychologically with both short and long-term negative consequences. After these traumatic incidents, children can become isolated and irritable. They can have flashbacks and even nightmares that will functionally disturb their daily lives.”

The psychiatrist adds: “Such attacks and incidents can bring on a wide array of psychological illnesses such as depression, anxiety, dissociative disorder and relationship problems, which eventually affect their performance in every field of life. Repeated trauma has the worst clinical outcome.”

Experts mention that the resulting paucity of psychological interventions has given rise to feelings of hopelessness, helplessness, increasing substance abuse and criminal behaviour among children. I don’t know about hopelessness or helplessness because I wasn’t mature at that time and couldn’t feel helpless as my father’s presence wouldn’t let us feel that way.

At that age with these fearful incidents happening, one felt strangely insecure when the phone would ring and a relative or friend would tell you, “Hello! Aunty ka beta has passed away,” [Aunty’s son has passed away] or “Hello! Un ka abhi tak pata nahi chala, haan wo hospital gaye huay hain” [There’s still no news about him; they have gone to the hospital].

And then you started getting pictures of the martyrs most of whom are the people you met on occasions or perhaps every day in nearby areas. The ‘uncle’ who would cheer you on the street while you played cricket or the shopkeeper you bought sweets from would appear in those pictures, injured, dead or mutilated in the bomb attack.

“The repeated trauma through the same type of incidents in the same society is possibly the worst to affect people,” says Dr Hassan. “It directly affects the self-esteem of the child who will then develop trust issues, mental disorders and anxiety.”

I came to Karachi for college in 2008 after the law-and-order situation deteriorated in the wake of the death of Nawab Akbar Bugti. Quetta had become a city where wearing Western clothes was considered a religious offense and invited a death threat. There had been several attacks and incidents of target killings — some involving my relatives were quite alarming for the whole family.

The situation forced us to take some hard decisions, though not willingly. Two of my uncles (father’s elder brothers) moved to Lahore — one decided to wind up his 20-year established business and the other left his senior position in his organisation.

On September 3, 2010, I was in Quetta for my Eid vacations. My childhood friend, Ali Murtaza, who had survived a bullet in his neck in the 2003 mosque incident, joined me for the trip. We met in 2009 in Karachi and were together in all incidents that happened afterwards. That day in 2010 we left the mosque together and had a plan to visit the Youm ul Quds rally. Reaching my car I asked Ali “Chalain phir jaloos mein” and as usual he didn’t refuse.

Ten minutes after reaching home I heard the sound of an explosion. It had occurred in the same procession where I and Ali were about to go. Unfortunately, in the sad incident, I lost another one of my childhood friends: Syed Ali Mujtaba (may his soul rest in peace). He was studying in Karachi at the time and was the only student from Quetta in his batch at the Institute of Business Administration — a brilliant student, athlete and sports-lover.

All of us gathered after many years at Mujtaba’s funeral which was a reunion of sorts since we hadn’t seen each other for some time. I wish this story could end here, but there were two other incidents that left a powerful psychological impact on me.

In 2011, just after Eid prayers, we were suddenly pushed back with pressure of an exploding bomb. We were shocked to see a car being pushed up into the air as it blew up, followed by random firing, and everyone panicking.

It was not just psychologically disturbing but debilitating as the next day we woke up with a phone call informing us that a four-year-old girl, my close friend’s cousin, had passed away in that blast. In fact, she played a role in saving thousands of lives that day. She was with her father in the car that intercepted the attackers’ car — this forced the terrorists to blast a little further away from the praying area saving thousands of lives. But the little angel lost her life.

All these incidents taught me to how to react in such dire situations. I went away and returned to Quetta in early 2012, a time when targeting Shia Hazaras was at its peak. By now, I was so hardened up psychologically that even in extreme areas of threat and danger I would calmly go out and work.

In January 2013, the saddest and most frightening event occurred at Alamdar Road, where I had spent a lot of time when I was growing up in Quetta. For the first time I experienced anger, sadness and fright all together. I don’t want to mention the details as so much has been written about it but more than 200 were injured and around 120 lost their lives in this attack, launching a three-day protest in sub-zero temperatures which ended Raisani’s government.

I buried the dead myself, and I still remember the last night when I sat alongside the bodies of the martyrs.

Since that day I think that anyone living on Alamdar Road and its outskirts knows very well what life really is. The last incident of 2013 was a life-altering experience for me, but I didn’t write much about it as perhaps I am more mature now and can control my feelings better. Sometimes, I wonder if I have lost the ability to be scared or whether I just have a lot of patience.

The attacks have not ended yet. In August of this year, more than 70 lawyers were killed in a suicide bomb blast in Quetta which was claimed by factions of both the so-called ISIS and Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan. And in October, Quetta lost a promising generation of at least 59 police cadets in a terrorist attack.

My journey towards maturity was a bit different, but there are several others who have been through all this and I hope they have more strength, power and patience than I do.

Published in Dawn, Sunday Magazine, November 27th, 2016