Saleem Bukhari
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa today is a wounded heart, a body in torment, upon which the sky has unleashed its wrath and the earth its fury. The rains struck like a thousand knives driven at once into the chest, the mountains collapsed under their own weight onto human lives, and rivers tore apart their banks. This land, once known for its songs and its scents, now lies as an image of corpses, screams, and broken dreams.
In Buner, a day arrived when it seemed as though the universe itself froze in horror. One family lost twenty-two members, another twelve, a third seven — but these were not isolated sorrows. Dozens upon dozens of families were wiped out in a single hour, as though time itself conspired to erase entire bloodlines. A mother fought against the waters, clinging to her child until the waves tore the infant from her arms, and in the next breath swallowed her too. That single hour bore hundreds of such scenes, each enough to shatter the soul of humanity. Afterward, no courtyard echoed with laughter, no lantern flickered with life. Only children’s shoes drifted upon the water, and from the walls rose not the fragrance of earth, but the damp scent of death.
In Shangla, the mountains themselves seemed to weep. Houses crumbled like paper toys, and people were swept away like dry leaves. The body of a young girl was found hanging from a tree branch, a school notebook still in her hand. The ink was washed away, but the pain remained. Mothers searched the bloodied waters for their children’s bodies, while fathers dug into the earth for enough soil to cover their sons.
Swat, once a symbol of love and light, is now a cemetery. Entire villages vanished from the map. Mass graves were dug, for the earth was too little and the dead too many. The trees no longer held birds, but tattered scarves, and the rivers carried not boats but funerals. Even the air seemed to have given up breathing.
In Mansehra and Kohistan, the mountains ripped open their chests and hurled soil, stones, and torrents upon the people. The desperate fled to higher peaks, but from above they watched their families being devoured below. A father ran after the body of his son, but could reach only the child’s floating book. In the forests of Kohistan, silence reigns now, even the birds having surrendered before the screams of men.
In the valleys of Dir, the floods rewrote the paths of rivers. Bodies drifted from one village to another, funerals carried not on shoulders but by the current. Women searched for their children’s schoolbags, while men dug through rubble to find shrouds in the remnants of old clothes. One mother stood at the water’s edge, crying out, “Give me back my child, even without breath.” The river roared back in cruel mockery.
All of this is one single portrait of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, once the land of dreams, now a collective elegy. Every village is a grave, every tree holds a story, every stone hides a mother or a child. There are no more settlements here — only silenced screams.
And where the floods did not drown, the fire of violence burns. In Waziristan, the air itself gasps beneath the burden of gunpowder. Evening falls with the echo of bullets; dawn rises with new funerals. Bannu and Mohmand weep beneath wounds still smoldering, yet still scarred by fire. In Bajaur’s fields, wheat no longer grows — only the scent of blood. In Lakki Marwat and Tank, children’s laughter has been replaced by the aftershock of explosions. In Khyber and Orakzai, the earth laments daily over the bodies of its sons. Here, rivers do not flow with water but with fire, and the winds carry the stench of smoke and blood.
This is Khyber Pakhtunkhwa — half-drowned, half-burning. Its eyes are filled with the salt of the floodwaters, its breath choked by the acrid stench of gunpowder. It is a land that has become one long elegy, each verse written in blood, tears, and ash.
