My Israeli And Lebanese Friends
Kamala Sarup
I invited two of my friends, an Israeli, Naru, and Lebanese Nadia Khan to
my small apartment last week. They both work together and their
children go to the same school.
I saw Naru and Nadia were holding their hands together and their children were playing and laughing together. We went to the beach near my apartment and prayed for peace in the Middle East.
" The war and terrorism in the region are not acceptable" both of my
friends were arguing. "We want to establish love and companionship
with each other," both said.
As a Nepali victim of violence and terrorism I also joined my hands
with them and prayed for tolerance, peace and love.
Nadia started her story of how she came to the US (A great nation).
" My son was playing on the ground. He stopped his play all of a
sudden, and shouting and shrieking ran into my house. He looked
frightened and understood easily that at any time, a strange
thing was going to happen. Although my son's mind didn't draw any
definite conclusions, he comprehended some uncomfortable reality, and the condition made my son extremely scared."
He asked me," Mother, are they going to start a movement like they did
a few days ago again?"
"Hamas funded Hezbollah organization terrorised and attacked, firing a rocket at that time near by house," she explained.
"No sooner had my son expressed this than I felt as if I was falling
from the roof and began to look for my ten years old son and nine
years daughter. My daughter hadn't come back from school yet. A chill
runs down my spine. A girl at the threshold of youth, she could be
abducted and mistreated" She said.
My Lebanese friend Nadia also told me "Kam, I am full of love for my
family. But, I told my husband several times don't talk of war and movements. Nice people never talk of such movements and war. I told him to talk only about his duties, and companionship."
"My elder sister, while walking in the road, lost her life because of
an Israeli rocket and became a martyr together with her father. Both
the father and the daughter who had gone to the town to agonizing
incident was unbearable for me. All the days after that were almost
vacant for me. Then on, my face becoming pale used to be distorted
even by some small incidents. But there were problems in front of me.
On the one side was a terrible security problem as I had no sources of income and on the other hand, I had to look and live for the future, for my daughter and son. This thought that I had to live forced me to
compromise with the situation."
As a journalist, I found out that they both still have ambitions these days, dreams to exchange pleasure, and pain, mutually with their families, to smile and love each other fully - due to their similar experiences and losses. Like the petals of flowers, growing and scattered sweetly amongst their imaginations, of their happy and joyful lives now, with their family, together. It was a wonderful moment.
And yet elswwhere, what a deplorable day! Everywhere these human settlements were embraced by the naked hot sun. The mother of their children took in long breaths. Although the chaos outside had fully subsided, they remained quite disturbed. The time was ticking away and the darkness had enveloped everywhere.
I saw both of my friends children were playing attentively at my
apartment as if they had now no concern about the situation as they
were concentrating on their playing.
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