I met Rizwan at the strangest of places after a 35 minute climb up a vertical rockface in the middle of nowhere in a hidden corner of the Aravallis.
The mid-day sun stared overhead by the time I had reached the summit. My soul was willing, but my limbs had started giving way as I desperately gasped for breath.
It was getting late, and it looked like I had no mojo left for a one mile trek to the far end of the ridge before descending a craggy rockface for my once-in-lifetime sighting.
I will have to leave you behind, my guide told me, and pick you up on our way back. He had warned me not to join the climb, fearing I would slow him down. And he had a long day ahead.
Sitting there on mountain top, I wondered if the mid-Feb heat would melt me before my companion returned, making me the first official victim of global warming. And my eyes drifted to the valley floor.
Will I make it down with my limbs intact? I asked myself. Or was this my rest in peace in heaven here above?
That's when I heard a rustle in the bush, a stone's throw away.
It turned out to be a goat, out grazing. And then another. And then the entire flock joined in, bells jingling.
Before long, I spied a shadow emerging from behind the shrub.
Changeling!? I wondered.
Hello, I am Rizwan, the angel announced, taking quick strides towards me, dressed in blue trousers and a T dyed in the saffron "besharam rang."
"What's got your goat," the 12-year-old herder asked aloud, his 10-year-old sibling Farhan in his footsteps.
I climbed up to take a look at the valley below, but now the heat's killing me, I complained, eyes drooping.
The valley was once a lake, Rizwan exclaimed, walking up to the rock on which I had perched myself. That's what our grandfather told our father, and his grandfather told his son. But we have always seen it as scrubland. Don't get troubled by the sun, just catch the breeze in your face. It's cool. Open your mouth. Breathe in. Deep.
There was no stopping Rizwan from there on.
What are you doing grazing on this godforsaken ridge, I asked. Shouldn't you be in school?
It was Sunday.
Farhan and I go to school. He's in the fourth grade, and I in sixth. We herd the goats here early morning and leave them to graze. Look, that one is Muzzaffar, but I call him Zafar. And this one is Munna. We have 28 in our flock.
You call them by names, and they remember? All 28? I asked, betting, in my mind, which one would hang next from the hook at the butcher's in my hood.
'Yes, but we don't have names for all.'
By now, Rizwan's sisters had walked over from behind the bush, dusky, tall and slender, faces covered in rags, in make-do hijab, eyes haunting, bright, and wide open through slits in the mask, the elder 16 or 17, the younger, just stepped into her teens, perhaps.
So all of you climb this mountain to graze, do they go to school? I asked.
Our sisters studied only till the fifth grade, Rizwan replied for his tribe and clan.
Why? I asked.
"The panchayat pradhan (village headman) ordered that no girl should study beyond grade five. Then it must be household chores till marriage, Sister Superior Haunting Eyes interrupted, matter-of-factly, without a hint of remorse.
Taliban country, I wondered quietly, taking in the gentle breeze drifting on to my face.
Is your village headman a (Muslim) maulvi, I asked. Rizwan informed me that the pradhan happened to be a Hindu.
But, we boys go to school, he rambled on.
After leaving the goats on this ridge top, we rush down to school in the valley. There, they teach us Hindi. After school, we visit the madrasa for lessons in Urdu.
In the evening, its here once more, to herd the flock back home, where I play with the kids till bedtime.
Do they teach you about God, I asked, curious about what else was taught at the madrasa, besides Urdu.
"Is god Bhagwan or Allah?"
"He's the same. There is no difference," Rizwan replied. Cocksure. "When he is in one village he is Bhagwan, when he is in the next, he is Allah!"
I looked wide-eyed at my Shepherd ... in heaven, in a saffron T, his one eye fixed on his Flock.
By now my guide too had returned from his venture on the precipice at the far end of the rock.
Come, let me walk you back down to the valley, said Rizwan, holding my hand, leaving his flock behind.
Soon I was climbing down, one faltering step after another, finding gaps between rocks, and boulders, and crag, for my feet to find ground on an uncharted path to somewhere.
To Nowhere!
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