Long before the pyramids were built in Egypt, or Rome had
laid the foundation of empire, there was a city on the river--a city so well
advanced that it had wide streets and public baths and elaborate drainage and
well-designed houses at a time when a great part of the world was still groping
about in the dark ages of civilization. This was the Indus Valley Civilization
crown jewel Mohenjo-Daro. Now it is in ruins, only broken bricks, broken bones
and unanswered questions. But once, it was alive with song, with trade, with
the laughter of children. And among those children lived a boy named Aarav,
whose story never made it into textbooks or plaques, but survives here, through
memory and imagination.
Aarav was twelve the year the sky turned against them. He
was wiry and sun-browned, with sharp eyes and feet toughened by summers spent
running barefoot on the hot bricks of Mohenjo-Daro’s streets. He lived near the
market with his father, Rayan, a skilled potter whose hands could shape
beauty from dust, and his younger sister, Inaaya , whose giggles echoed
through their stone-walled home. Their days followed a rhythm. Aarav’s job was
to fetch water from the public well at sunrise, before the city awoke in full.
Traders from distant lands would arrive shortly after, bringing beads from
Baluchistan, lapis from Afghanistan, and gossip from the western mountains.
But that morning, something was off. The ground had trembled
slightly the night before. Nothing dramatic, just enough to make the goats
uneasy and send birds circling in strange patterns. Aarav’s father had
dismissed it with a shrug, calling it “the earth stretching its limbs.” But
when Aarav lowered the clay bucket into the well, the water smelled faintly of
salt. He wrinkled his nose. That had never happened before.
Word of strange happenings spread quickly. Farmers claimed
their wheat had withered early. Fishermen returned empty-handed. The soil near
the river had turned white and crusted—like it was rejecting the seeds. The
city’s elders convened in the Great Hall, their silver-threaded robes brushing
the polished brick floor. Aarav wasn’t allowed inside, but he crept close
enough to eavesdrop from behind a column, clutching a fig he’d stolen from a
vendor’s cart. The voices inside were tense. “It’s a warning,” one man said.
“We must sacrifice,” another urged. “We must leave,” said a traveler from the
west, his voice shaking. But the High Priest, whose authority still
commanded respect, raised a hand and silenced them. “This land has never failed
us,” he said. “We do not run from the river.” And with that, the meeting ended.
But outside, whispers of fear had already begun.
The river, once their provider, had begun to rebel. The
Indus rose strangely high at night and fell at daybreak, dragging away the
smaller boats and fish pens along its banks. The drainage systems that had
worked flawlessly for generations began to clog with black mud. The markets
grew quieter. Traders stopped arriving. Rats invaded the granaries. People
began to speak of omens, of forgotten gods, of curses. Still, Mohenjo-Daro held
on—because it always had. Its walls were strong. Its streets were proud. No one
wanted to believe they could fall.
A few weeks later, the city celebrated Inaaya’s birthday.
She turned seven that year. Rayan made her a clay elephant, its sides painted
red with dye made from crushed berries. Aarav, mischievous as ever, stole a
small string of blue beads from a trader’s pouch to give her. He was caught, of
course, and scolded harshly by his father. But Inaaya had loved the gift, and
Rayan, soft-hearted despite his stern face, forgave the boy by nightfall. That
evening, the city lit oil lamps in every courtyard. Dancers twirled in the
temple square, their bells ringing like laughter. The air smelled of roasted
dates and sandalwood. For a moment, it felt as if the city had defeated fear.
But sometime after midnight, the storm arrived. It began
with thunder—low and distant, like the growl of something ancient waking from
sleep. Then came the roar. A wall of water descended through the western gate,
sweeping through the lower districts like a living creature. People screamed.
The fire pits hissed and went out. Houses collapsed as if made of straw. Aarav
woke to his sister’s terrified cries. Water poured into their home through the
brick drains. Rayan didn’t hesitate. “Up! We go up!” he shouted, hoisting
Inaaya into his arms. Aarav grabbed their small bag of food and followed.
They climbed to the rooftop, joining dozens of neighbors
under the eerie glow of a full moon. The sky was a pale silver, the kind that
made everything look like a dream. But what lay below was a nightmare—water
swirling through the streets, carrying away carts, pottery, and bodies. The
once-proud city of Mohenjo-Daro drowned beneath the very river that had given
it life.
By dawn, half the city was gone.
The survivors gathered in the central square, eyes hollow,
clothes soaked, many holding the lifeless hands of loved ones. Some wept. Some
prayed. Others simply stared at the horizon. For the first time in living
memory, people began to speak of leaving. Small groups packed carts and began
walking west or north—anywhere but here. But most remained, too rooted to run.
Rayan, though, had made his decision. “The gods have left
this city,” he told Aarav. “We must go. You and Inaaya are too young to stay in
a dying land.” They packed what little was left: two clay pots, a knife, and
the beads Aarav had given his sister. Inaaya cried when she had to leave her
clay dolls behind. Aarav promised her he would make new ones when they reached
safer ground.
They traveled for two days, sticking to high ground and
avoiding the flooded roads. The forest welcomed them with the rustling of
leaves and the songs of unseen birds. But on the third night, Rayan fell ill.
The water he drank, pulled hastily from a muddy stream, had turned his stomach.
He burned with fever, eyes flickering like candlelight. By morning, he could
barely speak.
Aarav was seated next to him holding his father by the hand,
counting each painful breath. Rayan whispered, Take care of Inaaya. Now you are
a man. And so he disappeared. By using his hands to dig in the softened earth,
Aarav buried his father under a neem tree. Inaaya spent hours crying and
holding the clay elephant. Aarav did not say anything. He was dry-eyed. He was
already a father, a protector and a survivor at the age of twelve. When the
historians and archaeologists excavated Mohenjo-Daro thousands of years after,
they found many things. Skeletons lay in streets, some holding children. Gold
ornaments in broken vaults. Equipment left in the middle of the work. They
composed flood, invasion, and climatic change theories. They took the
measurements of the bricks and documented the artifacts. They never found
Aarav, however. Aarav had walked away because. He walked off with Inaaya asleep
on his back and the remnant of the blue beads in his pocket. He walked away not
with a little girl but the future. Perhaps he got into a different village. Perhaps
he became a man, and taught his children how to model clay, and to hear the
wind. Perhaps he had told it by the fire--and perhaps, perhaps, somebody had
remembered it, and told it again. The truth is, no one knows exactly why
Mohenjo-Daro fell. Some blame floods; others blame earthquakes or changes in
the river's path. Some even suggest invasions or drought. But none of the
theories can fully explain why such a thriving, advanced city vanished so
completely. The people left no writings we can understand. Their language
remains undeciphered. Their gods remain nameless. Their stories, if not told,
risk being lost forever.
But with imagination and memory we can make them speak to us
once more. Mohenjo-Daro is not about bricks and ruins, it is about human beings
who were able to survive, it is about a boy who did not want to die with his
city, a little sister who did not give up and took the hope in the form of a
painted elephant. Maybe that is what history actually is not only the dates and
the artifacts but the sound of the human life, echoing through the silence of
the times. And perhaps, even today, we can hear the footsteps of Aarav in the
dust, as he takes the tale of his people into the world that has forgotten his
people.
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