Chapter 1: A Sky Beyond the Smoke
The scent of clay and smoke was perceptible in the air at
the dusty village of Rahimpur, between the barren fields and the rustle of
wheat. Here the potters were born with earth under the fingernails and fire in
the lungs. One of them was a lad, Arif, a restless-eyed, wiry,
thirteen-year-old boy, heart full of impossible dreams. His father was Haji
Suleman who was famous in the neighboring towns because of his smoothest clay
pots, which were made by hands that had more to shape than just earth- they
shaped survival. But Arif, son of the potter, gazed at the heavens than at the
wheel. His father was busy at his wheel spinning clay with great devotion
whilst Arif sat outside with his great eyes fixed upon planes cutting through
the air like silver birds. He did not know how they worked, only that they were
free and flew high, things that he was never.
Chapter 2: A Dream Too Heavy
As his father slept on the charpai, his mother rocked his
younger brothers and sisters to sleep with lullabies, Arif would draw planes on
the sides of his schoolbooks at night. Not simple airplanes but jets,
airliners, helicopters, aircrafts of the design he could only imagine. He was
average in everything except science at school. Questions nobody in the village
could answer were blazing in his head. He asked his teacher once, what makes
something heavier than air fly, to which the teacher replied by smiling, and
told him to be practical. Arif, thou are a son of a potter. Sky is not the
place of your game. Don’t think with your head, think with your hands.” Yet how
should he? When he shut his eyes he beheld wings. He waited by the chain-link
fence when he passed the dusty airfield 30 kilometers away, wondering someday
somebody would look at the boy with stars in his eyes and say, you belong.
Chapter 3: The Price of Mockery
Villagers made jokes out of Arif dreams. They giggled when
they had tea, because Haji son wants to be a pilot! Probably he will take us to
the moon on a matka! The children mocked him, referred to him as Udaan Baba and
painted wings on his school bag. His sketches were even ridiculed by his
cousins who tore up his sketches and referred to them as nonsense. His father
said nothing about it at home. He did not reproach Arif, nor did he inspire
him. To Suleman, dreams were a preserve of men who had the money to spend. His
son was not hatched out in a cockpit but in a kiln. One night, when he had
worked very late, he met Arif with an aged aviation journal that he had picked
up in a scrapyard. Heavy heartedly he sat down beside him and said, Beta, you
are not any less. Dreams... they are expensive. You have to make up your mind
whether you will meet their price.”
Chapter 4: The Scholarship That Almost Was
All that changed when Arif received the news that the
National Science Talent Competition was going to take place in Lahore. Three
winners would be ranked first with full scholarships to study aeronautics in a
technical institute. There were only one entry per school and when the teacher
showed hesitation in nominating Arif, the principal was the one that
intervened. And boy, go ahead. What wrong can a son of a potter do? All day and
night Arif toiled over his project--a model glider composed of bamboo,
newspaper and old cycle parts. He learned aerodynamics with secondhand books at
candlelight and copied the diagrams. He would fall asleep on his notebook and
his mother would come in the room and see him with dreams literally hugging his
head. They took loans in order to cover the bus to Lahore. On the day itself
Arif got on the bus with his model and his heart in his mouth. It was his first
going out of Rahimpur and each field they passed through was like a chapter
being shut behind him.
Chapter 5: A Test of Wings
It was intense competition. Arif had the humblest-looking
glider of them all-compared to the high-tech creations of children in
well-heeled schools, his glider looked like a toy. Passed by the judges who
were not impressed until one of the judges who happened to be a former Air
Force engineer requested Arif to demonstrate. As he threw it off the school
roof the glider winged its way through the air with a seeming unnatural ease,
circling and settling down easily. That was made out of newspaper and bamboo, how
did you do that?” the judge asked, amazed. Arif had recounted the principle of
Bernoulli in flawless Urdu, referencing the science that he had studied in his
own way, late nights spent in devouring it. The judges had nothing to say. He
eventually came second. The boy of Rahimpur stood on the stage with his eyes
full of tears when his name was announced. He did not win the first place, yet
he won something more-respect. And a scholarship.
Chapter 6: Between Earth and Sky
Life at the institute was difficult. Students who spoke
fluent English, used iPads and who had traveled abroad surrounded Arif. He was
out of sorts--a lump of clay in a steel world. But whenever he would decide to
quit, he would see the hands on his father that were old and cracked and the
tired smile on his mother. He learnt more than anybody. He learned the language
of aeronautics and gradually, he began to code, create simulations, and even
fly virtual planes. His professors observed. Dr. Sameena Rehman was one of them
and she adopted him. She said to him, “Your background is not your handicap.” It
is your authority. You look at things in a different way.” Arif started winning
competition. A national journal carried his model of glider. Gradually, his
name was heard not as that of a village boy who liked to dream of flying, but
as that of an engineer to-be, the ideas of whose dreams became flying.
Chapter 7: The Interview
Years passed. Arif was standing at the gate of Pakistan
Aeronautical Complex with the folder of achievements and hopeful heart. The
panel of interviewers looked frightening- Air Force men, engineers, government
officials. They interrogated him in aviation physics, systems design and
policy. One of them then said, “Why aviation, Arif?” He hesitated, and, looking
through the window, saw a runway in the distance. Because when I was a kid the
only things overhead that weren t boundaries were planes. In my world we were
under the ceiling of poverty, caste and expectation. But aircraft… they did not
care a whit about all that. I would like to create machines that would remind
children such as me that the sky is not owned by those who can afford it.” No
one said anything. Then one policeman smiled. “Welcome on board.”
Chapter 8: Homecoming
Not in a bus, but in a government car Arif returned to
Rahimpur. Villagers who had ridiculed him came out to receive him with
garlands. His father, older and slower, stood near the gate and the tears were
in his eyes. Arif went out with his newly acquired ID pin on and embraced him. ”You
were right, Abba,” he murmured. “Dreams cost. They are worth it all, however.” In
the evening he sat in a tree with the children of the village, and showed them
how to make paper planes. He threw a paper plane over his head. “Every wing
begins with a fold, you know,” he sad. It made the children laugh and clap. That
night his mother had cooked biryani, and potatoes on the side.
Chapter 9: The Flight That Mattered Most
Arif proceeded to work on aircraft systems in the national
defense. He went overseas and encountered scientists and won awards. But the
greatest thing he had been proud in his life was not when he was awarded by the
President. This was at the time when he was donating a science lab and library
in his former school. No child, he told the headmaster, must ever be put to
study lift and thrust by markings on a wall. He established a scholarship in
the name of his father to artisan students. At the inaugural ceremony, he said,
“hands that form clay can form the future as well.” He was speaking the Urdu
that he had been ashamed of speaking and the people gave him a standing
ovation.
Chapter 10: Wings of Clay
Many years later when Arif was sitting on the terrace of his
own house and his own son was drawing a rocket on a notebook, he remembered the
kiln in Rahimpur, the broken walls, the smashed bowls, the newspaper glider. He
dwelt upon the suffering, the derision, the tears--and the indomitable spirit
that would not be quenched. He had become a man with a passport, a paycheck and
a profession. He was, however, still in reality the son of a potter, who had at
one time dared to believe in flight. we are dust of the earth, he wrote in his
journal, but we are born with clod wings--delicate, scoffed at and leaden. But
when we dare we fly.” It was not only his story. It was the tale of all of us
children told that we are too poor, too small, too ordinary to dream big. And
on the wings of clay, those dreams flew cracking ceilings and crossing borders
and showing that even out of the most simple earth, greatness could grow.
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