بےخبری We Let Them Rot

On my countless walks through Chitral, I follow the same path—not for any reason beyond the quiet comfort of familiarity. A road that knows my steps before I take them, a rhythm that keeps me tethered to a place I am still learning to understand.

It is winter. A sharp, golden light cuts through the morning, the kind that makes the air taste metallic, the kind that turns every surface to glass. As I descend from the bypass road near Soneri Bank, I see it. A small dog, curled in on itself as if the cold had forced it into that final embrace.

At first, I think it is sleeping. But then I see the way its body lies limp among discarded wrappers, broken glass, the remnants of a life once moving, now left to dissolve into dust. The city, so full of noise and breath, does not stop. People step past without pausing. No one looks. The dog is not just dead; it has been erased.

I pull out my phone, meaning to take a picture—not of the dog, but of the view. The Shahi Bazaar stretches below, a winding artery of commerce and chatter. The sight should be reassuring, a reminder of life persisting. But the dog lingers in my mind. Its stillness is a silence I cannot unhear.

Something unsettles me. A thought pressing at the edges of consciousness: Is this what impunity looks like?

The people of Chitral are known for their warmth, their hospitality. They bow their heads in prayer, their hands opening in supplication. And yet, here is this quiet, unacknowledged death—this small, unburied grief that no one claims. I never had pets growing up, never formed the kind of bond that makes a creature family. But I know this: cruelty is not always an act of violence. Sometimes, it is neglect. It is the looking away, the refusal to care, the quiet acceptance of rot.

A few days pass. It is Friday—Juma. The day the faithful gather, the day the sermon echoes through the streets. I return to that place, to the dog.

It is still there.

Its body has stiffened now, the elements working their slow erasure. The smell of decay begins to curl at the edges of the air. I do not look away. I will not look away.

Because this is not just about the dog.

This is about the hunger that gnaws at children’s bellies, the cold that settles in the bones of the homeless, the women who disappear behind closed doors and are never spoken of again. This is about the betrayals we make peace with, the small and silent injustices that pile up like trash in an empty lot.

The mullah’s voice rises from the mosque, his khutbah ringing out over the city, a call to righteousness. But righteousness is not words. It is not recitation. It is not the motion of bodies rising and falling in prayer.

It is stopping. It is seeing. It is knowing that we let things rot, and choosing to no longer accept it.

The dog is still there.

And I will remember.