Becoming

This is a story of blooming love and betrayal, about children coming of age, of conscience and the sociopaths who lack it; it is a story about trust and how true love empowers and heals us. In the end it is a story about humanity and the eternal struggle between good and evil. Nina and Junaid are classmates learning about the world around them and in the process discovering themselves. They must endure and survive a path fraught with confusion and peril if they wish in the end to come out victorious though not necessarily unscathed. In the process they will learn about innocence and its loss, about how budding love can be snuffed out if not cared for and its formidable power if it is nurtured and protected. They will learn about the things that give life its true meaning and how it is in sacrificing for others that one eventually finds succor for one's own self. They will also learn about true evil and its insidious presence in plain sight and how it mangles and corrupts those it touches. They will have to learn to confront and defeat it if they can without letting its foul nature poison their souls. If you see yourself in some of the characters described herein it is only because the human experience around the world and in the different cultures is not unique and we all share the same burdens and the same joys of similar emotions and trials as we go about learning to find ourselves in the complex teaching arena that is our society. The setting is the foothills of the Margalla Mountain range, a part of the lesser Himalayas, north of Islamabad in Pakistan, during the 1970's.