*A Shattered Soul, A Ray Of Hope* With every step she took, her body racked with pain. As she dragged her broken ankle, she prayed to God that nobody else would hear the cries. God, what god? The god they had been fighting because of? The God that had made them mercilessly kill hundreds? The God that had taken their homes away from them? Which God? The one which had ripped Hindustan into two? Swallowing her urge to cry out with pain, Fatima Bibi limped to where the child lay sobbing in her mother’s blood. Exhausted, the child could now just produce a few tears as her mother lay dead beside her. The little one did not understand why her mother would not respond to her, why she would not pick her up in her arms and shield her from the cold. Fatima Bibi picked up the three-year-old, tiny for her age, and pulled her hands away from her mother’s face. The girl stiffened and resumed her wailing with newfound energy. ‘Shh, baby. Don’t cry,’ Fatima tried to muffle the wails of the child wriggling in her arms. The child looked up at her with tear-soaked eyes and pleaded, ‘I want my ma.’ Fatima choked back her own tears, ‘Yes, my child. I will get your Ma for you.’ She hugged her to her chest as the girl’s tiny body shook with dry sobs. Dragging herself away from the massacre, from the heaps of mutilated bodies strewn in the field, from the stench of rotting flesh, she hid the child in her bosom, wanting to protect her from all the harm that there was. Could they tell now, looking at these dead people, who was a Hindu and which one was Muslim? No, because death treated them all alike. Fatima Bibi had been hiding in the fields, walking towards Pakistan or what she thought was Pakistan. She hadn’t seen a soul since the past two days until she stumbled upon this scene of bloodshed, drawn by the child’s wails. It seemed to her that a group of Hindus trying to cross over to what was Bharat now, had been discovered by some sword brandishing Muslims, who had slashed through them like meat. Is that what Allah had told them to do? To rape a mother in front of her infant child and then slit her throat? Fatima Bibi choked back on her sobs once more, lest the girl become agitated again. It had been four days. Four days since some Hindus, not the ones lying dead here, but the ones who were still probably killing others, had taken her family away from her. Her daughter, only seven, they had pulled her away from Fatima and raped her. One by one. While the other three held her and her husband down. Making them watch their brutality, laughing maniacally in their faces. She remembered her husband’s face, unwilling to look, his eyes tightly shut, tears streaming down his face as they held him upright and made him hear the screams of his daughter. ‘Abba!’ Fatima Bibi let a wail escape through her lips. Then they had jeered at him as they cut off his beard, but he didn’t move. It seemed he had given up his will to live. ‘Abba’ was the last thing Ali heard and he opened his tear-filled eyes to look at his wife and daughter. He whispered, ‘Forgive me,’ before the sword came down to strike hard, spraying blood all over them. His head flew in the air and dropped to where Fatima Bibi was lying, one of the men pushing her face in the earth with the flat of his boot. She had closed her eyes and wished for death, but it would not come, not this day or the next, when they raped her again and again, having had their fill of her Raziya’s tiny body, who unable to take anymore, had given up her life. They had thrown her body aside and moved on to Fatima Bibi. She could not recall what happened after that, she remembered drifting in and out of unconsciousness, being dragged over the ground, bodies pressing into her, violating her. They did not leave her alone even when they thought she was dead. And two days ago she woke up beside a stream, the bodies of her family nowhere to be found. She had no will to live. She cursed Allah for letting her live. But her body refused to die even after being so battered. She drank water from the stream and filled her stomach with wild fruits, wishing they were poison and would kill her, but they did not. She had dragged herself with her broken ankle, not knowing where she was until she had heard the cries of this little girl. She did not understand what this all was about. What had suddenly turned men into beasts, not leaving a shred of humanity in them? Just because some leader had announced that there would now be two Punjabs, one Hindu and one Muslim; they had become murderers, looters and rapists? What was the cause of this pure, untarnished hatred? Just because their Gods were different? Fatima Bibi cursed these leaders, all this blood of innocent people, all this destruction was on their hands. ‘I am hungry,’ the child sleepily said. Fatima Bibi looked down at her and smiled. Only when she had given up the will to live, Allah had provided her with a ray of hope. Hope in the form of this child, who she would now bring up as her own. It did not matter to Fatima Bibi that she was born of a Hindu, and said Ram more often that Allah. All she knew was that she was now her daughter and she would never let her be touched by another man. She would not let her suffer the same fate as Raziya. She would protect her, whatever it took. Even if she had to kill someone for it. She would protect her. ‘Let’s find some food for you,’ Fatima Bibi smiled at the child and limped ahead, looking forward to life once more. ~ Afreen
Posted on: Mon, 01 Sep 2014 12:30:00 +0000
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