The Beautiful Strangers
I have a goldfish memory but I can’t seem to forget certain faces of strangers. Such a memory most dear to me is of a very old woman I saw 4 years ago while waiting for the university point bus of PAF-KIET, where I studied for a year before leaving for FAST. She was traveling alone with all her belongings, a small luggage comprising of clothes tied in a chaddar. She was barefooted. Her face was covered with dust so much so that when my eyes fell on her, I thought she didn’t have a face. And yet, her face I can’t forget. Nor can I forget her story, which I don’t know and yet I know.
Not just faces. There are words I remember. Of a girl of about eleven years old, “I hate my father but I love my mother.” That’s how she started her conversation with me. “Why do you hate your father?” , I asked. To which she replied, “He beats me. Mother doesn’t let him beat me and my siblings. Is it our fault if he doesn’t earn enough?”
“What does he do?”
“He collects tins. But he returns home early. How can he make money by returning early? He gets angry and beats me.”
She asked me the time. Then she told me she doesn’t have a clock at home.
“I saved money and bought a clock. My father gave it away.”
I never saw her again. But she’s in my mind most of the days. A bright young girl, the top student of her class. How unsettling it is to know she will never be able to continue her studies.
And the words of an old woman weeping, “I thank you Allah. I don’t complain. I had sons. They all died. They were Yours, God. You took them. I don’t complain.”
And the words of a teary eyed mother, “My daughter was dying! I told God to take back her baby and return me my daughter!” Then I came to know that her daughter was in a critical condition after a surgery, but her daughter’s new-born baby was doing fine.
These strangers are the ones who shape some of us. We owe them a lot for teaching us about life, for keeping us away from materialism and the materialistic goals, and for giving the objectives worth pursuing.
