A Mother's Tale of Sorrow

Dead One-and-a-Half Year Old Child's Body

 
(A Mother's Tale of Sorrow)

When the car ran over her one-and-a-half-year-old son, his intestines were spilling out. She rushed towards her son's body, but she was strictly forbidden from picking up the body and ordered to wash the car tires as soon as possible. "We have to leave, we are getting late." With tears in her eyes, she looked at the owners and, seeing the stern expressions on their faces, silently took water in a utensil and started washing the car tires. She washed more than half of the tires with her flowing tears because the tires were not dirty due to mud, but were stained with the blood of her offspring, and her son's body was still lying there. After washing the car tires, when the owners got into the car and left, they ordered her to pick up the body from there and clean the gallery, bury the body and come back within a week because the house cannot function without you. 
She was silently listening to her owners' orders and thinking, "Am I not human? Was my child not a child?" 
"If their child had died instead of my son, would they have remembered to clean the car tires?"
There was no one here to answer her questions now. She quietly got up, spread a sheet, put a plastic sheet on it, placed her son's body and intestines on the plastic sheet, and started preparing to go to her ancestral home. 
When she had prepared everything, she remembered that she did not even have the fare to go home. She did not need an ambulance. She had wrapped the child in a sheet in such a way that it was not obvious what was in the sheet. Now she only needed the fare for a ride so that she could go home, and she did not even have that, so she started crying there, afraid that her owners might scold her for making noise in their house and letting their neighbors know that her child had been run over by a car. When no other option was visible, she picked up the bundle in which her son's body was lying, put it on her head, held her daughter's hand in the other, and after locking the door of the house, started walking towards her home. Her daughter asked in an innocent voice, "Mother, we won't be able to reach home even in three days if we walk." Hearing her daughter's question, the speed of her tears increased further. She could not answer, but slapped her daughter so that she would not speak any further. This is the story of Mehnaz Akhtar. 

Who belonged to Chakwal. When her husband fell ill, the responsibility of supporting the family fell on her, along with her husband's medical treatment. People living in Pakistan are well aware of the conditions in Pakistan that even providing food is not possible in today's era, let alone getting a patient treated. 
Her husband was suffering from stomach cancer, which was impossible to cure in any way, but despite this, his treatment was necessary because when he groaned in pain, she could not bear it herself. Her children also started crying. 
Mehnaz's husband had told her not to spend on him anymore. He was sure that he would not be able to live any longer. He did not want the conditions of his house to be such after his death that his children would not have anything to eat. He told her to save whatever she earned so that it would be useful for the children when they grew up. She would put her head on the feet of her virtual god and say, "How can I leave you in pain?" 
Reminding him of the past, she used to say, "Remember when my father was ill, we had the same situation in our house. There was no money to buy medicine for my father." 

I often used to cry here, but I did not express my problem to you. You asked me many times, even asked your mother if she had any fight with me, but there was nothing like that, and I hesitated to tell you. Until one day you went to my house, where my mother told you everything. When you found out that I loved my father so much, you took responsibility for my father's medical treatment after that. Although my own brothers did not care about my father as much as you did. 
I remember when my father was in his last moments in Allied Hospital, my father joined his hands in front of you and said, "If my daughter does anything wrong, forgive her. You have done so much for me, so much that even my own children could not do. Along with all these favors, just do one more favor, ignore my daughter's mistakes, insolence, and shortcomings." You smiled and said to my father, "Your daughter never makes any mistakes. What am I going to forgive her for? And I have not done any favor to you. You are as respectable to me as my father. Whatever I have, your daughter and you have full rights to it. I will help you as much as I can." Well, when my father passed away, a long time after his burial, I found out that everything you had done was done by borrowing, and then you kept paying off that debt for a long time. You paid off that debt, but I will not be able to repay your favor to me for the rest of my life. 
Mehnaz kissed her husband's feet and said that 
Whatever I have in this world, I sacrifice everything on you, but I make Allah my witness and say that even if your sins outweigh your good deeds in the afterlife, I will say to Allah, "O Allah, give him my good deeds as well." Hearing her words, her husband took her close and said, "You have done so many favors to me in this world, at least now Allah should not make me dependent on your favors in the afterlife." After living in extreme pain, her husband passed away, but she was once again in debt. 

The people from whom she had borrowed money to treat her husband were now harassing her for repayment of the loan. When she saw no other option, she went to Karachi to work in a bungalow through someone she knew. She took her two children with her. She took some advance money from there and paid off the creditors. She hoped that she would pay off this loan in three to four years and return to her home, but it was not written in her destiny. She lost her children as soon as she went there. She had only one son and one daughter. The son was one and a half to two years old. 
She was working inside the house. The son was playing with his sister when she called her daughter inside. The daughter went inside, inadvertently leaving her brother there. When the owners of the house were getting ready to go out, they did not see the child. The car ran over him. When the car ran over, they also felt that something had come under the car. They stopped the car and saw that their maid Mehnaz Bibi's child had come under the car and some parts of his body were stuck to the car tires. Hearing the child's last sigh, she also ran from inside, but whatever was to happen had happened before she arrived. Even her child's intestines had come out and were lying there. She started running towards her son when her owners forbade her from going near the child's body, saying, "Clean this car first, we are getting late." She was surprised at the tone of the owners, but she had no choice but to obey their orders, so she quietly brought a tub of water and a utensil from inside. She washed those two tires of the car that had run over her child. After checking the car tires, her owners left, giving her orders, and she, tying her child's body in a bundle, started walking towards her home. She thought that she would go to the railway station and ask for fare, but then she did not even have the courage to ask. She quietly entered the train. When the ticket checker came, she told the ticket checker the whole story. The ticket checker could not believe that a mother whose child had been killed so brutally was sitting so patiently. He formally opened the bundle and checked, but when he checked, he himself started crying. He handed over all the money in his pocket to the woman, gave her a ticket, arranged a car for her from the station where she got off, sent her to her ancestral village, and apologized to her with folded hands that if any offense had been caused due to his caste, she should forgive him, but now where was there so much space in Mehnaz's heart that she would be offended? She quietly sat in the car, took her son's body with her, and reached her ancestral village. 

She went and handed over her son's body to the mosque owner of the village and told him the whole story. The Imam of the mosque immediately arranged for the child's burial, spent the money he had, and also appealed to the mosque committee. At the Imam's request, the neighbors also helped a lot. After finishing the child's burial and arrangements, the Imam contacted those owners with his special efforts under whose car the child had come, forced them to either forgive the woman's debt or legal action would be taken against them for crushing and killing the child. The Imam had the support of the people of the village. His words had a great impact on the other party. Thus, the woman's debt was forgiven and she was settled in the same village. She is still semi-mad and lives there. When she takes her daughter out somewhere, she ties her arm and holds the rope in her hand. Even though her daughter is young today, she says that children do not know, they come under cars. Even today, if she gets angry with her daughter, her daughter hugs her, but people cry when they see the condition of the woman who is aware of her reality. 
This is the reality of our society. We are living in a society where we do not care even if the life of a poor person's child is lost, but instead we are angry that the poor child came under our car and got crushed. Because of his crushing, the tires of our car have become dirty. We do not allow a mother to pick up her son's body, but instead we order her to clean the tires of our car first. I just want to say to the financially strong people in this writing that poor people are also human beings. Take care of them and their children. Thank you very much.
*◈❂•┈•⊰••✿><✿••⊱•┈•❂◈*
 Recite Durood Sharif once 
*JazAllahu Anna Muhammadan Ma Huwa Ahluhu*