To Destiny...

Continued...

But this time it was different... finally that afternoon she spoke and she let it all out, her tears as well as her heart!

“I have been working here since the last two months, listening, taking in and absorbing all the taunts and insults other helpers or any of my employers made... I know well that I am incompetent, snail paced and not up to your mark for any work that I do but I am trying.... learning. I never had a mother to teach me to do all the little things that mean so much in our daily lives. Yes, I was raised by my aunt and grandmother who fed and treated me well apparently.....”

I stood there in silence listening to her with a blank expression as she went on.... “No my grandmother didn’t teach me how to dress, talk, sit, walk or do anything that would make me worthy or of any value to me or any other person.”

“I was only a few weeks old when my mother passed away and since then fate has never been favorable to me. My own family, my grandmother and aunts (father’s side) raised me just like any other pet in their house. Every morning I would get up eat something if I was given anything at all and leave the house. To live in their house we had to work, while my father went to work on the fields like he was the owner, my job was to look after my grandmother’s cattle and buffaloes. From the moment I opened my eyes every morning till sunset, I used to spend my day talking and playing with buffaloes when it was my age to go to the school or play with my siblings/cousins.”

“I rarely ate throughout the day... at first I used to feel hungry but later on my body got used to the hunger. Every evening I used to return with a smile so that someone or anyone at home would embrace me with open arms, warmth and love but maybe love was never destined to cross paths with my life I guess. As far as I can remember I was beaten up, scolded and abused for every little thing I did or didn’t do until one day I decided to leave my grandmother’s place and shift to the city with my father.”

“See I was not mistreated or neglected by my own blood for being an ill-mannered or spoiled child, rather I was paying the price of my father’s love. My parents got married without my grandmother’s approval so probably the hatred and rejection was always there but never shown, but now it was all very clear and usually directed towards me.... the dirty blood. I was reminded every single day of my life that I was my mother’s daughter while my blood brother shared a different fate and was my family’s pride.”

“At that moment... in that very passing of time it felt that maybe if I leave this house maybe things would change, my aunts and my grandmother would start loving me once they realize my absence or better miss my presence, so that’s why I decided to test my fate and leave my home and my own family of my Dadi’s buffaloes that I dearly loved.”

“At last my father decided to leave me at a distant aunt’s place in Lahore; this is how I came to the city willingly, with a wishful thinking of having a family. But little did I know that I would soon become a burden on them, for I was reminded every night that I was merely a parasite that was feeding off from their hard earned money. I was forced to work not by my aunt or Nyla (my cousin) but their words, taunts and behaviour towards me. So here I am.... a miserable being who knows nothing.”

What can a person say upon hearing all this and that too coming from a little girl crying her heart out? Nothing I suppose.... there are no words of consolation, meaning or comfort ... nothing you can say or offer except silence.

I turned away from her as she fixed her tearful yet curious eyes on me... she asked me so many questions in a blink of an eye even though her lips remained sealed with a brittle smile.

I closed the door behind me as I walked out of the kitchen, with a last glimpse of her staring into the sink lost in her own emptiness, an endless void that I or no one could ever imagine to fill.

To be continued....