Tales of the Unheard

Source: Painting by Mary Maxam on DailyPainters.com It was one of those days when the body seems to have lost all its energy, no longer willing to make simple movements like standing, sitting or doing anything at all. It just lays there…. lifeless yet full of life. I sat there as still as water and as silent as a night, staring at the ceiling, lost in my own thoughts. My head ached thinking there was still so much to do… a long list of never ending work that had to be completed by this apparently lifeless body. Ahhh!! It had been a long tiring week, shifting a home is exhausting for both, the soul and the flesh. From planning on packing, wrapping the whole house, moving to a new place to settling in… a task that literally drains all your energies in every way possible. It was the same for me… shifting to a new place in all the hustle bustle was beyond exhausting. The process of moving is kind of like the start of a new life; you look forward to your future yet feel ...

Continued..... Home is a feeling, an emotion and a blessing in disguise …..   It was all that I knew and believed during my early years. For this little space/ our house built with only four mud walls and a leaking roof was the world to me, a magical world that kept me shielded from the dark and ugly realities of the human race. We lived in a small village in Sharak Pur (Punjab) where living surely was difficult but life… life seemed quite simple. I often stared at buildings and houses/homes ... lost in their charm, observing how each and every brick played an important part (role) in holding such mighty structures together. In my own little imagination my family was our home, where the twelve of us (9 sisters & 3 brothers) were the bricks and our parents the main foundation. You know it’s funny that such a feeling as home and a family could turn every bit of darkness into light. I loved every little thing about our small, wrecked and empty house,...

I lay awake staring at the ceiling, twisting and turning restlessly as I wait for another water droplet to dribble over my face. Agitated with the sound of the leaking water in the dead of the night, while others sleep so calmly I can’t help but think “ why do we have a roof that leaks every time it rains…whyyy??”   I keep staring at the hole in our ceiling (out of anger) that has grown so big and it terrifies me with the thought that it will soon cause our roof to collapse on us. For a second I let my imagination take over me and picture it all in my head. My mind paints a vivid illustration of the water gushing in through the leak, taking bits and pieces of mud down with it in every fall. So strange, although I am well aware it is just in my imagination it feels so real. I can literally feel and smell the muddy water droplets flowing down from the ceiling, the very thought that whatever we have… this house, our home, the center of our lives and everything that we’ll eve...

Continued... Tree : “ Tell me merchant, why does it seem that all life has been drained out of your body? What makes you so disappointed in life?” “My whole life”… I was born in 1955 in Peshawar. Coming from a family of merchants and clothiers, business was in our blood and we shared a fairly good reputation in the markets of the ‘City of Men’. My youth is full of good memories but as I grew older our fates turned on us. Times had changed; our country was facing political challenges and socio-economic issues, falling into despair day by day. And the same cloud of despair was upon our business now. Everything fell; our family shop was sold after my father got sick and left us in a great debt. Since we were unable to return the debt, our reputation in the market was lost. There was nothing left for us in our own city so we finally decided to migrate to Lahore. With my mother, wife and children, moving to a new city seemed like a big challenge especially being a pathan in ...

“ If only we could become stars and shine just as bright, a light that illuminates pathways and lives" – Nyla Little do we know of how much we can control our lives, at times it has no purpose or meaning yet it proves to be an everyday struggle. “I remember that I was only 6 or 7 years old when I realised life was as bitter and harsh as the winter. Our empty stomachs growled as the night grew colder...’ said Nyla, a fourteen-year-old domestic worker, a bread earner and another victim of the harsh realities of our ugly society. She smiles at me asking “ are you going to write a story on me too? ” I smile back at her, as I lift my pen, watching her hide her sadness just as she starts to unveil the unspoken truths of this world, holding back tears just to show how strong she is, she questions “what do you want to know first, how my life is or would you rather want to know how poor I am?” Blank, clueless and quiet, I remain silent, gath...