Tales of the Unheard

Continued..... I now wonder what was picture perfect about our life… how was it that our wretched lives seemed so perfect to me and why? I learned it a little too late… it was all the slightest details you’ve read above that made my life seem beautiful to you and me on the outside, but the inside was just as ugly and dreadful. My family, my home .. a blissful masquerade that was a piece of heaven on earth for me soon turned out to be a gateway to hell. Life sure was difficult and every single day was nothing but hard work, another shot at survival. We lived some really hard times all these years with blindfolds. We were fooled by the beauty of the outside colors to the extent that we ignored how black and white our lives were from the inside. I had turned fourteen years old, crossed my childhood/playful years and entered my teens working as a shepherd, seeing nothing but poverty, hunger, struggle and a constant desire to at least live a day of our miserable lives tha...

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...

Dear Life,                It has been a while since I’ve had the time to reflect on you. For you have left me and travelled afar in haste with time as your companion. I lay here abandoned, adrift in my past and present, awaiting nothing but death. In these moments my friend, I often reminisce about our journey together through time and till the end. Well hello there life… my old friend!   I assume you have long forgotten about my insignificant existence, but I …. I am trapped in the memories of our bond that encompasses over seven decades, a lifetime that we have journeyed though, from nothing to being everything but in unison. Alas, our bond has now reached its end and I stand here all alone, full of despair and hopelessness yet empty-handed. My dear friend, I still remember how we formed our connection for the very first time when my flesh and bones were touched by my soul, the day I was ...

Continued.... How would you answer to Shazia’s questions? I often wonder could our conversation have ended in any other way.... with at least a few words, a sympathetic look or maybe a compassionate touch?? You see that’s how it is, we play with words, thoughts and moments in our little minds in a certain way in and from our own perspectives but we fail to assess how it would really go in that certain moment, an instant ....a split second that may change everything in you and around you. Isn’t it? The weekend ended and I got back to being busy in my own routine and work... but Shazia..... It seemed she started living within that very moment. A conversation of a few minutes that created a gap which had us completely tongue- tied for days, or maybe it was an opening of a distinctive bond of understanding her silence. Maybe.... maybe not! Well the silence was there but not entirely, she did greet me in the mornings, tried to do small talk when I was home and st...

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 an...

Destiny .... I often wonder what it means. A word that holds only seven letters but means so much more. It’s funny how a few letters enfold such deep philosophies of life and death within them. But it still remains a conundrum ... a riddle ... a question of what really is our fate? What and where are we destined to be? Tears flowed down from her beautiful black bright eyes ... dimming the usual glow on her face. She pretended to wipe away all her pain, sorrow and sufferings that her tears reflected. It was the same every time she was scolded, never ever uttering a single word rather just listening and nodding her head to every taunt and insult directed towards her. She seemed to absorb every single word and let it all out in tears, for they were the only companions of her life full of doubts and misery. Shazia, a fourteen year old bread earner who knew nothing about work or life.... a domestic worker who hardly ever had a home or a family to learn from and live with, or to...