brotherhood

         

She had seen even worse faces and had gone through even worse times in her life than this. The men, all having swords and other armors in their hands, all with cruel and ugly faces, were laughing hard at her. everyone there in the crowd wanted to have her. The man with her hairs in his hand, was dragging her on the dusty road. He had a sword in his hand and he was howling and trying to keep others away from her.

‘this pretty girl is mine and I, only I will taste her, if anyone of you tries to come in my way, this will be his last night.’

Khan. This is what they used to call him. his full name was Abdullah Khan. he was a strong man. A man of both brain and body. no one supposed to raise voice against his worthy words. but today was a different day.

‘of course Khan. it doesn’t matter whether she goes to you or me or any of us, the only thing we want is to kill her physically or mentally. They slaughtered our wives and daughters and sisters. now it’s our time to play. They must suffer the same pain we did.’—one among the armed men said loudly.

After the partition of India in 1947, both Indian and Pakistani government asked people to migrate. lakhs of people became refugee. Millions of people started their journey to Hindu majority India or Muslim majority Pakistan according to their religion but many hundred thousands of them could never make it. innocent children were slayed and women were raped and killed. Trains full of corpses were sent to both the sides.

‘you don’t need to tell me, what I should I do and what I shouldn’t. I very well understand my communities’ will. Now get out of my way otherwise I will cut your head down.’— Khan shouted

After reaching into his cottage, Khan locked the door from inside. The girl’s head was down. her legs were badly hurt. There was a line of blood coming from the right corner of her mouth. He gave her some water to wash her face and some clothes and ask her to wait inside a room. Since now she had well understood that the man doesn’t want her to die. he wants her body. firstly, when Khan had saved her at the Lahore station from the men who wanted to rape her and kill her, and took her in the village in a blanket safely, for a moment she had thought that he is a novel man but after the words and the way she was treated in the street, she had understood that everyone here is the same. No one knew about ‘men’, better than her. At least she used to think so. being a beautiful whore she had spent a big part of her life time with men. Good man, bad man, tall man, short man, fat man, thin man, fair man, black man, strong man, weak man, handsome man and ugly man. She had faced all the varieties of men in her short life journey. One thing which is common in all of the men is that ‘all have a lust for a girl irrespective of their religion, caste, colour, and education’ as she used to think. When she was a girl of 10, his elder brother had sold her to a brothel lady. the lady was nothing less than a witch. She taught the girl all the things a whore should know, grew her among men, as a beautiful whore. She knew all tricks to please a man. She had done it thousands of times in her life during the days she had spent in the brothel.

khan went out from his cottage saying that he was going to the market and would come soon. the girl sat in a corner of the dark room. physically she was hurt but mentally she was very strong. She had already faced even worse and deadly storms in her life. this grief was nothing in front of those she had faced earlier. After a minute in silence, she washed her face and the wounds on her legs and her hands. she put off all of her clothes and covered herself with the blanket, Khan had given to her. she very well knew what she had to do now as she was trained for that. The body she had, was the only valuable thing in her life. it was the source of her livelihood. it was all she had and she barely needed anything else in her life. She could satisfy her needs as well as could buy many of the materialistic things for her own comfort. nobody had ever tried to peep into her heart and her soul, even she did never. She sat on the bed and begun to wait for Khan. she had done this many times but the only difference was, the other times' people had paid money for her service and this time her service would be paid by her life.

after a long time, Khan came. she had never waited this long for any customer in her life. all of them always used to be in hurry. They wanted her at the scheduled time and even didn’t let her leave sometimes.

khan gently pushed the door of the room. the girl removed the blanket from her body when Khan entered the room. Khan immediately covered his face as he had seen something which he shouldn’t have seen. He kneed down on the floor. He got his head down, face still covered with his palms and started crying. The girl couldn’t understand. How could she? she had never seen a man, crying before her. she had done the thing for which men used to pay the highest amount in the whore house and this man here, was crying. The things were beyond her brain. She put on the blanket. After few moments of silence, khan left the room. the girl was full of surprises. She had many questions in her mind for Khan. she put on all the clothes and came out of the room. khan was sat on a chair in the verandah. She went to him and sat beside him on a chair. Before she could say anything Khan spoke up.

‘Her body was covered with blood. There were almost no clothes when I saw her. they had put a knife inside her right eye. Fingers were cut, the face was burnt and her neck was vigorously bleeding. She was dead. They had raped her and killed her. she was my sister. My sister with whom I had spent 16 years of my life. I had married her with an Indian boy at the age of 16. She loved me a lot. she used to come running me when I used to get hurt while working in the mines. She was my family. They took my family from me. They…’

He started sobbing and weeping, he could not say anything else.

After a minute in silence, the girl apologized for his loss and asked—‘why did you spare my life. why did you take me here? Why didn’t you leave me dying in the station or in the street.’

‘because I can’t see another sister getting raped and killed in front of my eyes.’—he shouted.

‘I was afraid that they would snatch you from me and cut your throat so I acted like that, in the street. But now I am not afraid of anyone. If anyone would try to touch you, I will cut his hand.’—he said again.

No one had ever called her as a sister in the past 7 years. She had almost forgotten about her brother. The brother who had left her in the whore house. Today the words of Khan had brushed up her memory. What she knew about a ‘brother’ and what she was feeling about the sacred relationship between a brother and a sister today, were far different from each other. Strong beliefs break up with an immense amount of energy. Her belief had a strength of 7 years which broke up with a lot of tears. She took Khan's hand, kept it on her head and begun to cry.

                                                    ------the end------