Unidentified ‘Yours’

As usual, he entered his ‘own’ house without knocking the door and seeking permission, hoping that his siblings might be eagerly waiting for his return. How excited he was to see his house which had experienced a number of changes. As he was proceeding inside,
his heartbeat was getting faster. 

Entering the room, he saw her wife, who had got layers of wrinkles on her face, and his children, who had turned to be parents. He did not take even a single moment to identify his ‘own’ ones who, in turned, raised a cry by considering him a thief or mad.
He got quavered at this unbelievable incident. His own offspring had refused to recognise him. How pathetic and painful was the occasion!

He submerged into past and a bitter journey started. He was just 25, living in a comfortable house with a beautiful and young wife and small kids. In a scorching June noon, while he was returning from his shop to have a happy lunch with his family, he was
kidnapped by some armed men who covered his face with a mask and took him to some unknown place.

When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a dark and deep coal mine, thousands mile away from his hometown. For at least two hours, he was given some instructions about how he was going to lead rest of his life. After that, he was a slave tasked with
digging and loading coal. A new life full of miseries and sufferings started.

From morning to late night, he had to work like beast in the shadow of guns pointed on him. Daylight has diminished from his life as he came out of the mine at night and reentered there before the sunrise.

Back at home, his wife and children, after exhausting all possible ways to find him, had accepted this shock by considering it as a sour reality. All were haste to believe that he had died.

The man was working, working and just working—-the work which he did not own. He was not alone there, many other unfortunate beings were also in chains. After passage of five to six years, he accepted his demise willy-nilly. Now, he was not a human being,
but a robot programmed with the techniques of inhuman labour.

Years after years, he was as busy as bee to fill the bully bellies of his bosses, the coal mafia. 30 years lapsed and he was still there, working with sick muscles and shivering body. He had long rubbed out from his mind any thought of free and normal life.

One night, he was lying on a muddy floor of his jail with open eyes. Suddenly, tears began coming out as an old memory had pricked him. He stood up with a jerk. In no time, a hope and desire of freedom dominated him. He looked around. The only guard was
sleeping and the door, luckily, was unlocked. Regardless of the consequences of what he was going to do, he opened the door all at once and started running in darkness.

He ran through hills, deserts, streams and thorny bushes to reach a roadside. He had no money to pay fair to transporters. He sat there with tired body and aching mind. A few minutes later, a car came and stopped near him. He was frightened to see it. A
young man came out of the car and inquired about him. Tears started falling like a lake and the man told him the entire story of his plight in five minutes. The car man gave him a lift and dropped him to a bus terminal with some money. He boarded into bus
of his hometown and started thinking about a happy life again.

Finding a crowd around him, he came out of the trance abruptly. No one was ready to recognise and own him. All were considering him a thief. All were ready to beat him and take him to police station. Who was he? He was unidentified yours.  

This is a real story of a man who hails from District Sheikhupura of the Punjab province. The coal mine, he worked in, was in Baluchistan.

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=3667

Posted by Sharjeel Ahmad on Nov 15 2011. Filed under National. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry