This story hails from a world that has faded away. It was the mid-70s in Pakistan. At the edge of the Cholistan Desert, in a land of legends and folklore, flows the River Chenab. Nestled along its banks lies the city of Multan, best known for its dust storms, stifling summers, beggars, and the shrines of saints long gone.
Multan always felt provincial, although it was a big city even back then. There were wheat fields scattered amongst the outskirts of suburbia. To a six-year-old, Multan seemed quarantined from the rest of the world. With just a radio, and one government-owned channel on our black-and-white TV, the only real reminders of the world outside were the hippies who would occasionally pass through.
The world seemed a much safer and smaller place back then. Us kids were free to roam the streets of the exclusive cantonment area where we lived. It was like living in colonial times, as the suburb itself was a hangover from the days of the British Raj. My father was a senior civil servant, and the big beautiful house and numerous domestic staff came with his job. Our newly built house was modern for the time but surrounded by mature gardens and trees. To this day, I can feel the breeze blowing through those trees on a warm summer afternoon.
I am sitting in another part of the world now. But the heavy sky takes me back to a day like today, when the chill in the air seemed like a warning. Even as a six-year-old, the coming of winter gave me a sense of dread.
My father was away—on one of his official trips, I assume, or he would have taken us in tow. It must have been a weekend because my mother was home. Our front gate was open as it always was. No one locked their gates in those days.
I must have been playing with my sisters in the front garden. We saw a woman walk in through the gate, mumbling to herself. It never occurred to any of us to try and stop her from coming in. Somehow, I think, we sensed her unspoken need for help. Soon we were all in the backyard: the stranger, us kids, our mother, and our grandmother, who lived with us. (Back then outsourcing the care of elderly parents was not an option.)
My mother, being the kind doctor, offered the woman a seat and gently asked her what had happened. The memory of my mother’s soothing voice remains with me. Usually, she was a force to be reckoned with, yelling at us rowdy kids to keep us in line, sometimes even with a few slaps for good measure. Mind you, the only thing that was ever bruised by those slaps were our egos, which quickly recovered for another round of bickering as is inevitable for siblings aged around six, nine, and ten.
The woman sat down. From her clothing—a light grey kameez, a white shalwar and dupatta, all clean but worn—we gauged that she was poor. Her hair was oiled and neatly plaited. She was wearing flat black court shoes that we used to call “pumpy shoes” and a golden nose pin. Her eyes looked hollow as though she had seen enough and did not want to see any more.
She was talking to herself, saying over and over “they just kept hitting”. My mother did not push for more information. We assumed that the woman was the victim of the beatings. My mother asked the cook to get her some food.
As she ate, my mother gently probed. I think she knew that she only had the woman’s attention while she was eating. Her story was incoherent and repetitive. This is what I remember:
She was on a train from Quetta to Multan, bringing over goods. Quetta was a hotspot for smuggling back then—mostly clothing and electronics—so we assumed she was part of a smuggling ring.
There was an infant lying next to her on the train. The baby was dead, she said.
There was no way for us to know if any of this was true.
She was arrested at Multan Railway Station. What follows is murky: she kept muttering about the beatings, but it wasn’t clear whether she was the victim or a witness to the violence because she had no visible injuries.
After she finished eating, she stood up and lifted her shirt to scratch her belly. My mother gasped, “Oh my God! She is pregnant.” I was too young to understand the implications of her words but I could hear horror in her tone.
My mother’s reaction signified the story of the woman’s suffering which translated as a feeling of unknown fear for a six year old. Rape and domestic violence were unheard of back then for a child growing up in a shielded environment. Even today, though society there is relatively more open, it’s still a conservative culture. The language does not even offer an equivalent of the word rape. So how do you start a conversation around something for which even the language is silent?
Those were the days before Edhi refuge homes or NGOs that might help such women today. No mental health facility would have taken her without consent from her family and taking the woman to a police station was definitely out of the question.
My mother gave the woman money for a train ticket back to Quetta. I still wonder why my mother didn’t do more. Perhaps she felt there was nothing more she could do with an elderly mother, three little girls, and a faraway husband already on her plate. Perhaps she didn’t want a part in something that she feared could turn sinister. Perhaps she didn’t want to put her staff in a sticky situation which they probably wanted no part of.
I keep asking, but there are no answers. All I know is that this episode from my childhood still haunts me.
From across the globe I reached out to my siblings about the incident. One reacted with discomfort. It was something she did not want to be reminded of. The other, now a medical professional, attempted to reconcile what had happened using her expertise. I don’t know how this situation affected my mother, nor will I ever know. The generation to which I belong just does not question parents about such matters.
I still can’t be certain of what happened to the woman. My sister and I theorize she may have been going through some form of psychosis when she came to our door, as she was clearly confused. May be it was triggered by something sinister that happened to her. But then, the fact that she was clean and bore no visible signs of torture implied the incident was not from the woman’s immediate past.
None of us have the answers. There are only questions as we will never know the whole story. All I know is that she was lost. Even today I’m left wondering, did the woman lost ever find her way back home?
About the author
Alea is an Australian Pakistani who writes in both Urdu and English. She has been published in Dawn, Pakistan’s largest English daily newspaper. Alea is also a poet who produces her own poetry tracks with music. She has been featured on SBS Urdu Radio, SYN Nation and Patari, a music streaming website/app where her work has consistently made in the top charts. She is particularly interested in themes of displacement and belonging.
1 Comment
Very poignant. Wonderful read