117
35. Mama I
want to go to school . Papa I want to go to school .
Nadeem entered his son’s , Yusuf ,
bedroom at his shriek . The son had a nightmare . At almost the same time ,
Yusuf’s mother , Nasim, came . Both mother and father wanted Yusuf to tell them
about the shriek . But he was too shocked to speak . Yusuf went on crying . Between sobs ,the only
word , his parents could catch was school . At last, the parents succeeded to
calm their son down with parental love . He told them that he had a bad dream in which
his school was blown up by the terrorists and all children were blown to bits .
One day
earlier when the children came home from school , they switched on the TV to
watch their favourite cartoon programme
. But the channel they switched on had other things to show : graphic
scenes of the aftermath of a blast that killed many people . Nadeem and Nasim
tried to ensure that the children did not see the horrible scenes because as an
educated couple they could visualize the traumatized impact on the children who
were at an impressionable age .
The family
lived In Jehlum . They had two children , a boy aged 12 and his younger sister,
Maryam , aged 10 . Both children went to the finest school in town . Besides
education , their parents , particularly the mother , told stories of Muslim
warriors like Hazrat Khalid bin Waleed or Salahuddin Ayubbi . The father was a middle ranking officer . The
family was very closely knit.
Yusuf often
dreamt of becoming a Physicist . He would often tell them that he would do his masters and the
earn a doctorate in Physics because both mother and father were highly
qualified in their respective fields . Once
Maryam chimed that the brother and sister would become another Dr . Abdus Salam
and another Malala Yousuzai . His father went into deep thinking : the former
was declared a Non Muslim by the
Pakistani Parliament in the days of Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto when he was facing
trouble and Malala had become the west’s darling . Christina Lamb
118
ghostwritten
her autobiography . She had put things injurious to her native country .
All of
sudden Yusuf thoughts returned to his school . He said “ Mama I want to go to
school . Papa I want to go to school .” This simple sentence put his father to
think . Being parents they were naturally upset by the series of murderous attacks . As a father he thought about the future of the children . Were
schools secure ? The Government should
have removed their misgivings .
He thought
that there was a time for thinking .There was a time for action . And the time
for action was then .
Yusuf was
precocious and a bright boy . He was also an enfant terrible asking his parents
questions which do not occur to any other boy of the same age bracket . It is
said that wise questions constitutes one
half of the human knowledge . He asked them was there ever peace in Pakistan
. His question disturbed Nadeem’s thoughts .
Yusuf’s
father began recounting the olden days . In the days of your grandfather and
their days , Pakistan was a very peaceful country . Village life was ideal .His
grandfather lived in Rawalpindi which was then a sleepy little town . His
father used to tell him stories how they came on foot . They reached home at 3
PM whereas the classes were off at 1 PM travelling through the streets and ring
bells of sundry houses all in fun . The
owners shared the boys fun . His father also told him that once he carried his two year old cousin in his lap
unannounced to the family and went for a four miles without
any reason . There was of danger either being killed or kidnapped .
His father
did his masters in History while his mother did her masters in Psychology . Both
his children grandparents and their parents academic life were full of usual
pranks .
All of a
sudden the idyllic atmosphere was turned into a nightmare as if a magic .
Mahfooz ur
Rahman
119
Islamabad
December 24,
2014
No comments:
Post a Comment