‘Oh, we will, we will,’ they said in unison and the lorry took off. Once again Sirajuddin prayed for the success of these young men, which took some of the weight off his heart.
That evening he noticed a hullabaloo close to where he was sitting. Four men were carrying a stretcher. Upon inquiring he was told that a girl was found lying unconscious by the train tracks. He followed them. The men handed the girl over to the hospital staff and left.
For a while he stood leaning against the wooden post outside the facility and then he slowly walked inside. There was no one in the room. All he could see was the stretcher with a corpse lying on it. Sirajuddin advanced towards it, taking small, hesitant steps. All of a sudden the room lit up. ‘Sakina!’ he screamed, spotting the big black mole gleaming on the blanched face of the dead girl.
‘What is it?’ the doctor who had turned on the light asked him.
‘I . . . sir, I . . . I’m her father!’ the words came out with a rasp.
The doctor glanced at the body lying on the stretcher. He felt the pulse and, pointing at the window, told Sirajuddin, ‘Open it!’
Sakina’s body stirred ever so faintly on the stretcher. With lifeless hands she slowly undid the knot of her waistband and lowered her shalwar.
‘She’s alive! My daughter is alive!’ Old Sirajuddin screamed with unbounded joy.
The doctor broke into a cold sweat.
THE BEGINNING
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PENGUIN
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Penguin Books is part of the Penguin Random House group of companies whose addresses can be found at global.penguinrandomhouse.com.
Copyright © Muhammad Umar Memon, 2015
The moral right of the author has been asserted
This digital edition published in 2017.
e-ISBN: 978-9-386-81557-6
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The Horrors of Partition Page 2
