The Rooster

 Amongst the few modest houses that lay on the either side of the Kutcha road of the village of dense apple orchards one concrete three storey house stood out. Enclosed within a thick mud wall, in its backyard was a well maintained kitchen garden with collard greens, beans and chilies thriving in it. In front of the house was a narrow concrete path leading from porch to the main gate. A fat hen with her little ones trying hard to keep up with it was running around the courtyard. On the porch sat Dilshada having Nun Chai alone.

It has been more than three months since she received the news of Sana clearing the Entrance Test for medical college. She was very happy and proud of her niece and more proud of her brother Bashir who had brought up such dedicated and hardworking kids. Only a year before she had been to her brother`s house to congratulate Danish, his nephew, for making it to the national level Engineering college, albeit in a second attempt and had taken the only rooster in her coop with her. With many other guests present there, some she knew some she didn’t, she felt a bit awkward to gift a rooster when others gave cash, clothing and bought along bakery. But she didn’t mind it at all after seeing Danish hold on to it like the best gift he had received. It made her forgot all their smiles and sneers.

Dilshada was youngest of all her siblings. She chose not to continue her studies after matriculation despite insistence of her father. She was married to a wealthy farmer of the neighboring village. The three siblings had strong bonds. The brothers would often visit her since the villages were close to each other. Ashraf the younger brother was killed by unknown gunmen due to that Bashir decided to leave the village and put up in the nearest town. Bashir a senior clerk in the government, a deeply religious man was very concerned regarding the education of his children. The decision to leave the village was more due to better teaching facilities available in town, both religious and worldly, than the fear of losing his life.

After losing Ashraf and with Bashir shifting to town Dilshada felt lonely. But being a wise woman she soon coped up assuaging herself that it was a good decision after all and went on with her life. Everything was good for some years, they would still visit each other as much as the time allowed. They met when it was someone`s marriage in the village or other such functions. But a few years later due to vagaries of weather, market rates going down like never before economic condition of Dilshada`s family started to deteriorate as her family’s soul income was through agriculture. As a result husband tried his luck in other businesses only to fail in them. They had to sell some land too to pay off debts and future investment. Aamir her only child had to temporarily leave studies to look after whatever of the land was left as his father tried other avenues in city with a pact that no more land will be sold. Dilshada was thankful to Almighty as she had seen other people in the village going through worse.

Sitting on the porch of her house today sipping Nun Chai, staring into the air,taking deep breaths every now and then it was clear something was bothering her. Dilshada had made many congratulatory visits to her brother`s family for various academic successes of his children but they had come only once when Aamir passed matriculation with good marks. But that was many years ago and with Aamir leaving studies, even though temporarily, it seemed she didn’t have any more Mubaraks to receive.. She wasn’t envious of her brother infact she was very happy to see the success of her brother as a father and that his leaving the village did not go waste. But there was one thing that bugged her. It had been three months or more since she heard the good news and yet she could not visit her brother. When they were rich her husband Javid will insist her on giving expensive gifts and cash, ask his contacts in the city to get the best bakery whenever she wished to visit any of her relatives. But the situation had changed. Suffering so many losses had made Javid irritable and Dilshada did not wish to make life more difficult for him with demands which she wasn’t used to making anyway. She could sense his helplessness from his face when he came home after weeks. She had raised chicken as a hobby as well as to take care of some of the household expenditure. Last time when Danish got selected for engineering she had sold all the eggs and somehow managed the fare to town and back home. She had a few hundred rupees saved over time and to make it over five hundred she took along the only rooster she had in her coop.

This time she could only manage the fare. “But to go there empty handed?” She thought to herself, “Boitouth won’t mind but Beauty Ji. She is a good woman but not an angel. I shouldn’t go at all. But Beauty Ji will feel I am jealous of her children`s success. But she knows how much I love the kids. Maybe she will feel I have changed. I probably could never be able to meet them ever again. She won`t let the kids visit me. But they wouldn’t believe her. They love me. I will visit them anyway. No, I can`t.” These thoughts were bouncing around her mind.

As she sipped pink salted sea she was thinking about her family, her dead parents and her brothers. How she had lost his brothers, one to bullets and another she might lose to her own poverty. How her brother Bashir reminded of her mother`s eyes and how Danish`s voice was so much like Ashraf that when she talked to him on her husband’s phone she felt she was talking to Ashraf. But now she will have no connection with them, she will be forgotten. She will have no relatives to visit and no one will visit her. While she was lost in these depressing thoughts she heard Ashraf`s voice

“Dil Didi”

“But he didn’t call me Didi”, she thought

Now a female voice

“Dil didi. Asalamu alaikum “

It was Sana and Danish.

Before she could reply the Salam Danish said,”Did you not even hear the gate open?”

“No”, she said as he opened her arms with a warm smile.

Both the children hugged her as tears of joy streamed down her cheeks.

“We were waiting for you to come then we wondered if you are alright so we decide to visit”,Sana said still in tight hug of her Aunt.

She didn’t reply back just hugged them tighter.

Dilshada was proven wrong. There were no questions no enquiries or complaints as to why she didn’t come.

“Thanks to the right guidance and right values imparted by her brother to his children” she thought brimming with pride.

She was holding hope, the future in her arms.

But soon her eyes dried and the silence overtook her again thinking about all the Dilshadas living in villages like her whose nephews and nieces will not be like hers who will have lost their brothers and sisters either to death or just because of their financial situation.

Author Waseem Wani