The calls of the Mullah had ceased. She knew that everyone in the neighbourhood would be immersed in deep prayer. But she could not on that day.
She smiled involuntarily when she thought of the smile that erupted on her daughter’s face the first time she tasted the food that she was now preparing for the umpteenth time. She knew she would receive and waited with impatience to get that smile yet another time that evening.
Her daughter was living what to her was a dream too lofty to be even dreamt about. As she slowly lowered the meat balls dipped in batter into the simmering oil a dark cloud drifted to her face when her memories passed over that day, which now after twenty years still found her shivering and sleepless, when prayers and calls that filled the air to bring peace to the soul of her husband acted as swords that pierced her mind. Belief in god was lost on that day when she was rudely thrown onto the streets of life with a wailing child in hand with not a support and none to accompany.
But years after when her child held aloft an admit card to a reputed college of the city and a paper promising her a handsome scholarship, she involuntarily thanked the heavens for that which she considered as the greatest blessing of her life. Since then she immersed herself in deep prayers for that bright eyed creature that she brought into this world. Her life depended on her and her days revolved around hers.
She immediately woke up from her thoughts and looked at the watch. She hastened her movements. She had to finish cooking. It was to be her special surprise.
The noise that seemed to move closer to her courtyard and that ultimately seemed to have stopped near it froze her. She stood rooted to the spot oblivious to the fact that the hot oil was burning her hands which were dangerously close to it.
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The onlookers looked on with horror. No one knew who was to blame or what circumstances played the villain. A speeding bus, a sight all too common in the city where no one seemed to have the precious commodity of time, threw out yet another student that week.
The still body that showed no signs of blood kindled the hope of the girl being alive in the minds of the travellers. A few from the crowd who could think straight after witnessing an event such, rushed towards the girl. A man lifted her head to find a better position for her.He was first curious and then shocked at the moistness that was felt on the cloth of the girl’s customary religious headgear. He stifled a scream when he saw his hand, on retrieval, smeared with blood. Being a doctor, what the blood spelled was out all too clear to him. To the surprise of the crowd he suddenly slowed down in his movements and then reached out for a phone to call an ambulance without haste.
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A filled plate remained untouched that day and wails remained sans sound. Buses continued to kill people finding accomplices in the other vehicles, small or big and men continued in their rush towards the unseen, in that city which claimed lives, young and old alike, without remorse. But not the man running to his office to be on time in order to impress his boss neither the woman who was cursing her bus for passing too slow in order to make her late for her meeting nor the man who was careful to slow down at the sight of a camera which was to record all speeding vehicles and not the crowd of people who thronged the city centres and streets could answer the question of this mother, not alone, “Who am I to blame?”
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