Chapter 2 SLAVERY

I must get my soul back from you; I am killing my flesh without it. - Sylvia Plath.

Darkness was settling around the plain sky. It was time to cease labour. People from all walks of life were returning to the various homes. Iqbal happened to be at home. He was released on time. As a child after his father's heart, Masih, his father loved and entrusted his cattle into his care.

They were grazing in an open field at a distance. Iqbal set to herd them. The horizon can't drain of colour without him bringing them home for the night.

Story-telling was a common entertainment in their family. Masih was good at storytelling. He could spellbind the whole community. He mostly talked about Pakistani's independence. The glory days of the past national heroes. The Arab folks. And so on!.

Iqbal remembered the story he had told them. It was a horrific story. A story of a certain man who was working in his field one evening, when someone came and offered to help him.

The man accepted his offer, but after a while, the farmer looked at the man's feet and saw that they were the feet of a donkey. Paralyzed by fear, he started running and he didn't stop until he reached the rim of the village.

At the edge of the village, he met another man who comforted and asked him what had happened in the field, and he said that a human-like creature had appeared to him whose feet were the feet of a donkey.

The man said to him: "like my feet," and the farmer looked and saw that the man had the feet of a donkey. He search for the amulet he made with a bone and fur of a wolf but it was nowhere to be found. So he took up to his heels. It was a belief that such a bestial creature keeps an arm's length away from a wolf.

The Pakistanis claimed that wolves have power over the monstrous creature known as Mukhfi whenever they appear in physical form, and they can attack and devour them.

And strangely enough, the Mukhfi can take form as a snake, a black cat, a sheep or even a black dog. Hence the villagers often wear an amulet containing something from the wolf because they believe that the Mukhfi flees from the scent of wolves.

But this night was different. A heavy silence hung in the air. Masih and Anayat sat in a corner. Iqbal could see darkness roaming around his family. And he heard someone sniffing in tears. He listened carefully to perceive it was a household voice - his mother's!

It depressed him because as a child he had grown with the belief that if a woman broke into tears when a man is there then she must have seen no hope in the situation swallowing up the man.

For the first time, Iqbal could see his mother face to face with a problem to which tomorrow was no response. It also cost him his freedom and future as a child.

Iqbal shovelled his legs waiting for the next button to be pressed. Masih wrapped up himself straight in his wooden armchair. He seemed to fill his throat with many words. Suitable words for that matter! He then finally made an effort to speak.

'Iqbal!'

'Yes, father.'

Silence fell again. But this time, it was a tap. Maybe Masih was rebooting himself to break the earthen pot of silence. Iqbal had already perceived that something went wrong somewhere but he couldn't tell what really was the matter.

'Son, you'd be a boy to Ghullah for a meantime.' Masih's voice rang the darkness.

There was no more talk. The night was wordless like a dead bird. Iqbal felt like he was stuck in a rut. The look in his eyes was blank and not chalked out.

It would be a cry in the wilderness for one to stand on ceremony to tell if he was down in the mouth or chime with the development. But his nose was wrinkled up. Was it an apprenticeship? How long would it last? No definite time for freedom!

Iqbal, a child of five years worked in a carpet factory. Before then, his mother Anayat needed money for surgery. So she took out a loan from a carpet factory owner called Ghullah. And the loan or 'peshgi' was in Iqbal's name, and that is to say, Iqbal owed six hundred Rupees.

Now a free-born Iqbal became a debt slave to Ghullah until the debt is paid. Iqbal oftentimes is been dragged through the narrow streets to a carpet factory as the sun rose. Ghullah even made sure the little boy never blink eyes while at work and he was not well-fed. And consequently, he grew thinner that one could read his ribs.

Toils and sweats paused every day as the sunset. Iqbal closed from work and wearily trudged home. This evening his body was heavy. His eyes too were heavy with sleep. He collapsed into bed and fell asleep. But then sleep wouldn't come to relieve him.

The more he tried to enjoy his sleep the more he wanted to forget his life because he was only conscious of restlessness and servitude. Even in the dreamland, he couldn't find rest. Perfect rest! Sometimes his master Ghullah woke him around midnight. Indeed, his life cut a sorry figure!

'We have a carpet delivery that has to be finished. Come on, get up.' Gullah woke him by a blow from the carpet fork. The little lad startled from his sleep and reluctantly followed him in obeisance to his workplace.

The Raja bazaar was a market in the hearts of many souls. There was no manner of things one can't see in the market. If one isn't penny-wise he could spend all his life savings in the market.

The crow side of it is that the market was a very dirty place full of buzzing flies, while the stench of humanity hung in the air like a heavy cloud. And yet, different feet stamped in and out, at a stretch like safari ants.

'Subha Bakher!' Iqbal greeted a passerby in Urdu, with his head bowed and the hand placed over the heart.

'Aap kaisay hain?'

'mai theek hoon, shurkiya.'

'Aap ka din acha guzre. Have a beautiful day!'

'Khuda Hafiz Kehna. God be with you!'

The man whom Iqbal greeted returned a few minutes later with a bowl of rice served with lobia daal - tasty black-eyed peas curry.

He gave the starving little boy a smile and the bowl of food. Iqbal returned the smile and accepted it without hesitation. He was about to eat without having his hands washed. Ghullah, his master showed up on his dark brown old blind horse and took the food away from the lad.

'Why are you eating by this time? Are you through with your work?'

'Jee than!' Iqbal nodded.

'Resume your duty before I unleash hell on you!' Gullah roared. 'A slave has no rest until death or freedom.'

Iqbal walked away with tears blurring his eyes. He longed to taste good food. Stay healthy. And to regain liberty. But the road was extremely long to walk alone.