I live at five star chowrangi
Javeria Nawed
Student of mechanical engineering
NED University of Engineering and Technology.
The idea of pouring out my grief-stricken experience at five star chowrangi occured to me when my boss asked me, “Where do you reside?”. I described my area and street number.
And my answer immediately impaired my vision. My thoughts began to wheel back to the encounter I had with a little girl, as I would call her, last thursday.
I was in my car, at five star chowrangi, lost in a stubborn conversation with my brother about the possiblity of using hexagonal nuts in door hinges. He wouldn’t approve of my notion when in fact I was graduating in mechanical engineering. I went red, and so did the signal. It was only then that I happened to notice a bystander towards my windscreen. A diminutive girl held a bunch of flowers in her hands, impatiently waiting for me to slide down the glass and allow her to begin her sales requests. Her bright honey eyes revolved around, pausing at my luscious gloss or on my favourite key chain hung to my bag.
I found myself attracted towards her features. Her olive complexion was no less than Ivian Lunasol, the winner of last year’s miss world contest. Only this little girl needed dozens of warm baths, followed by a few visits to my Aunt’s salon that claimed to “bring out the charming you”. Her thick brows were signalling me to listen to her curious words. God, she was so beautiful.
And before I could allow her into my territory, she dashed towards a civic, just adjacent to my car and began, “Baboo jee ye akhri guldasta bachaa hai ye baji k liye ly jao. Allah apko sadaa hansta muskurata rkhy.” Oh such meaningful statements from a girl of, say, six years old? My cousin who’s the same age cannot even decipher the meaning of this dialogue. Dolls and parties, pizzas and picnics are her only vocabulary.
But before someone could scoff her off, she suddenly rushed to the pavement where the rest of her family was waiting for her. I witnessed they were savouring on some kind of feast today, as their cheerful faces could tell.I swifly tilted my head to see what was the cause of such celebration. There it was, in a woman’s hand,portions of stale roti and handful of daal. The little girl gobbled the morsels her mother (the woman) gave her.
And then I witnessed someting my brain refused to register. The little girl hurriedly went to an isolated corner (according to her understanding, I would put it, because this was a crowded chowrangi with people and vehicles everywhere) and took off her shalwaar. There, my eyes saw it, she defecated. When she was done, she used the “cleanest” part of her shabby attire to scrub herself.
There I was in my cultus, unable to breath, my nerves dead and my eyes black. Paralyzed. I was reduced to a pile of rubble. Rubble of my desires and degrees. Of my passion and dreams. Of my egos and luxuries. I was certainly not a human, because had I been one, I would have done something. Anything. To give her the dignity she deserves, to plunder my pride and to tell the world that humanity is still alive.
But, alas, our dilapidated conscience.
This was five star chowrangi, trenched with the misery of men whose voices will never be heard. Unless we evolve to become human beings.
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