Mehnaz Jafri Creative Cartoonist: December 2011

Saturday, December 17, 2011

The Magic of Faith & Belief - The Return

It was late in the evening a dark and semi lit empty street, not so remote, but quite so chilly weather out there in the atmosphere, when I was walking way back home from work. I was in my midst of some random thoughts, my day's tiredness, my future task to be done, and a bit of irrelevant thinking of no where, was walking the lane down towards my home sweet home hanging down my hand bag, for a while. When suddenly i noticed a biker coming towards me and slowing down, politely i thought he must be a normal simple person asking for some address to some place, i stopped by or rather i would say slowed down to give him a chance to ask me his address, to where he was going, but nevertheless, i realized that he was not a noble man, but rather a crook, a thief or i'd prefer putting it in the exact terms of a "Highway thief". Anyways he came near me, and all of a sudden without even me guessing, or knowing he gripped hold of my handbag snatching it off racing his bike he flew off the scene, leaving me all there standing blank...i was dumbfounded, its not about the money, lunch box, or water bottle, but my office ID card which i was worried how would i login the next day, as for my ATM card which was in my wallet could not be easily hacked by the stupid crook, cause that was immediately blocked. At that very moment i was perplexed to being so jeopardized in my scary thoughts, to my emotional attachments with the things kept in my hand bag to my favourite froggy wallet gifted by my favourite cousin sister, feeling scared and sad, i quickly quickly for a moment said a small prayer inside my heart and kept on repeating it word by word which actually means - what ever is lost, will only comeback to you if its yours, else its gone to God, or the needy person- the original words are in arabic so here i am writing it in Roman script " Inna lillahi wa inna illahi rajiuun " this means from Allah we come and to Allah we return, now this simplydoesn't mean just for death, it means what ever precious thing you have in life comes to you by the grace of God and goes away from you to God, so just say it once in your heart when ever you loose something and if God willing it will come back to you. Saying this once iI stood there waiting for my father to come, swiftly within no time he came in a red car, and quickly i jumped in, to report the F.I.R (first information report) in the nearby police station, verily i went in and did the important things. Came home, felt scared and tensed, my mother howled at me, not to come late in the evening at this time that too from a deserted area, and says no more of working out there, instead stay home and do your freelancing. But my line demands me to move out and be in the office till the office hours, which is 6:30 pm can't leave before that, yes it was my fault i should not have stopped for him, i should not have hanged my bag down, i should not have come from that scary deserted lane, which i never will ever. Never ever will i come from there, instead take a private public cab or rather in the local terms called as " the auto rickshaw " and will try to leave..thinking all these words, the incident horrifying one, tears started rolling down my eyes...for long making them red swollen my nose red, and tears still coming out. I stayed in the washroom till late crying over the issue, not that i lost my handbag, but the kind of cage this incident put me in, the kind of bandage this thing gave me, that its never safe for any one especially a women to travel alone late in the evenings, this was just a mere small minor robbery, but what if anything big happen i am still scared and worried about it :( came out then and had dinner went of to bed late in the night after 1 am. In the morning was not in the mood to get up early, nor, go to office was still in the trauma of this incident when my mother called me that my bag was found i thought it was the work of our police, but no it was poor innocent hard working MCH (muncipal corporation workers) garbage pickers who saw my bag thrown into a near by grass area of a holy mosque, i found my Office id, my blocked atm card, my water bottle my favourite froggy wallet and the important cards intact except for the loose change, headsets, my pen drive and my lunch box to be missing. This was the time i realized that prayer, belief which at that time i said and saw the result, my precious things were sent back to me by God via those innocent people. Such is the power of faith and belief, which I realized it today in the morning.