Jannat

It was too late for Javeda, she was rushing to the bus stand. One more day, she is going to be late in her office. She was carrying a handbag and an umbrella with her, as the sky was prepared to shower the rain at any moment.

“If you come late tomorrow again, I’ll fire you…this time, for sure”, she remembered what her boss had told her yesterday. He is a man with a golden heart, and that’s why he has granted all the lame excuses Javeda gave to him for the past month. Actually, he knows well what is going in her life. He will never ask her to do anything against her wish.

Javeda has broken up with her long term lover, on the day of her nikaah, the wedding. She was unaware of his coward nature. She came to know that his family has told him not to marry a girl like Javeda, who can’t be a mother any day in her life. They demanded their house in exchange for that wedding. It was unknown to Javeda, and when she learned about the fact, she canceled the marriage.

“You can’t be a mother anytime, and, better you know the fact, you can’t be a wife, too. Because nobody would agree to get wed a girl like you, who is unable to give birth a child!”, said Farhan, his so-called lover, who had promised her once to hold her hand for the whole life. How heartless a person can be?? That night, Javeda cried a lot in her room, alone. How anyone can be so rude, to spell such harsh words in front of her? “If you are there, bless me a child…I want to be a mother, I want to embrace my child, too, like my Ammi”, said Javeda to the almighty.

That night had affected her mother severely. She was caught by a major heart attack and was admitted in the hospital right after the cancellation of the marriage. Though she has survived, she is being treated in the hospital for her recovery. And Javeda goes to see her every morning before her office, this is the reason why she becomes late every day in her office.

“I am too late today”, she thinks while running towards the stand. It’s her mom, for whom she is late today, again. Her mom told her to wear saree today, as it’s been long after the day of her wedding, she has never seen her daughter in saree. Javeda doesn’t like to wear saree, except on any occasion. But her mom insisted her to come wearing a saree today. She kept her promise.

Suddenly, she stops. What is going on there? She approaches the front of the temple. There is a crowd who are shouting at the priest. As she goes closer, she came to know from the conversation, there is a newborn baby found in the temple premise today morning. Nobody knows the mother or any family member of the baby. Whose child is this? This is the question blowing everyone’s mind.

Javeda goes to the gate. She couldn’t see anything from there. The crowd is planning to hand over the child to the local police station. But Javeda became anxious about the baby. She searches for the baby, but she couldn’t find. She looks around. Suddenly, she heard a cry. She searched where the sound is coming from, and she found the baby is crying behind a big stone, near the gate. Nobody is taking the child on the lap. Javeda goes to the baby and takes the child on her lap. Everyone became surprised there. Javeda looks at the baby, it’s a beautiful girl, just like an angel. And to be surprised, as soon as she takes her on the lap, she stopped crying. The priest comes to her. 

“What are you doing?? You are taking her in your arms?? This is against our ritual. You can’t do this…who are you??”, said the priest.

Javeda said nothing. She is looking at the child and smiling at her. The baby is smiling, too. Javeda forgets her pain looking at her face.

“I said, who are you to take her in your arms?? How dare you to touch a Hindu baby?? I am telling you, keep her on the ground, and leave the place. Go!”, he shouts.

-“I will go, and I will take her with me”.

Everyone became shocked. The priest asked,

“You know the baby? You know her mother?”

-“Yes, I know her.”

-“Who’s she?? Where she lives??”

Javeda embraced the child, and said,

-“Here.”

Nobody understands what she said. The priest asked her, “Here?? Where is she?? If she is present here, then why she is not coming in front of us??”

-“She is in front of you all. I am her mother”.

Everyone becomes shocked. A man comes to her, and asked,

“Have you gone out of your mind? You are a Muslim, and the baby is found in the temple premise. She is a Hindu!! How could you say that you are her mother??”



The baby was feeling uneasy with the sunshine. Javeda hides the Sun for her, with her saree. She turns to the crowd, and said,

“A mother can’t be a Hindu, a mother can’t be a Muslim. A mother is the one, who loves her baby without knowing anything else. A mother has no religion, she has no name at all. I am her Ammi, I am her Maa. And, she is my daughter… ‘Jannat’.”