A 19 year old in central jail, karachi, narrates her miseries to me and i quote.
"I was exasperated. I was depressed.
Depressed because of life.
Depressed by my life.
Depressed by the collective consciousness of the people that lived around me.
I was depressed.
I needed an escape.
Escape from all the meaningless rambles.
I was depressed.
I needed an escape.
Escape from all the meaningless rambles.
Escape from all the mind jittering chaos.
Escape from all the depression. But I didn’t know how. In fact I didn’t know any of my how’s and where’s and what’s. I just knew one thing; I was overwhelmed with emotions and was going to explode real soon, and when I do, I was just going to hurt the people around me; emotionally, and isolate and suffocate myself. And maybe hurt myself; physically.
My name is Dilkash. And I am a girl, and being born a girl was my biggest regret in life. In this male dominant society, young girls like me don’t stand a chance.
For as long as I remember, I was harassed, mocked, touched, abused, cursed, molested, fondled with and cussed upon by every male specie I came across. Not a new thing for a girl that was born amongst the lowest class of highly corrupted people where young children were made to watch the raunchy debauchery and immoral turpitude performed by their own family members.
Likewise, since the day I was born, I’ve seen the most gruesome of things that an average Muslim female can never envision, even in her wildest thoughts.
I was lanky, innocuous and bleak, and always wore shabby patched clothes on purpose to look unattractive. But beneath my irrevocably damaged mind, resided an audacious and restless girl who was an epitome of resilience, who contained exuberance within herself, who always fought to keep herself away from the physical pain her family and people around her had to offer, who had the ability to recover and fight away the tears that were brought upon by the same people. But then again, the girl that resided beneath me was always suppressed by the same people.
When I was a little child, I always craved to go to school. Every morning I used to see other boys and girls go to school. Some of them used to cry while getting out of their flats, some of them used to be too sleepy to notice where they were going, some of them used to shout and their parents used to drag them while beating their child’s crap out with things like prosthetic legs, crutches, flip flops, or sometimes used rolling pins with flour from the rotis’ still stuck to it. Sigh. These kids never knew what they had and what I didn’t.
I tried to convince my parents a number of times to admit me to a street school, but they were actually the worst excuse of being parents. My mother, my Ammo, was a narcissistic woman. Thought she was better than us. Delusional she was, absolutely delusional. Father always said school was an excuse for corrupting the minds of the young and making them bold at a young age, and sometimes things like “girls like you don’t need education!” Statements like these made me lose a little faith in humanity. Thankfully my parents got me tutor and I was homeschooled. I convinced Ammo, and she convinced Abba and well, Ironically, Abba was madly in love with Ammo.
My Abba was a violent stereotypic man that was involved in the supply of the finest hashish smuggled from Afghanistan, which of course made him a drug dealer and consumer at the same time which obviously led him to get involved in adultery at times, paid killings and lived a thug life. But adultery wasn’t only limited to just my father and my older brother, in fact my whole neighborhood was involved in this atrocious crime. Maybe this was the reason why my family never took any notice when I told them how I was daily harassed and mocked by the street men who had nothing better to do then mock the girls, older women, and even little school girls that passed by them.
Days passed by, and life became more complicated as I began to ensue towards my eighteenth. A year before I turned eighteen, Ammo died a painful death. She was diagnosed mouth cancer as a result of frequent intake of tobacco and beetle nuts. Ironic isn’t it? A woman who eat crap, but it wasn’t surprising for me. She smoked too. I always had a feeling it was going to cause her death, somehow.
After Ammo’s death, Abba was in agony and tedium of losing his wife, went nut job and started a killing spree and eventually one day, was gunned down in a police encounter. I did not mourn on their deaths. I wasn’t sad, not at all. In fact I was angry, furious and on the verge of a massive breakdown. I hated them for giving birth to me in the first place. I hated them for never giving me the happiness that I deserved and the mind peace that family members give to each other. But I tried my best to recover. I tried my best to start a normal life again. And I actually thought things would get better because I had a little faith in myself and my brother. I was wrong.
A dreadful day came when the Satan decided punk me. My brother, Dillbar; that ferocious beast put me up for a gamble in front of my eyes and lost me to a man twice my age. I was sacrificed. I saw my whole miserable life end right in front of me as I saw the filthy man making his one last move, which was taking me to his crib, forcibly. I peeked at my brother, one last time, hoping he would rescue his sister, or at least apologize, and I saw not even a single trace of guilt on his hideous face. That was the final blow for me. My life ended right there and I broke into a series of fits and tears which I contained in me for the past eighteen years of my life. Everything I had, just shattered and crumbled in front of my eyes. I was completely broken. My life was a complete waste. And it was about to end.
Hysteria took over me. I went numb in the shock. Everything around me went black. And I gained all my conscience, when I had a powerful jerk against a wall behind me. My head started to bleed; I had a 9 mm shotgun in my hand and a shot dead man on the floor with blood all over the place. I did not know how to react to this. I did not quite understand what had happened in the past few minutes. And before I could process it all, I was being carried away by the police attendants to what I suppose, was a police station.
The female and the male attendants tried to talk to me to calm me and but I was too traumatized. Not because of the fact that my parents were involved in adultery and drugs, not because of the fact that they died, not because of the abuse my neighbors had to offer me, not because of how my brother lost me in a gamble, not because of how earlier that day, he forcibly abused me, and not even because of how I killed that man unconsciously, but because of the fact that the girl that resided inside me was drowning in my tears. As if she was a minnow that was caught in a riptide. She began to drift out to the open sea, swimming towards her new, never ending unfathomed world. She wrapped my limbs, soaking me with dreams that I could never live in now. She was leaving me, forever. With a last look, she gave me a cheeky smile and said in a deep voice “I’m free now. And you’re free now. Stay strong and live for me, I know you can. I know you will. In heaven we shall meet, when it’s your time, but till then, you’re on your own.” And with those words, she drifted away into the light, proceeding towards the never land. She died, leaving me all alone in the melancholy strain. She left me isolated in this world to live by my own."
My name is Dilkash. And I am a girl, and being born a girl was my biggest regret in life. In this male dominant society, young girls like me don’t stand a chance.
For as long as I remember, I was harassed, mocked, touched, abused, cursed, molested, fondled with and cussed upon by every male specie I came across. Not a new thing for a girl that was born amongst the lowest class of highly corrupted people where young children were made to watch the raunchy debauchery and immoral turpitude performed by their own family members.
Likewise, since the day I was born, I’ve seen the most gruesome of things that an average Muslim female can never envision, even in her wildest thoughts.
I was lanky, innocuous and bleak, and always wore shabby patched clothes on purpose to look unattractive. But beneath my irrevocably damaged mind, resided an audacious and restless girl who was an epitome of resilience, who contained exuberance within herself, who always fought to keep herself away from the physical pain her family and people around her had to offer, who had the ability to recover and fight away the tears that were brought upon by the same people. But then again, the girl that resided beneath me was always suppressed by the same people.
When I was a little child, I always craved to go to school. Every morning I used to see other boys and girls go to school. Some of them used to cry while getting out of their flats, some of them used to be too sleepy to notice where they were going, some of them used to shout and their parents used to drag them while beating their child’s crap out with things like prosthetic legs, crutches, flip flops, or sometimes used rolling pins with flour from the rotis’ still stuck to it. Sigh. These kids never knew what they had and what I didn’t.
I tried to convince my parents a number of times to admit me to a street school, but they were actually the worst excuse of being parents. My mother, my Ammo, was a narcissistic woman. Thought she was better than us. Delusional she was, absolutely delusional. Father always said school was an excuse for corrupting the minds of the young and making them bold at a young age, and sometimes things like “girls like you don’t need education!” Statements like these made me lose a little faith in humanity. Thankfully my parents got me tutor and I was homeschooled. I convinced Ammo, and she convinced Abba and well, Ironically, Abba was madly in love with Ammo.
My Abba was a violent stereotypic man that was involved in the supply of the finest hashish smuggled from Afghanistan, which of course made him a drug dealer and consumer at the same time which obviously led him to get involved in adultery at times, paid killings and lived a thug life. But adultery wasn’t only limited to just my father and my older brother, in fact my whole neighborhood was involved in this atrocious crime. Maybe this was the reason why my family never took any notice when I told them how I was daily harassed and mocked by the street men who had nothing better to do then mock the girls, older women, and even little school girls that passed by them.
Days passed by, and life became more complicated as I began to ensue towards my eighteenth. A year before I turned eighteen, Ammo died a painful death. She was diagnosed mouth cancer as a result of frequent intake of tobacco and beetle nuts. Ironic isn’t it? A woman who eat crap, but it wasn’t surprising for me. She smoked too. I always had a feeling it was going to cause her death, somehow.
After Ammo’s death, Abba was in agony and tedium of losing his wife, went nut job and started a killing spree and eventually one day, was gunned down in a police encounter. I did not mourn on their deaths. I wasn’t sad, not at all. In fact I was angry, furious and on the verge of a massive breakdown. I hated them for giving birth to me in the first place. I hated them for never giving me the happiness that I deserved and the mind peace that family members give to each other. But I tried my best to recover. I tried my best to start a normal life again. And I actually thought things would get better because I had a little faith in myself and my brother. I was wrong.
A dreadful day came when the Satan decided punk me. My brother, Dillbar; that ferocious beast put me up for a gamble in front of my eyes and lost me to a man twice my age. I was sacrificed. I saw my whole miserable life end right in front of me as I saw the filthy man making his one last move, which was taking me to his crib, forcibly. I peeked at my brother, one last time, hoping he would rescue his sister, or at least apologize, and I saw not even a single trace of guilt on his hideous face. That was the final blow for me. My life ended right there and I broke into a series of fits and tears which I contained in me for the past eighteen years of my life. Everything I had, just shattered and crumbled in front of my eyes. I was completely broken. My life was a complete waste. And it was about to end.
Hysteria took over me. I went numb in the shock. Everything around me went black. And I gained all my conscience, when I had a powerful jerk against a wall behind me. My head started to bleed; I had a 9 mm shotgun in my hand and a shot dead man on the floor with blood all over the place. I did not know how to react to this. I did not quite understand what had happened in the past few minutes. And before I could process it all, I was being carried away by the police attendants to what I suppose, was a police station.
The female and the male attendants tried to talk to me to calm me and but I was too traumatized. Not because of the fact that my parents were involved in adultery and drugs, not because of the fact that they died, not because of the abuse my neighbors had to offer me, not because of how my brother lost me in a gamble, not because of how earlier that day, he forcibly abused me, and not even because of how I killed that man unconsciously, but because of the fact that the girl that resided inside me was drowning in my tears. As if she was a minnow that was caught in a riptide. She began to drift out to the open sea, swimming towards her new, never ending unfathomed world. She wrapped my limbs, soaking me with dreams that I could never live in now. She was leaving me, forever. With a last look, she gave me a cheeky smile and said in a deep voice “I’m free now. And you’re free now. Stay strong and live for me, I know you can. I know you will. In heaven we shall meet, when it’s your time, but till then, you’re on your own.” And with those words, she drifted away into the light, proceeding towards the never land. She died, leaving me all alone in the melancholy strain. She left me isolated in this world to live by my own."
