BY Basit Farooq
The whole struggle of life is met into ashes when exams are scrapped for no fault of aspirants but someone from within the administrative corridors has been in habit of helping out students to get good grades in exchange of nothing but money”
My mother is sitting in kitchen waiting for me to come back from examination center where I am writing exams for my job/employment and for the better days I have promised my mother and she has raised and prepared me for despite all odds in her life ridden with poverty. I come back from center hoping to have done well and greet my mother with tears in my eyes that perhaps our days of gloom and struggle have come to an end. This gives my mother hope and respite from all the agonies she has borne alone. I have worked hard and given my every effort to preparations but I never knew it demanded more than that of being honest, dedicated and consistent.
It started with a painful decision when I after graduation had to make choice about leaving a job and preparing for exam. My mother had been working hard at a local Tailor-shop to help me meet my education expenses and never put any burden on me for the reason she wanted me to become educated and do a good job in Government sector. I had to endure all the pain I would feel by seeing my mother going to work at local tailor shop. Owner of this shop was kind to our family; he had been friend of my late father and thus could help our family that way only. There were ten other women like my mother working there to support their families. While other women had different reasons for them going to work my mother entirely had a different reason, she had hope in her eyes and her eyes reflected me for I had been doing well in academics and she being a matriculate in her own time had somehow understood that good grades in academics would mean getting a job after graduation. This thought made my mother happy every time she would miss my father and get affected by the humble condition of our family wealth and status wise. Her hope gave me courage but also made me fearful of facing a situation where I might not be able to make it to any job. I had nothing to do at home during my academic years but to guide my younger sibling in her studies and take a little care of her. My mother always wanted a good future for her, she being younger in age and thus immature to understand the difficulties my mother was going through financially would often demand stuff her friends in school would have, I remember my mother once sold her jewelry to help her live life at par with other school mates.
I completed graduation and one of my teachers was kind to have applied for my Masters scholarship in one of the reputed University in which I was selected. It thrilled me with joy but pursuing Masters would have meant letting my mother work for two or even more years and it was not acceptable to me hence I didn’t pursue. I never told my mother about masters for my education was the dearest thing to her in this world and she would have never supported me not pursuing it. I instead was waiting for posts to be advertised but my mother kept on working and it didn’t give comfort to my heart seeing my mother still working for she needed care and rest now owing to her age, people become strong with age they say but I had seen my mother getting weak and her sight in eyes was getting weak due to the work she as doing. I decided to work in nearby Departmental Store without letting my mother know of it, it was owned by the father of my batch mate so he knew me for the reason I had been helping his son in assignments and I thereby had an image of being a good student. He was kind to have let me work there, my batch mate was privileged enough to have pursued further studies. One fine Morning I was cleaning the screen of laptop in the shop and in reflection of which I saw my batch mate, he was leaving for Air-port as his Masters Degree was to start in the next month in the same University I had been given Scholarship in. It shook my whole body and I couldn’t even come out of the shop to have said bye to him. Disappointed with the situation God had put me into reminded me of one famous couplet of Wali Mohammad Wali Poetry`
“Muflisi Sab BahaarKhotihai-
MardkaEitbarKhotihai”
While I was working at this shop my mother knew i was going to my friends place to use his laptop for I had told my mother I was doing an online part time job and studying side by side so I slightly managed to earn for my family and more importantly for education of my younger sister and my mother would now go to the tailor shop occasionally. While i was in the habit of reading newspaper at this shop one fine day I read notification about posts getting advertised and told my mother about it. She would not let me move out now and I eventually had to give up on that job in the Departmental store and started preparing for exams. It wasn’t an easy journey for now all financial burdens were again on my mother and she instead of going to Tailor Shop brought a machine and started working at home. It would give me more energy to work hard for exams imagining good fortune for my family and if not anything at least easy days for my mother.
Preparing for exam took me one and half year as no examination was conducted and I had to undergo through lot of stress and home related issues but my mother kept praying for my success and I kept on working hard. I after appearing in exam and doing well was in the excitement of joining office; I had to wait for result and thus decided to join the same departmental store again not letting my mother know about it and told her about same online job on the pretext of which I convinced her to not work and thus she put this machine under a torn cloth and put it in the upper storey happily realizing I had finally managed to find job. I having joined the store would routinely read newspaper every morning to see if there is any update about my result. To my utter surprise and shock I read news that the question papers of the exam were already sold and that the whole recruitment process was to be scrapped. I didn’t tell my mother about the possible cancellation of exams for that would have left her nowhere other than in the middle of a tragedy.
Today when I am cleaning screen of the same laptop in this shop I see my batch mate coming back from the University with Masters Degree in his hand and on the other side of road my mother is seeing me working here in this shop. I went back home anticipating that my mother would be furious on having seen me working in that store, I on entering kitchen found her working. She had brought that machine again and started working for her dreams had gotten confined to the glass doors of the departmental store where I was working.
The author is a law graduate from University of Kashmir and can be reached at basitfarooq418@gmail.com
