Stand Up Girl !



 I have written this story based on a true life incident experienced by my own best friend. 



 



“Oooan, Oooan, Oooan”. (The baby cries)



.”What is it Doctor?”



“Congratulations Hawwa, You have delievered a baby girl”.



 Ahhh! Thank you God! For listening to my wish and fulfilling it that I have given birth to a “Free Soul “ who will have all her rights in this puddle of mud. These were the words uttered from my mouth when Doctor Rabia gave me the news that I have delievered a baby girl. After the delivery, I was sent to my room in which there was a painting, hanging on the wall with a quotation from Paulo Coelho’s “Eleven Minutes” was engraved on it in  “Bold”



                                           



                                       O, Mary, conceived without sin,



                                        Pray for us who turn to you, Ameen



 



Tears suddenly dropped from my eyes as I read that quotation and unintentionally I started staring at the roof. After a while nurse Sana, who, in all this period of my staying in the hospital had now become my very good friend, entered the room along with a small bundle of cloth with something popping in it. She smilingly handed over that bundle to me. As soon as I hold that bundle, I felt a strange kind of feeling inside me. A feeling of completion or power. I felt as if I am the most sacred creature right now on this planet .As I looked at that popping thing, I came to realize that it was that “Guiding Angel” which Allah has now blessed me with, with which, through all this period of my self definition and struggle, has guided me and has lightened the gloomy and murky days of my life with hope. Who has always been there with me and shared all my tears and sorrows, which has every time dropped her pearl like tears with my every sob. Who has made me realize that I was not wrong and has committed no sin. I hold her more near to my face and slowly kissed her and received her “Smile” in response, which gave me more courage, and I felt proud on my decision of not losing her by abortion. Nurse Sana left me with my angel girl, who after a while went to sleep. I carefully placed her next to me and laid down. Now my mind had started searching for names.”Hina”,”No, too common.hmmmmmm, Fatima, Sundas, Sidra, Badar, Sarah, Zara, No, Then What…Ah, Yes, Salika Nisa.The same name which my mother forced my father for my name to keep but my father didn’t like it and had said”What? What kind of a foolish name is this? Firstly you have given birth to a girl and now you are insisting me to name her such a foolish and idiotic name.?”   And I still remember that my mother had said to my father that “How can you know the worth of this name as you are a MAN”. But, my father paid no heed on this point and ignored my mother’s  choice of name. My poor mother was a symbol of suppressed emotions and rights, and that, the most special and important day of her life too, she remained deprived of her rights .I was named Hawwa on my father’s choice. The Flashback of my birth brought tears along with it into my eyes and I finally decided to name my daughter “Salika Nisa” which means pure Woman (Pakeezah Aurat). With this decision, flashbacks of my gloomy days filled with intense pain and sufferings, began rolling in front of my eyes and I started to regret the day I fell in love with “Ali” and made the greatest sin of my life.



When we meet someone and fall in love, we have the sense that the whole universe is on our side. Every passing minute makes us believe that life is beautiful, love it and live it, and we girls, starts regarding this fantasy period or most properly said “Infatuation”, as “Love” and in doing so, makes the biggest mistake of our lives. We, forgets the “Real Selfless love” of our parents, their pride and expectations from us, and all we think about is “Ourselves and our Love”.



I did the same. I met Ali, when I was 18 and studying in second year and was interested in Biology.Embriology”s chapter was always my first priority to read and prepare for the exams, as my dream was to become a Gynecologist one day. I considered development of a baby in a dark womb of mother the most beautiful miracle of Allah but I was not aware of the dark future days to come in my life when I started hating even imagining about “Baby”.



      Ali was a very vivacious and loving person; always willing to do anything for me which use to make me love him more and more. One day he took me to a hotel and there he took my hand and proposed to me. That was the most beautiful and yet at the same time the most unfortunate moment of my life. At that instant, I felt like flying high above in the clouds. I told him about the chains of restrictions and problems of my family but he insisted me in such a way that I could not resist myself and hugged him tightly which was the sign of my approval of his proposal .He became so excited that he kissed on the forehead to make me realize that he really cared for me. When I was departing, he suddenly hold my hand and asked me to come with me at his place as he had kept a surprise for me there. I went with him by breaking all the moral chains of my family and forgetting the pride of my parents. I was so much in the fantasy of the past hour and had so much believe in Ali that not a single piece of my flesh shivered by going alone at his place. Time just flew and we arrived at Ali’s flat. It was 5:00pm by my watch and the winter season had invited the night early to come .We went upstairs and he took me to his room where I saw my picture in a frame. He presented me a ring and i got so flattered that I hugged him once again and that evil moment turned that devil on. He switched off the lights and I lost my virginity.



   After three hours, I felt like in heaven and felt like a complete woman. I took a shower,Ali was sleeping ,I woke him up and  asked him to drop me at my place.After an hour I was in my TV lounge with my parents,not giving them even a single clue athat their their pride  had beed humiliated .After two months  ,when I was  sitting on my bed and listening to Atif Aslam’s Adat,I felt nausea,I wnet to the bathroom and started vomiting.I felt strange because  it had never happened before but I ignored it and assumed it was the flu. I didn't mind because it helped me keep my weight down. It went on for about a month until I realized something was wrong. The school doctor didn't think anything of it, so he suggested me to see a local lady doctor. She asked me if I had been sexually active and I lied and said no, because I was kind of embarrassed. She did a bunch of tests but I didn't know what they were for. Then a while later she came back in and said "so are you sure your not sexually active? Because if not it looks like we're in for a virgin birth." I didn't know what to say! It took me a minute to realize that I was pregnant and that froze the time for few seconds. I got really scared but when I thought about Ali listening about his baby, I got happy and rushed home to tell him that I was pregnant. I called him but suddenly put down the phone and decided to tell him face to face to see his reaction on the arrival of our baby. I went to his place. When I told Ali that I was pregnant. Before I could speak he broke up with me. I told him that I was pregnant and the first thing that came out of his mouth was that it wasn't his and that he wasn't going to take care of it. My heart dropped and my throat just shut down. Time freezed again. It was 5:00 pm, the same time when I thought was the most important time of my life and today was the worst nightmare of my life.I asked him the reason for his behaviour but he pushed me out of his house and advised me to “Abort the trash”.I was shocked .That day I felt so lonely, afraid and anxious that I was never before.When I got home ,I looked at my parents who were asking me to sit with them and hav tea but I refused on the pretext of  headache and ran upstairs to my room.I cried and cried till my pillows  were soaked and my eyes bulged.I hated my self as I thought that it was I who let it happen.I cursed myself,hitmyself ,threw things on the floor but  the guilt increased more and more.I cursed Ali too.After an hour I decided to call him .I called him and told him that I will not abort the child and that he will give his name to the child and will also accept him or her to be his.I told him that if he will not  listen to me ,I will take him to the court  and will charge a case on him of Raping me.The next day as I was walking down home, absorbed in my thoughts,suddenly a Blue Parado came and stopped right infront of me.Six men came out of the car and grasped  me and put me into the car.They took me to some unknown dark place  where I was “Raped for continuously Five hours by all six ofthem”.When I came into my senses ,my whole body was aching .My body felt like torn into pieces and as if someone had been punching me forever. I  didn’t cried because I was shocked to the extent that my tears had dried.After sometime ,one of the man from them came to me and handed me the phone and asked me to talk to the person on the other side of it. When I said hello, the voice on the other side of the telephone dried my blood .The voice was of Ali’s .He Said to me



“Now do you know what Rape means? I  think now you would be satisfied completely because girls of your character deserve such behaviour.i never loved you. I used you to satisfy my desire and you were such a fool. This time you have been gang raped but if you will again tryu to threaten me, I sware that I will murder you. Bye FOREVER!.”



 I could never in my life imagine that such words could utter from his mouth about “ME”.One of the men dropped me on the main street and I went  home  completely shattered.I was shattered in my heart,in my soul and I  could not think of anything else but to die. I went home,my mother saw me in such a condition and then my parents came to know  what I have been through.My father got angry at me but after a while he too, started weeping infront of me.That was the first time in my life I saw my father weeping.It was really hard for me to bear such a situation because after all I was just a teenager.i broke down and startedcrying like a two year old.my mother dried my tears  and told me to have faith in Allah,what was passed was written to happen and that I could not change it,maybe that was the way through which  life wanted me to understand  myself,,life,time and most importantly to understand the real face of people.She told me that she and my father will support her and that advised me not to abort the child as that will be  even  a much bigger sin than the one Ali had done.She said to me “Hawwa!you are a woman and you are a woman not only because  you are to be used by the Man  one day but because you will make  the  specie of Man realize that although he has physical strength but a woman has a spiritual strength which a Man always lack. Men are no more than coward dogs who on the voice of their master gets scared. Woman is the real master of a man. Allah has created a man from a Woman. Though they can beat you up, shout at you, threaten you and yet they are scared to death of women. A woman has not come in this world to satisfy a man’s desires but she herself is a complete individual and has full rights to live a life of her choice. So Standup Girl! Standup Salika Nisa and show the world that you are not wrong and is as pure and clean as heaven’s water.”



      These words not only gave me courage but I saw that my father apologized to my mother for his behavior all through his life with her. I decided to give birth to my child for my child was innocent and had full right to live .I decided to give him or her every right and to teach her what my mother taught me that day and so I decided to name her Salika Nisa continued studying and with that I joined a newspaper in which I started writing awakening stories on feminism and I  made the woman  around the globe realize that Abortion can not solve the problem but instead abortion is the knife which slaughters a woman’s self esteem ,emotions  and flesh.



   Today, after becoming a mother and realizing the worth of parents and “Motherhood”, now I am a complete woman and one day my Salika Nisa will also make the world realize the worth and power of a Woman.



I  am  giving these  dreadful and horrifying pictures in my story to make all you women out there realize that don’t  kill your babies ,don’t  become a victim of   infatuation which only end in abortion. I, Hawwa Khan , salute the womanhood  from which GOD has created  every human being.These pictures are a proof  of many bitter realities and sad ending stories of life in this puddle of mud.



Paulo Coelho writes in his book:



                                                For I am the first and the last



                                          I am the venerated and the despised



                                           I am the prostitute and the saint



                                           I am the prostitute and the virgin



                                           I am the mother and the daughter



                                           I am the arms of my mother



                                           I am barren and my children are many



                                           I am the married woman and the spinster



                                           I am the woman who gives birth and she



                                                     Who never procreated



                                            I am the consolation for the pain of birth



                                                    I am the wife and the husband



                                          And it was my man who created me



                                             I am the mother of my father



                                               I am the sister of my husband



                                             And he is my rejected son



                                     For I am the shameful and the magnificent one



                           (Part of this poetry taken From Paulo Coelho’s Eleven Minutes Hymn to Isis,third or fourth century BC)  

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