Morality Undefined

I woke up to loud voices and crying. It was a cold December night. The road filled with the sounds of loud old trucks and cling clang of mini buses. I had left EME College to go home; the closest place where one could get a bus for Lahore is right next to where the motorway begins its called “Motorway moorh”. The buses with a few empty places used to stop there for passengers to squeeze out the maximum profit from the trip. The buses were mostly shabby, if you were lucky you might get into a new or a well kept one. I had dozed off while waiting for my usually empty but well kept bus to fill up.

There is a man standing in the aisle a little up ahead from my seat. He is standing next to a woman, who shouts and tries to shelter the little girl next to her as the man pulls at the little girls arm to get her out of her window seat while the woman is trying to push her back in the seat. I don’t speak Pasto but anger and emotions are a universal language that does not need words. All three of them were Pastoons their faces red with emotion and maybe because of the tug of war they were playing. The little girl appeared in pain from the iron grips of the man and woman. While the bus was relatively empty, there were many stunned faces looking on at the commotion going on.

The man in his grey chador, beard and Gilgiti cap fits the “modern” definition of a miscreant perfectly. The woman tries to keep her chador in place as she pulls back on the little girl’s arm. The little girl whom I doubt was even in her teens is whimpering. I sit stunned and then look around for the conductor or driver to intervene both of them are not in the bus. The driver probably out for a smoke and the conductor to coax in more passengers. The man hits the woman across her face the sound muffled by her chador. The slap has a rippling effect and suddenly everyone snaps back to reality. A man gets up and starts walking down the aisle towards the hitter. I notice another figure make a quick exit out of the bus. The presence of another man in the aisle is noticed by the hitter and he stops shouting but keeps his grip on the girls arm. The woman doesn’t stop trying to loosen the hitter’s fingers from the girl’s wrist.

The other man who had firmly but slowly walked to the hitter was now standing a few seats away. He asks the hitter “Bhai why do you hit her” his voice devoid of any emotion obviously he was aware of the risk one runs by asking that question to a shady figure. Before the hitter could answer the conductor steps in the bus and quickly comes over to the troubled seats looking around trying to make out the situation before saying anything. He comes over and asks what’s going on to no one in particular. The woman suddenly speaks in her thick Pasto accented Urdu that the man is hitting her and trying to take her daughter. Suddenly it makes sense for everyone watching the man is trying to take away the woman’s daughter. All eyes turn to the man more questions come to mind; who is he and how could he dare to do such a thing in public? The hitter comes to his defense his Urdu far better than that of the woman. He says the little girl is his daughter and the woman is trying to take her to Lahore because she wants to sell her off.

Astonished, have I heard it right? Surely, this does not happen in real life. This situation definitely belongs in some movie that one enjoys only because the line between reality and fiction is clear and real. The movies that sometimes make our imagination go wild with the lure of danger but our souls are unburdened by the violence we see. It is not real, we assure ourselves when the movie becomes too real. But this was real.

The shocked look on the other faces around me confirms that I have heard it right the hitter did accuse the woman of taking his daughter and that the wants to sell off the little girl. “He is a liar, and he hit me,” says the woman with distress. The conductor now turns to the man and tells him to leave the bus because it was not the conductor’s problem. The man then tries desperately to make his case pleading that he speaks the truth. The woman continues crying I can hear her sob in between the awkward silence as the man tries to reason with the conductor. Suddenly it is confusing again. I look at the little girl for the first time since the conductor walked in. She is crying, still standing because the man’s grip on her arm doesn’t let her sit down. I notice black eyeliner smeared under her eyes from her tears. Her lips red with lipstick, which go with her dress and her chador. Why is this little girl pretending to look older?

Every few moments the she tries to jerk her arm away from the man. She looks confused her eyes pleadingly looking at the hitter the hitter continues to reason with the conductor. When the conductor refuses to let him get off with the little girl. The man suddenly lets go of the little girl’s arm and says that he will leave the bus if the conductor throws the woman and the girl out too. I do not know whether the conductor had already decided to throw the woman and the girl out, but he agrees immediately.

The hitter now walks to the door of the bus and waits there as the conductor than begins to coax the woman out of the bus. The woman pleads but stops after her second attempt to reason with the conductor. I wonder if she knew something that I missed but she grabbed a black canvas bag and got up to leave. The hitter now stood outside at the side of the bus waiting and watching for them to come out. The woman leads the girl out of the bus by her hand. Only when the girl steps in the aisle that I see she is all in red even her shoes. The dull fluorescent light reflects off the shiny material of her clothes and gives the red a dark hue.

The reality of the situation isn’t that real anymore. I can see them outside arguing, the woman stood in between the man and the little girl while passersbys continued to stop to listen and watch. I saw a few smirks in the crowd. I heard nothing except the rumble of the engine and the chatter. Then the three moved away maybe because of the crowd gathering or maybe they had reached a mutual decision. They slowly break through the crowd the woman in the front holding the girls hand and the man following. I crane my neck to see but they are gone now. The bus soon filled and I went back to sleep.

This happened four years ago and until yesterday, I hadn’t ever given it any thought before. Here’s what weighs on my conscience what if God asks me on the day of judgment that he the lord, in the form of this incident had given me the opportunity to help the wronged or to stand up for the innocent. What would I say? I always believed that I am a just and honest person who will do the right thing when the time comes. What if the “time” came and went while I failed to see that it was my time. What really happened to that little girl? Did I even care?

Some might argue that I am over thinking it or that it wasn’t my fight or even that I was powerless, after all what could I have done. I have doubts about what I could have done, but for sure, one is not supposed to sit and watch while the life of a little girl is played with. Although I am not sure that the girl was really being sold or not but I am guilty of not finding out. What if she was being sold and I had stood and watched while it happened, me being as the part of the emotionless big bad world we all hate and always believe never to be a part off. Morality is such shady business.