May 11, 2008	Sunday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 5, 1429

KARACHI, May 10: “For me, my mother is everything. She is the one who accepted me and continues to love me without bringing in consideration my mistakes,” says Naheed (name changed upon request) with tear-filled eyes. “She is the one who visits me in jail and takes care of my 11-year-old son,” she adds.

Wearing a sky-blue shalwar qameez with a dupatta wrapped around her head, with one tooth missing from her upper jaw, Naheed, 35, sits with her hands folded before her. She has been imprisoned for the past 10 years and hopes to be released this year on parole. While the rest of the family has severed ties with her, it is only Naheed’s mother who pays her brief visits in prison, bringing along her young son.

Life for her has not been smooth. She and her husband were convicted in a kidnap for ransom case. Naheed, who is afraid of the life that awaits her outside prison, plans to move out of Karachi to her hometown to find a new beginning in life for herself and her son in particular.

“My five sisters rarely come to see me, while everyone else, including my younger brother, has disowned me.

In fact, some of my family members said they would shoot me as soon as I step out of prison, while others think I will leave a bad impression on their family if I stay in touch with them,” Naheed says, pouring her heart out amid tears.

Apart from that, her only son asks her probing questions as to why she is in prison and why she never fulfils her promise of coming home soon. She says his innocent questions leave her quite disturbed and she wonders what she could do to make up for the years when her son needed her and she was locked up away from him in prison.

“My son is studying in one of the area schools. He once told his teacher and classmates to pray for me. His teachers are nice and they care for him more than before, after they found out about me,” she says. Naheed’s son was only a year old when she, along with her husband, was arrested. “I am a mother and therefore my heart cries for my son. I long to be with him; to take care of him and to see him play and eat before my eyes. But I can’t do anything about it,” she laments.

‘One day is too short’

Naheed believes that “one day is too short to pay respect to a mother who has accepted me (despite) everything that has happened.” Though she recalls that her father loved her more than her mother, it was only after she gave birth that she realised what being a mother meant. “The process of giving birth attaches the mother to the child in such a special way that every painful and troublesome moment in a child’s life is felt by the mother,” she says. She remembers her mother every moment and thinks that without her, her son’s life would have been miserable.

“I used to dislike it when my mother used to chide me as a child. Yet when I had a child of my own, only then did the realisation dawn on me as to why parents are always concerned about your actions and life in general,” she says with a smile. Now she thinks back and recalls how easily her mother used to solve all her problems with her siblings in moments. “A home is a home till there is a mother there to love you and take care of all the children alike,” she says.

“My son is very talkative and used to be weak in his studies. He stayed with me in prison for the first four years. But now, with the help of tuition, he is doing well. But he is still unsure of what he wants to be when he grows up,” she says with a twinkle in her eye as she mentions her son.

Naheed wishes to serve her mother as soon as she gets out of prison. She thinks her mother has endured more than enough just because of her love for her and wants to put her in no further trouble.

As far as her son is concerned, Naheed thinks it is better for his future if they migrate to another city. “I don’t want my life to affect my son’s. He is an innocent child. He has nothing to with what I have done and therefore he deserves a life like all other children in the world, and I will make sure he gets it, whether I have to wash dishes in someone’s house or mop the floor,” she says assertively.

While Mother’s Day – which is being observed today – is a day on which children express their love for mothers, Naheed hopes to celebrate the next Mother’s Day with her son in a new world that scares her, but which she yearns to become part of.