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The newspaper girl
The long, yellow shadows of the lantern fell on her face as she tugged her mother’s dupatta. “Mother please, I need to get the Urdu book today, please… Khadija snatched her dupatta’s end from her daughter’s hands. “Alina, stop irritating me. I have a dinner to prepare.
The door of the two-room house creaked as Ghaffar Mian stepped in. His face was weary and lined with the worries any meagrely paid bricklayer might have. Ghaffar slipped down against the wall. Khadija hurriedly walked to her husband, taking off his shoes. Alina followed her mother.
Despite a long day at work, Ghaffar’s face lit up in a smile.
“How is my dear daughter, and how did your school go on today?” he asked.
“School was fine, Father dear,” Alina replied quickly as her gaze fell on the deep calluses on Ghaffar’s hands.
As the family of three finished their modest supper, a meal of thin lentil soup and wheat bread, Alina silently resolved not to ask father for money. The Urdu book could wait. But … Ms Tasleem would insult her again … Everyone would laugh at her … No there had to be a way.
As Alina looked out of the window that night, she sunk her face in her hands, praying to God like mother had taught her so many years ago.
“Oh God, please. You are the most merciful of all. Show me the right way … Bless my father and my mother and me … End all our troubles. Please …
Alina had just ended her prayer when she heard the tinkle of Farhan, the newspaper boy’s, bicycle. Suddenly, her eyes lit up. Maybe she could buy the Urdu book. If only she could earn money like Farhan. She closed the window and muttered a prayer of thanks.
The next afternoon, Alina stole down the lane where Farhan had just come back from a long day of newspaper delivering.
“Farhan, can I please sell newspapers for you … I promise I will be honest … she began shyly.
Farhan stared at her, bewildered. “Alina, I am sorry but a girl cannot go out in the streets and sell newspapers … you cannot do it.”
“Please, Farhan I need the money. You need to understand that my father is poor and …” she broke down into tears.
“Yes, yes, fine, we shall think of that, Farhan agreed finally.
It was early in the afternoon when Alina started her job for the day. She had lied to her mother about going to the park to play. She took the stack of newspapers she had to deliver to the newsstands near the park.
Hawkers stared at Alina as she bravely delivered the newspapers and made her way back to the neighbourhood. Farhan waited for her under a tree. He handed her the wage for the day.
In a few days she would have enough to pay for the Urdu book, she thought. That evening, when she came back home, Alina hid the money in the rusty little red box she had once found thrown in the rubbish dump nearby.
Alina was delighted when she bought her book within a week of starting her work.
Even after that Alina continued with her routine without ever being caught by her mother. It was a familiar sight for passersby on Park Street to see a young girl crossing the street every afternoon. Alina, as she saw the calluses in her father’s hands deepen, resolved to continue.
One afternoon, Khadija was alone in the house as Alina had left for her job still unknown to her parents. The door rattled with repeated knocks and Khadija went to open it. She was surprised to see three unfamiliar men with an ambulance in the foreground. Khadija clasped her heart with fear.
“Your daughter was hit by a car as she was crossing the road. I am afraid she is dead,” one of the men said breathlessly.
Khadija ran to the ambulance where Alina’s blood-spattered body lay. Tears blurred her vision as she saw a newspaper clutched in her daughter’s hands.
Ghaffar and Khadija were inconsolable after Alina’s death, days passed and their sorrow grew. One afternoon, Farhan knocked at the door of their house which was in a pitiable state.
The last of the food had finished as Ghaffar, in his grief, had stopped working. Farhan had come to Alina’s parents to give their daughter’s final wage to them. Khadija and Ghaffar were bewildered as their daughter’s job was still unknown to them. Then Khadija suddenly remembered an old red box she had found amongst Alina’s play things.
Leaving Ghaffar standing, she went to the next room to retrieve the red box, only to come back crying, as the box contained several ten rupee notes, enough to pay for a week’s rations, Alina’s last gift to her parents.
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