CHAPTER 5
Laxman becomes Rahim
At midnight Saleem took the sleeping boy on
his shoulder and put a green shawl over his body. He moved silently through the
gully.
One police stopped him. “Where are you going?”
Saleem said, “Sir, my son is sick. I am taking him to
the hospital.”
The policeman looked at the small child and touched
him. “Ok go.”
Saleem went inside a Masjid. He placed the green shawl
in the centre and made the child sleep on it. He prayed to Allah to look after
the child. Then he silently left. Laxman was fast asleep.
*********************************************
At night 1am, Laxman got up. He sat up and looked
around. Nobody was around. He started crying out of fear. Then he moved around
crying.
In the nearby house, Maula was sleeping with his wife.
He heard the sound of a child crying and woke his wife. “Some child is crying.”
Wife also listened. “He must have got lost in the
commotion.”
Maula nodded and listened carefully. “But the sound is
coming from the Masjid.”
He got up and looked out. He was surprised to see a
child in the Masjid. “There is a child in the Masjid. I will go and looked.”
He went to the Masjid and approached the child. Laxman
stopped crying and stared at the Maula.
Maula picked him up and went around the place looking
for the boy’s parents. He did not see anyone. He went out into the road and looked
around.
“It is curfew. Who will be around at this time of the
night?”
He went in again and saw the cloth and the biscuit
packet. “Somebody has left the child here.”
He looked at god’s photo. “Oh Allah! Maybe you have
given this child to us.”
He hugged the child tight. “You are a gift from Allah.
I will look after you as my own son.”
Maula took the crying child to his wife. “Somebody has
left him near god. Allah has given him to us.”
Maula’s wife looked at her husband lovingly. Then she
patted the boy’s head.
Maula already had two sons. He looked at their two
sleeping children.
“He will be their small brother. He is a god given
child. Let us name him Rahim.”
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