A tale of two daughters

In the last few weeks, we, here in Canada, have heard two somewhat chilling stories.

The first that I am going to tell is about a father, a father named Pervez. I think (I am not sure) some weeks ago I travelled in Pervez's taxi when he took me to the airport from downtown Toronto. It was Ramadan, and, seeing a fellow sub continenter he asked me if he could play his tape of prayers. It is ages since I heard the beautiful sonorous chant of the Koran (somewhat similar to the way the Sama Veda is chanted, not the equally beautiful staccato chants of the Suktas), and, I spent about half an hour listening to the suras of the Koran as I made my way through the downtown afternoon traffic in his taxi.

Pervez looked somewhat sullen. However that is not uncommon among taxi drivers from the sub continent in Toronto. Most of them are Ph.ds or MDs from their home country, and, in the presence of another sub continenter who appears to be successful in white society, they let their feelings hang out. Sometimes they talk to you about their frustration. This cab driver, who, could have been Pervez, did not speak, and, just chose to drive me in silence. I was thankful that he had played the chants of the Koran for me...

On Monday two weeks ago the news broke, of this vivacious 16-year old girl, Aqsa, who had been allegedly strangled to death by her father, a taxi driver named Pervez, supposedly because she was unwilling to wear the hijab and dress modestly as her religion required her to. Key in Aqsa Pervez in Facebook and you can, posthumously, see the beautiful child and the world she lives in.

A lot of what happened in the Pervez home will never be known. Much of it has already been lost in the clamour of 'honour killing' and all that Western society paints the unfamiliar zone where culture and religion become indistinguishable in the world East of Suez.

How much of a role religion played in all this, I cannot venture to assess. It is perhaps only a part of that deep conditioning that goes into each of us as we cherish an ambition for what our children will turn out to be. Is that ambition or is it the need to control ?

Today (this was last week) Aqsa will be buried. Her mother, I understand, has chosen to donate her organs...as those organs take life again, and, the Namaz-e-Janaza is recited for this beautiful child I pray that they take life in peace and beauty...I also pray for Pervez, and, hope that one day he will find peace as he struggles with the pain of what happened on Monday...

And the other story we have been hearing in Canada, is of Robert Pickton, a pig farmer, who lived near Vancouver, and, killed prostitutes. We are told that he would string up their entrails alongside that of the pigs of that he had killed. No, the story is not of Robert Pickton, but, of a mother whose daughter practised the same profession as one of Robert Pickton's victims.

This mother, who identified herself as Elaine (maybe another name), appeared on a CBC (Canada Broadcasting Corporation) radio show one morning as I was driving to office somewhat late. She appeared live and it was about 7am in Western Canada when she was being interviewed.

The mother talked of the struggles she had with her daughter. Like all of us she had dreams (another word for ambitions) for her daughter...for the daughter to become a dancer, a doctor, a lawyer and all those wonderful things that make us parents look good in the eyes of society...the child had gone into drugs and all those things that make parents look bad in the eyes of society...she had tried to help pull her out of it...didn't work...the child had started walking the streets of Vancouver and in the process become a single mother...

At about 7am in the morning as the mother spoke to the interviewer, she was interrupted by a phone call..."Thanks, honey...come home, breakfast is ready..." Elaine told her daughter...that was the early morning call every day her daughter would put through as her business day closed, to tell her mother that she had survived another night in the world of the Robert Picktons of the world...

Elaine talked of how rough her daughter's world was...how she had to protect her grandchild from her mother (the daughter) in the mornings...by afternoon, the daughter was sweet as any mother is...the mornings were rough, a hangover of the viciousness of the world the daughter lived in...

A deeply religious person Elaine had no prayers for anyone...all she wanted to do was to make sure that her daughter was safe and she ended by saying, "I do not know what I will do if that 7am call does not come through, one day..."

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I have no insights to offer on either Pervez' story or that of Elaine. My eyes glaze over with tears at both stories. As I wipe the tears away, the words of a very wise man, Kahlil Gibran come through

On Children Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your childrenas living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let our bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Dedicated to Aqsa and Elaine's daughter...