Social Short Story – I am willing to go to school.
Photo credit: cohdra from morguefile.com
When she was not allowed to go to school, Shahnaz fought with her uncle and exclaimed,” Let me live in my own way.I want to go to school and nobody should stop me.”
Shahnaz was a girl who was dreaming about a world which could give her contentment and satisfaction but her dreams were snatched by her own family. They treated her badly when she wanted to go out without hiding her face inside the burqa. Her family made her life so suffocating that she started fighting for her rights.
She went to school often without telling anyone. While the children of her age were sleeping soundly at 4 pm in the morning, she used to wait outside the school and read namaaz outside the school. But her uncle always bet her and brought her back home where she was scolded and told by her parents that only moulwi could teach her and acquaint her with the outside world. When the moulwi would teach her Islamic verses and she would often question about the relevance of those verses while interacting with the outside world.
Then the Moulwi would say that her home was the most sacred and safest place for her in this world. Shahnaz was very adamant and one day she asked the moulwi about getting formal education in the school and the moulwi asked her not to ask such questions. She started asking more questions then the Moulwi asked Shahnaz’s father, who was reading the newspaper, to make her understand the value of Quran and its principles.
Shahnaz’s Father sat near her and asked her to concentrate on what moulwi was saying but she refuted and said,” I am unwilling to study so much of heavenly philosophy. I want to go to school. Ask moulwi uncle to stop narrating stories in which I am not interested.”
Her father slapped her and asked her to be obedient towards Islam. She picked up her bag and a notebook and said that she was going to school but her uncle caught her and tied her with a rope and asked her to apologise for her undisciplined act. She started crying and shouting that she did not anything wrong as she was only going to school and the lessons of Quran seemed boring.
She started crying bitterly and tried to persuade her uncle and father to open the rope because she wanted to got to school. At last the moulwi asked her father to release her otherwise Allah would not forgive them for giving such punishments to a small girl who is not yet aware of the outside world and also asked them to send her to the school so that her father and uncle could ask Allah for forgiving the sins they have committed.
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