While waiting for check in at Heathrow, a middle aged lady carrying a smart Coach bag, clad from head to toe in black abaya and hijab, her shimmering face showing came to me and asked if I would carry her extra luggage for her! Shocked that she could even ask me such a question I tried to politely tell her that I didn't have any space, she blatantly lied and said she would have returned her extra luggage with her family but they had already left, whereas I could see them standing in a corner and waiting for the outcome of her adventure. This was a prelude to stranger things to come. On the plane, nothing less than a PIA, one out of two economy class toilets went 'out of order' ten minutes into our flight, causing at least half an hour waiting queues. Steward on duty to serve our aisle was too macho to serve us even water, let alone ask if we needed anything. My request for a blanket was ignored with not even a return 'sorry we don't have any more' note. We felt this deprivation even more because the stewardess in the opposite lane came every fifteen minutes bringing either newspapers, water, blankets etc. On a seven and a half hour journey we were subjected to a manually operated in flight entertainment system: One small screen in the front showing Hitchcock kind of a movie, the title of which was never given. At the airport while we waited in the queue for passport check we saw some of our fellow passengers jumping lines or altogether by passing passport check and leave. I guess those of us who were waiting had to have not just our passports but our heads checked as well for braving a return home journey!
Naseem, is a six year old girl. When I met her she was sitting on the charpoi with her mother and constantly clapping but without any mirth. Her hair was cut almost to her scalp. I was told that she was a miracle child, she had been suffering from severe acute malnutrition and her family and relatives had almost given up hope that she would survive but she had proven all stats wrong and was sitting right in front of us. Physically, she was on the mend but her mental growth had been irreversibly stunted. She did not respond to any movement, any gesture or sound, her mind was somewhere else... A little boy, hardly seven, sitting on the curbside on an otherwise busy junction but at 0100AM he seemed so out of place on that dark, deserted road. As we stopped at the traffic signal, on the road perpendicular to where he was sitting, my attention was drawn to his posture. His slumped back was towards me and as I watched, two cars stopped on the lanes furthest from him. He made an ...
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