Allah's Stranger

Chapter 3.

"School teacher?" Jahan asked.

"Teacher. That's not a bad idea." Zeenat said.

"Then go for it! See even I'm teaching primary school. That way I'm able to study and work at the same time! You want to study or are you done with your studies?" 

"I did not study after tenth." Zeenat said looking down as if she was ashamed of that.

"Oh ok. You can still be a nursery teacher."

"Yeah i guess."

"Then I will talk to my supervisor! She is a great lady. She will definitely help us!"Jahan exclaimed happily. 

Zeenat did not react but just kept looking at her face. Jahan smiled before asking,"What happened?"

"I don't understand you. How can you help a stranger?How can you let a stranger live in your house?"

Jahan smiled,"You want me to kick you out?"

"Jahan please be serious. Why are you doing this? It has been more than a month now and you never asked me to leave? Why?"

After looking in her eyes for few seconds Jahan smiled again," I was fifteen years old when my parents died in an accident. We have no relative."

"Not even one?"

"We have but see my mom was an orphan and Dad got married to her without his family's permission so they disowned him. So we had no one. My parents are not from Shimla. They came here so that they can start a new life. So when they died we had no one."

"You should have gone to your dad's family. I'm sure they would have accepted you."

"Yeah even I was sure about that! My uncle use to send gifts and letters to us. But the problem was we didn't know where they live and we never found the letter to get the address."

"Then what happened?"

"Then after few days the landlord asked us to leave the house. We didn't have any other choice. Bhaijaan quite literally begged him to let us stay till the time he finds a new place or at least wait for 15th of that month because that's when our uncle's letter would come. But he was not a nice man."

"Then?"

"We packed our bags and left that house. It was 12th of that month so we lived on road like really on road for three days."

"What?"

"Actually no. There was a old house near the bus stop where we met you. That house is now a hotel but at that time it was a small empty house. So bhaijaan Some how broke the main gate and we lived in the front yard of that house for those three days. Bhaijaan said we will land up in a big trouble if we go inside the house so we decided to stay outside." Jahan paused for some time before saying," On that cold night all I was hoping for someone to come and take us home."

"You didn't eat anything?"

"We had some money so Bhaijaan use to bring something to eat everyday but we had limited money and we didn't know how long we will live like that so we use to spend around thirty rupees everyday."

"Thirty rupees? You won't even get air for that!"

Jahan tilted her head,"You are from a rich family, aren't you?"

"Why will you think like that?" 

"Yes,you are."

"Whatever. What happened next?"

"So on the 15th my brother went to our old house early in the morning. So around one in the afternoon he came back with the letter. Alhumdulillah there was a number on the letter so before coming back he called our uncle.  Our uncle took the very next train and was here in two days."