My Mother — Page 13
Trial of Faith 13 veiled menace and her ill repute, created a complex in the moth- er’s mind in consequence of which subsequently the approaching onset of athra on the child cast its shadow on the mother’s mind in the shape of a reflection of Jai Devi. In her dream portending the seizure of Rafiq, she heard Jai Devi’s challenge that she would not take him home alive. This meant that Rafiq was about to suffer a seizure, which he did, and which would normally have carried him off within a few hours. But her earnest supplications to the Almighty Master of life and death procured him a reprieve and he arrived home, to all appear- ances, hale and hearty. This was clear proof that God bestows life and He causes death. Jai Devi could do no one any harm. When the period of his reprieve expired Rafiq died according to Divine decree. Jai Devi had nothing to do with it. Some time later she appeared again in Husain Bibi’s dream who, on seeing her, exclaimed, ‘When will you stop pursuing me?’ To which she replied, ‘I shall come thirteen days and seventeen days and will not come thereafter. ’ By then my father was practis- ing as Mukhtar at Daska. Thirteen days after the dream, Husain Bibi gave birth to a baby daughter who died when she was sev- enteen days old. Jai Devi’s assurance that she would not come thereafter signified that with the birth of the expected baby and its death, the long suffering mother would—by Allah’s grace—be rid of her disorder and would thereafter bear children who would not have to suffer in consequence of it. About that time, my father, having qualified as a pleader, moved from Daska to Sialkot and started practice in the district courts. Husain Bibi now had a home of her own and though she ran it very simply, there was an end of austerity, but there was