The Dying Man (standard:other, 1688 words)
Author: Muhammad Nasrullah Khan	Added: Dec 01 2001	Views/Reads: 3726/2306	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A whoreson who lived like an animal and died disguting death!

The Dying Man 

For last many nights when I return to my street at late night I find a
donkey lying at the dark corner of dirty street. His one front leg is 
broken and I am sure he can not move. Daily I make a plan to do 
something for him but in the morning I forget it, because my both legs 
are saved yet and I have to do lot of work to survive untill my front 
leg is also broken. There is something more in this donkey that it has 
remarkable resamblance with Hussani Powely. You must be thinking who is 
this Hussani Powely. First let me tell you the story of that man. 

When I learned the first ten numbers of calculations, I came to know
that Hussani Powely was a human being. Though it is the Humanities that 
enable us to recognise man, but in my case it was Mathametics, which 
enabled me to identify humans. When my father tested my studies first 
time by questioning that how many animals were there in our courtyard? 
" Nine", I replied confidently; " no there are not nine, my son" my 
father retaliated with the same confidence. But according to my 
learning there were nine, and to prove the truth I started counting on 
my tender fingures: " two cows, three goats, one mare, one donkey, one 
dog, and one Hussani Powely-----so these are nine". Father laughed and 
replied, " but Hussani powely is not an animal; he is human being like 
us". But I did not agree with father, how could Hussani be a human 
being when all the time he remained with animals. Dispute was not 
setelled between we, father and son; therefore the case was preasented 
in the court of grandfather. All the family gathered there and final 
decision was announced. Hussani powely was announced a human and I lost 
the case, but one rupee was given to me for my strong argument. 

At that night I could not sleep because my tiny brain was not ready to
accept the fact that Hussani was a human being, lot of questions were 
storming in my mind: " If he is a man then why does not he live like 
us? Why does he always remain with animals, even he sleeps on the 
ground among those animals." While not finding answer I slept and in 
dreams I saw him barking, eating grass, walking like donkey. 

Hussani powely was the only servant of our big family. His mother died
when he was only ten years old, and nobody knew about his father. His 
mother never revealed that secret. At the death of his mother all the 
Poweleys drived him out of his home, because he was a whoreson. 
Poweleys were the untouchable people of the village. They earned their 
livelihood by doing mean works as fetching water and weaving shawls. 
Hussani was even unacceptable for that low-cast community. When all the 
poweleys dragged him out my grandfather, who was the chief of village 
brought him to our home. 

Since then Hussani was living in our home. Our village was on the foot
of hot and dry mountains. Due to very low water level land was not fit 
for agriculture. There was only one well in the village for huge 
population. Hussani had to get up early in the morning to fetch water, 
because in the morning he had to go to graze animals in the far off 
fields. I never saw him at home in the daytime. At sunset he would 
appear in the village with his mates, riding the slow moving ass. Due 
to his big front teeth he always looked smiling. Extreme weather of the 
region had made his colour like burnt black stone. While sitting on ass 
he looked like the man of old stone age...the initial developed human 
form from monkeys. Passing through the streets, he hd to face the 
mocking remarks of the people. Few rascals had propagted that he had 
some illigitimate relationship with the ass. They would pass on very 
interesting remarks as: " Hey Hussani, ass’ movement shows you have 
made good use of her today", one would say from the tea- hut, " no, no 
friends, do not say like this, this ass is the only sister of Hussani, 
how can he do it with his sister?" the other voice would come from some 
other corner of street. Hussani never replied them; rather he would 
also give a big laughter in reply. Though there was mare too, but he 
never dared to ride that; I am sure he was not allowed to do so. He was 
a Powely and was born to ride donkeys. 

In evening I would stand at the big front door of our courtyard to see
him. At the distance I could see him coming down from the Black 
Mountains with slow moving animals. At that moment that sight resembled 
to retreating troops. In the darkening evening, bells tied around the 
necks of animals gave very meloncholic sound. His voice among the sweet 
sounds of the bells gave sound of some tragic music of the old film. . 
He never came empty handed; he always brought something for me as: 


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