It was the evening of January 25, 1981 when we were goalkeeping in the football ground five or six furlongs from our house at PAF Base Masroor Karachi. Between this ground and our house there was a vast empty area with no population etc. Our house was a lonely house in the middle of a grove of trees. We suddenly saw our mother appear from among the trees and wave her us very nervously. When we reached her running, she said in a panicked tone:
“Your father has had an accident, go to my room quickly!”
Ironically, our father was hit by an ambulance from PAF Hospital. We rushed to my room and found my father lying on a bed with his left leg bare up to the knee. Two wounds were also visible on the leg, but we were shocked to see a bend in his leg, which meant that the leg was broken. We faced this scene of an accident in our home when we were twelve years old. We remember we were naked, and our father told us when he saw us crying:
“You are my eldest son, if you become weak, who will take care of me?”
As soon as we heard this we wiped our eyes and rolled up our sleeves to deal with the first crisis of life. The same plaster procedure was initially tried during his treatment. But a month later, before cutting the plaster, an x-ray was done, and everyone including the doctors was shocked to see that the bone had not even joined. Another month the plaster remained and when the X-ray was done again, the situation was the same. Some tests etc. were done and it was revealed that our father’s bones do not have the lacy substance which helps the bone to connect. So the turn went to the operation and it took almost two years to solve the whole case. During this period we moved like a pendulum between home and hospital.
t was only two years after my father’s recovery that my brother Dr. Ishaq Alam who was six years old at that time met with a very bad accident. One of their feet came under the rotating tire of the car, and the children flew away. The bone was badly affected while the flesh from near the knee to the toe was completely blown away. During the next eight years, five operations were performed, then the leg was saved. For these eight years, he and I lived sometimes at home and sometimes at the hospital. When he had his last operation in 1992, we were fathers of a one-year-old child.
A father who had spent much time in hospitals since the age of twelve. In these hospitals, he saw mutilated bodies and injured victims of both bullets and accidents. And then some of the injured people were also looking after those whose wounds were infected with worms. He also saw people outside operating theaters offering tearful prayers and searching for loved ones in mortuaries. On the one hand, you have gone through such painful and serious months and years at a very young age, and at the same time, your addiction to studies has been strong, which started at the age of six, so in your teenage years, your thoughts are about someone else.
We found this world a dangerous place for our one-year-old child. And we came to the conclusion that life can show its cruelty at any moment. Therefore, it is necessary that our children are very strong physically, spiritually, neurologically, psychologically, and intellectually. For this to happen, it was necessary that they should be prepared to deal with the hardships of life from childhood. Therefore, in the coming period, a basic principle was adopted in the development of children, that they should be warned about seriousness according to their age and mental level, but never scared. If ever they start climbing the tree, then they have a desire in their heart that they should fall from the tree, not very high. And when this happened, they were not asked why they climbed the tree. Rather, he asked what mistake did he make while climbing so that he fell?
Thus, the habit of learning from mistakes started developing in them. So, never stop them from an adventure by saying that “there will be an injury”. If the child gets into the habit of backing away from the possibility of injury, will he grow up to accept a challenge? Adventure should be positive, not futile, so what if he gets hurt while doing it? Pain and suffering are an integral part of human life. Rules are easy to make, but every rule brings with it a great test.
It was when Salahuddin was ten and Tariq eight years old. It was a Sunday when suddenly there was a sound like a heavy explosion from the terrace. When we reached there, the entire railing of the terrace was missing. They were running down the stairs when the door opened and the two children entered the house in a panic. Because the cement railing had moved forward and they fell on it from behind with a hundred face elbows and there were scratches on the knees but there was no deep wound and the bones were intact. We still remember seeing them and we laughed out loud. This laughter was to get out of their mind that they have faced some big incident. Think for yourself, what kind of life is there if there is no beautiful activity like plucking mangoes and guavas or pulling sugarcane?
If you prevent a child from breaking guava just for fear of injury, will he grow up and find the courage to put a bow on the stars? You can make everything from childhood a part of your child’s training program. Even his injuries from his childhood can be a lesson for him.
