Like father like son

For 35-year-old Rab Dino, heartache has been a lifetime companion. He can’t imagine life without it. Born and raised in a village in Sindh, Rab Dino’s every memory is steeped in poverty. His father, the youngest of several siblings, was sent to live separately from the rest of the family because an elder brother felt ends couldn’t be met unless the brothers separated. And so Rab Dino’s father spent his years working at a rice mill and raising his three children. Often the family went hungry and Rab Dino learned from an early age to kill his desires for new clothes or a shiny pair of shoes. When he was seven, Rab Dino fell ill and was diagnosed with meningitis. His father sold his only buffalo to pay for the treatment after which the family’s financial conditions worsened. Still, the father was very keen on education and struggled to get Rab Dino through matriculation, sending him to the nearest town to study despite his sparse means.

At the age of about 12, Rab Dino could no longer bear to watch his father’s solitary battle for survival and he took up labour himself alongside his studies. He would assist a mason in construction work, helping mix cement and pass along bricks, and would come home with Rs15 a day. He would use the money to bring home potatoes or onions for the evening meal. While growing up, Rab Dino keenly observed how his father never asked for a handout or even for assistance from the extended family, no matter how dire his own conditions were. Sometimes Rab Dino wondered why his father couldn’t just ask for one kilogramme of flour from a cousin so they could get through the day but eventually this habit became so imprinted on his mind that it became fully incorporated in his own adult life.

As the years wore on, Rab Dino took a loan, bought a freezer, rented a village shop and began selling cold drinks. Nearby, a gambling den would attract dozens of men every day and Rab Dino took advantage to look for customers. Eventually, he fell prey to the menace of gambling himself, sometimes earning a little extra but mostly losing even more. In 2013, the shop owner asked him to evacuate and he was left without work. A fellow villager was working as a foreman at a company in Dubai and Rab Dino was sure this was the only way to keep his family fed. He borrowed money again and flew out on a visit visa, handing over his passport to the agent and then staying on illegally. For the next year, he worked with other labourers from his village, unloading containers. He would spend several hours a day, sometimes consecutive days and nights, lifting sacks of grain and sugar, bolts of cloth weighing up to 90kg and shipments of steel and iron. His body was wracked with exhaustion and when a friend suggested less intensive work at a steel recycling workshop, he opted for that.

There, old drums of oil or paint were cut and pressed to make sheets and one morning when he arrived at work, he slipped on some spilled oil and his arm was torn open on a drum that had been cut and prepared for rolling. He began to bleed profusely and as he looked about at his fellow Pakistani workers for help, he saw them mortified but moving away rather than towards him. No one wanted to get caught without a work permit. Eventually, someone with an identification card took him to one hospital after another in the local area but the doctors said they were unable to help due to the severity of his injury. One doctor called the emergency department who took him to a major hospital where his bleeding was stopped and his arm stitched up. From there, the police escorted him to jail where he remained for the next two months. When he begged for help, he was given simple painkillers but for six weeks no one came to open his bandages or check on his arm. After his repeated requests, he was taken to a facility where his stitches were finally opened and then after a two-month stay he was released and deported.

Rab Dino never told his family about his accident or his jail sentence, desperate to spare them the added anxiety. By the time he got home in January this year, his arm was barely functional. His hand was deformed and he had no sensation in the arm. Then began his struggle afresh to find medical treatment, all the while worrying about where his next earning would come from. He was initially told by doctors at government hospitals that there was no cure. His father, now elderly and quite infirm, was desperate for help to get his son back on his feet. It was through his effort that Rab Dino was brought to Karachi and seen by a vascular surgeon. After several months of physiotherapy and follow-up visits, last week he underwent surgery for nerve grafting and tendon transfer. As he lay in his hospital bed recuperating, his face carried a brave sense of serenity. His pain, he said, was nothing compared with his good fortune of receiving medical care. Our government, unable to provide for villagers who account for two-thirds of our population, also turns the other way when these desperate people travel overseas in search of a livelihood. Moreover, when they are injured in the workplace, there is no help, either from the countries where they work or even when they return home.

Rab Dino raises his children with the same uprightness as his father raised him. He’s eager for his arm to become strong so he can work hard and take care of his family. He plans to seek a loan to open a cold drink shop and resume the task of providing for his home. Rab Dino’s eyes are often moist as he talks about his life but he smiles broadly and says he’s spent a life of struggle just like his father’s. Now, both father and son are filled with the hope that the next generation won’t have to carry the heartache of poverty wherever they go.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 19^th, 2015.

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