Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Patherila Raaz


A mystery case of grave diggers by malik safdar hayaat, who narrates a firsthand account of when he was posted in rustam pur, southern punjab , a wet drizlly day an elderly widow comes early morning , who tells him that she had seen a dead body clad in a white shroud washing his feet at her handpump in the backyard , usually she sleeps in the yard but because of the drizzle she had to spend a sleepless mosquito infected night in the room, the body after washing and cleaning up himself picked up a bag taking the path towards the stream, later in the office comes nawaz ali whose father the chaudhary who had died just four days ago , his grave had been neatly cut open , the light rain seeping through was destroying the body but it was not fidgeted with, though younger chaudhary looked quite perturbed, the caretaker of the graveyard had spent his life there , he informs the story teller that there was a small box burried with the body that was missing, finally nawaaz ali confesses he had been given by his father a small lockless box to be burried with his father"s body as nawaz"s mother"s sentimental gift, naturally curious nawaz had taken a look at it -a piece of small bosky silken kerchief emroidered at the center , a heart in red thread , the edges in blue, as per his father's last wishes the box containing the silken cloth was burried, but why, and who would steal that , going so much out of the way, taking risk just to get that piece of embroidery?

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