Pregnant, widowed, she needs a job

The fat giraffe looks just alright, and six-year-old Rukhsar looks pleased at her drawing. A mention of her father Mohammed Islam — a v...

The fat giraffe looks just alright, and six-year-old Rukhsar looks pleased at her drawing. A mention of her father Mohammed Islam — a victim of the blast at Zaveri Bazaar — leaves her startled. She looks up from the torn drawing book. ‘‘Papa?’’, ‘‘He’s dead … mummy cries a lot’’, she says.

In their 8 ft by 10 ft shanty in Jogeshwari, Rukhsar without batting an eyelid, breaks into a smile at others. Getting no appreciation for a prompt reply, she busies herself with the giraffe again. ‘‘I would have nursed him even if he had been crippled for life…’’ trails off Rukhsar’s mother, Razia Khatun (27). That’s the third time she’s said it in 10 minutes. Razia is pregnant, due to deliver next week.

Islam (34), who plied his taxi between Jogeshwari and Kalbadevi, was found dead beside the taxi that blew up in the bustling marketplace on August 25. His six-foot frame was badly injured and his stomach ripped open by splinters. Tarannum (3), seated on Razia’s lap, realises her father is being mentioned. ‘‘Papa is in his taxi,’’ she mumbles. The family — his 72-year-old father, Razia and four kids — has lost its only earning member. As the family mourns, they worry about the yet-to-be-born child. ‘‘He was so excited about our baby,’’ Razia says.

A day after this newspaper carried a report on the family’s plight on August 27, an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh came from the government. ‘‘I’ve deposited that in the post office,’’ says Razia. That will take care of the immediate future, but with Islam gone and her father-in-law jobless, she muses, ‘‘I will need to earn later…’’