Go Beyond

Mother and child at train station. | 2006 | Bangladesh

While visiting Bangladesh earlier this month, I picked up a copy of the April 7 issue of The Daily Star, an English language newspaper published in Dhaka. As I read through the paper, a brief article tucked away on page 9 caught my attention — “Woman crushed under train.” The incident happened in the district of Kushtia, an area I visited years ago. The unfortunate victim was “crushed under the wheels of a train at Sukhnagar slum.” The woman “was identified as Zarina Khatun, wife of Sonu Mia of the slum.” According to witnesses, “the incident took place when Zarina was trying to cross the railway track.” Sadly, and for whatever reason, Zarina never made it across the tracks. The article did not state her age, which caused me to wonder if she was an elderly woman with a faltering gait. Nor did the article say anything about whether Zarina had any children. She was simply identified as “wife of Sonu Mia of the slum.”

The words “of the slum” caused me to pause, perhaps because I have walked through so many slum areas in South Asia. The slums in Bangladesh are difficult and dirty places where people like Sonu Mia barely eke out a living and reside in piecemeal shanties. The people who live in these slums can never relax. Instead, they live under the constant pressure of where their next meal will come from. In addition to lacking food, those who live in the slums lack access to clean water, adequate sanitation, and basic health care. They have little protection from weather extremes and are often the first to die when flood waters rise or temperatures plunge. Trying to raise children in slum environments compounds the challenges of day to day survival. But, somehow, people like Sonu Mia manage to do what seems impossible. They learn to adapt and to survive.

On April 6 at 10:20 AM, life in the slum ended for Zarina Khatun as she tried to cross the railway tracks near Kushtia Court station. The police recovered her body “and sent it to Kushtia general hospital for autopsy.” This should be an open and shut case for the medical examiner. But, there is something that the autopsy will not reveal about the wife of Sonu Mia of the slum. However precise the instruments used by the medical examiner, the autopsy will not reveal the condition of Zarina’s soul. Nor will the autopsy reveal the bruises on her heart inflicted by blow after blow of daily hardships in the slums. Life is extremely hard for many people. Reflecting on Zarina’s life and death has reminded me that each of us have the opportunity to leave either the marks of hurt or healing in the lives of others, the kinds of things that an autopsy can never reveal. May we always be sensitive to the least of these who are struggling to survive from day to day and offer them the healing and refreshing balm of our love and kindness.