SEARCHING FOR PARENTS

Rafia had completed her bachelor in medicines and now she was in the initial year of medical practices in a famous hospital of the city. 

Pasha and Sobia were parents of Rafia.. She was their only sibling. Her mother was a professor and father served as a lawyer. They had brought up Rafia with a lot of love and care. She was also considering them being the ideal parents.

One evening Rafia was sitting with her mother in the drawing room engaged in usual conversation. Sobia embarked a hidden nostalgia of her memoirs. In the course of normal talks, Sobia suddenly made Rafia spell bound on a strange disclosure. Sobia revealed to Rafia, "You are not our real daughter."

"What? What do you say mom?" inquired Rafia in her striking perplexity.

"I am telling you the essence of truth. We adopted you from a maternity hospital about twenty five years ago. We were childless by then and longing for having a child," Sobia uttered in plain words.

That striking news had shocked Rafia to a greater extent. She couldn't believe the incredible apocalypse made by Sobia. Rafia was still taking the talk to be a joke. She laughed and said, "Mom, why are you making a joke with me. Why are you enmeshing my mind with worries?"

"No my dear, I am not entangling you any way. I told you the truth. I brought you up as a daughter. Still you are my only hope for life, my daughter but not the real daughter," Sobia seemed realistic and Rafia was now serious on the matter what she heard.

Until the next morning, Rafia had confirmed with herself that she was not a real daughter of her present parents. Though she had enjoyed apt parental love from her present parents yet she was thinking a lot about her real parents.

She asked Sobia, "Mom, who was my real mother? Do you know her?"

Sobia replied, "I know not much about her. Perhaps her name was Zini as long as I remember."

"Did she ever come to this house?"

"No, she never visited here. I saw your real mother first and last time when I picked you from her lap in the hospital."

"Why she delivered me to you."

"I know not the exact reason. Perhaps they had many children and you were twin sisters from that very birth."

"How did you approach my real parents?"

"We were childless ten years before that day. A lady doctor was my good friend. She called us there to adopt you."

"Where is the deal of adoption? There will be some evidence on it about my real parents."

"Yes the deal was there with my academic documents which I lost some years back during a journey. I fetched out the duplicates of my academic documents but I haven't the adoption deal now."

Rafia was much puzzle over the tricky situation. She was getting frustration and boredom. At that very instant, she received a call from the hospital. She freed her mind of instant ideas, got her ready and soon went to the hospital to deal an emergency.

The idea of searching her real parents had stuck to the thoughts of Rafia. She would visualize of meeting her mother in her dreams. The search of parents had embarked an enthusiasm in the depths of her mind and heart. Though she had no objection to her present parents for parental love and care yet she was in her perplex phase to see her real parents.

Rafia set an objective to find the whereabouts of her parents and ultimately meet them. She tried her best in every way to achieve her planned objective. 

She could not gather any worthy information about her real parents from the present ones. Her present father Pasha could only tell her about the maternity center from where she was adopted. He also told that her real parents were from any surrounding village but he didn't know the name of the village. Sobia helped her further by mentioning that her real mother had four sons and three daughters prior to the birth of Rafia and her twin sister.

On extracting not any credible evidence from home, Rafia decided to access the records of the maternity center. The center was named as Mothers Caring Home. Rafia met the lady in-charge of the center and tell her the whole tale. The in-charge called for the record keeper who told that the entire patient record of the center had been destroyed by the fire some ten years ago. They had records only of last ten years which was of no use for Rafia. She required the information about her birth which took place some twenty five years ago.

After that Rafia made visits of many villages around for about a year but could find no clue of her real parents.

She was much anxious about her real parents. She wished to meet them at least once during her life time. Her anxiety was increasing day by day. She could not met her parents even executing all of her efforts to search them. She was not ready ro accept her defeat and nor she wanted to give up her prime objective of life. 

Rafia kept on searching for her parents one way or the other. His search was continuous at a slow but steady pace.

One day, Rafia met a new patient in the hospital. An old lady of about seventy had been admitted in the medical ward She had caught typhoid of high degree and was sweltering from fever. 

Rafia was on the general round of the ward and checked the history file of the lady. When she read her name as 'Zini', Rafia's mind clicked back to her objective. She observed that the old lady had same features as were told of her real mother

On the memory clicks, Rafia asked the lady about her whereabouts but she could not talk due to high fever and pain. There was no attendant with her at that time. Rafia postponed the idea of interviewing the lady.

On the coming night, Rafia saw the patient lady in her dreams. She was claiming, "I am your mother. Come to embrace me."

Rafia was in a hurry to reach the hospital as she woke up in the morning. She wanted to verify that whether the Zini named patient was her mother or not. Her sixth sense was indicating a spiritual relationship with that lady patient. Those reflexes of her mental thoughts were launching a success on achieving her objective.

When Rafia reached hospital, she went straight to the patient Zini. Now Zini was a little better  and she was sitting on the bed. A young lady of Rafia's age was feeding cereal to the patient. As the attendant turned her face towards Rafia, she was shocked to see that she was similar in shape and complexions to Rafia. She seemed her true copy.

In the flux of passions, Rafia uttered, "Are you my twin sister?"

"What?" the attendant became puzzle on Rafia's question.

"Who are you to this old lady?"

"She is my mother. She has been affected from typhoid for a week."

"She seems better now. Where is your father?"

"He died two years earlier. We are four brothers and four sisters. I am the last one."

The old lady was listening attentively the whole conversation. She requested Rafia to sit beside her on the bed. Then she further disclosed that she also had a fifth daughter. 

"Wnere is that daughter now?" asked Rafia enthusiastically.

"I had twin daughter from my last delivery in a maternity center. A lady professor adopted one of my twin daughters and other is this with me”, the sick old lady gave a concise answer pointing towards the attendant in the end.

That answer clarified the long confusion and perplexity of Rafia. The recent circumstances had manifested that the patient was het real mother and the attendant was her twin sister. 

Rafia embraced with Zini the next moment calling, "My mom, at last I have found you."

She had accomplished her objective of searching the real parents though her father was far dead by then.