How did Hussain describe the child workers to the foreign customers?
from the book:
Iqbal
Answers
Explanation:
Fatima is a child slave in Pakistan. Bonded to Hussain Khan three years earlier to pay a debt her parents owed the moneylenders, Fatima spends each day weaving carpets in a factory with other children. At the end of each day, if the work is up to his standards, Hussain Khan erases one of the lines representing Fatima’s debt from the slate that hangs above her loom. But somehow all the lines on Fatima’s slate are never erased, nor are any of the other children’s lines.
Iqbal is thin and sad, but somehow different. Despite being chained to his loom, he seems unafraid of Hussain Khan. He is talented and works more quickly and accurately than any other child in the factory. The night he arrives, he shares his story with the other children. They learn that Iqbal volunteered to be bonded to a carpet maker for $26 dollars so his father could purchase medicine for Iqbal’s brother. The child slaves tell him that he will soon pay off his debt and return home, but Iqbal denies it. The debt is never paid, he claims. Fatima doesn’t want to believe him. Iqbal secretly tells her that someday he will run away and take her with him.
Work continues as usual. Rumors circulate among the children that Iqbal is weaving a Blue Bukhara, a carpet with a particularly complicated pattern. Karim, the teenage overseer, believes that Hussain Khan will cancel Iqbal’s debt when he finishes the carpet. Iqbal continues to deny that the debt will ever be erased, and the children begin to resent him. Fatima, however, talks with Iqbal every night.
One morning, foreign buyers arrive at the factory. Hussain Khan wants everything to be perfect, but Iqbal deliberately cuts the Blue Bukhara into several pieces. The damage is irreparable, and Iqbal is dragged into the Tomb, an empty cistern in the middle of the courtyard. Hussain Khan uses the Tomb to punish the children with solitary confinement and deprivation. The atmosphere in the factory is somber as the children worry about Iqbal’s survival. Only Karim remembers anyone being put in the tomb in mid-summer before—a child slave who was carried out five days later, sunburned and defeated. At Fatima’s insistence, several children sneak food and water to Iqbal. He emerges three days later, recovering quickly thanks to their nightly visits.
Because of Iqbal’s courage, the children are less afraid. Iqbal begins weaving another Blue Bukhara, and the children start to talk about the future — something they had previously been afraid to do. Iqbal promises Fatima that they will fly a kite together someday. Then he runs away.
Hussain Khan searches fruitlessly for Iqbal for two days. Iqbal returns of his own volition on the third day, bringing two policemen with him. Fatima watches them hand a struggling Iqbal back to Hussain Khan in exchange for two small stacks of money. Iqbal is sent to the Tomb for so long that Fatima loses track of the number of days he is there. When Hussain Khan returns from a business trip and checks the work, he finds that Maria (a small girl who never speaks) has woven a kite into her design. He is furious and shouts that he will send her to the Tomb. The other children come to her defense and tell Hussain Khan that if he sends Maria to the Tomb, he should send them, too. Pale and angry, Hussain Khan releases Iqbal from the Tomb. He is tired and hungry, but alive.
That night, Iqbal shares the story of his escape with the children. Afraid to return home, where Hussain Khan would find him, he had sought work in the market. While unloading watermelons, he had heard a speech from a member of the Bonded Labor Liberation Front of Pakistan. The man had said that child slavery was now illegal, and Iqbal had told his story to the police who brought him back to Hussain Khan. Iqbal shows them a flyer from the Liberation Front, but no one in the factory can read — except Maria.
Although she has never spoken to them before, Maria begins to speak and is a capable teacher. Within a year, every child in the factory can read the flyer and the address printed at the bottom. Iqbal escapes during the commotion surrounding a brawl among the children. He returns with a magistrate and Eshan Khan, the leader of the Liberation Front. The children are freed.
Unsure of where to go, the children are taken back to the Liberation Front headquarters until they can be returned safely to their families. They are washed, fed and given comfortable sleeping quarters.
Iqbal keeps his promise to Fatima, and they spend an afternoon flying a kite together as, one by one, the children are returned to their families. Soon only Iqbal, Karim, Fatima, and Maria remain. Iqbal visits his family briefly, and then returns to stay with Eshan Khan and help free other child slaves.