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I was in the first grade at the time of the gas disaster. I remember being woken up by people in my family. I remember everyone vomiting and groaning and then joining the crowd of people who were trying to run away from the clouds of poison. Since then my problem of breathlessness has been getting worse, my eye problems are also getting worse and now everything appears blurry. I am also getting more and more weak. I was very keen on studying but I failed my exams in the eigth grade. I was very sick at the time of the examination. I told my teacher that I could not write my exams because of my illness but she refused to take my application for leave of absence. So I failed and that was the end of my studies. I have never stopped regretting this. When I see other women pursuing their studies I wish I had continued. Since I was a child I wanted to do something important, become someone famous and I still can not accept that none of my wishes will ever come true. Now I spend most of my time doing chores at home and some embroidery work with "zari". My eyes go blurred when I work with "zari". Its been over 10 years since I have been so sick. I have been admitted to the hospital several times. My elder brother Rayees used to be so breathless, he had to sit through the whole night. His lungs were badly damaged. He died four years back. He died in the hospital. I think of him often and and the one thing I feel really bad about is that I was not there by his side when he died. My father owned a truck and three auto-rickshaws. He sold them one by one to pay for Rayees' medical bills. Now my father rents an autorickshaw for the day and our family survives on what he makes. For the last one month he has been sick in bed and I am taking care of household expenses through my "zari" work. My mother Aneesa too is sick.She is breathless has chest pain and pain in the stomach and she has swelling in her limbs. She has a fever that never leaves her. |