‘Tired of people and renamed the hotel Behinji’

‘I was also a housewife who sits at home and waits for her husband’s earnings and cooks home food, I was also the same woman. People do not see the appearance of a woman, they only see that she is a woman.’

These are the words of Multan resident Shahina Bibi popularly known as ‘Behan Ji’.

After her husband’s illness, Shahina took the burden of supporting the house and set up a food cart at Chowk Nawan city and wrote ‘Sister’s Mobile Hotel’ on the cart.

Nowadays, she is selling food at the gate of Bahauddin Zakaria University, Multan, but now she is not on a cart but in a rickshaw.

While narrating the story of the journey from the carriage to the rickshaw, Shahina said that ‘it happened to me that my husband fell ill and suffered from spine problems. He fell ill on the bed.’

‘When the problem started, I thought what should I do.’

According to Shahina: “Allah gave me the courage that I spoke to my husband that now it has reached the point of starvation, I need money for your treatment and I also need medicine for my mother.”

Then it happened that my Allah put it in my mind that I can cook food, so why not go out and sell this food and in this way I can support my house and take medicine for my sick husband etc. And if I can take care of my mother-in-law, can also pay for the house, can also educate the child, then I started.’

She says that when she started this work, she faced extreme difficulties.

‘I know, my Lord, that when I came out, the attitude of so many people was very bad. Looking with evil eyes, taunting and talking in such a way that, to be sure, at that moment the heart wanted the earth to burst open and I drowned in it.’

But according to Shahina, he said to his Lord at that time that ‘Allah either give me death or give me courage.’

‘Since then I’ve shrugged off those looks and told myself I’ve got to take care of my house.’

Shahina added that I thought that when I came out, I would not give up and slowly when I started working, I started with small pots, ‘I had nothing at that time. It happened that there was one of my brothers who knew him and he said that I will help you little by little.

He says that he has to wake up at 12 midnight for the sake of his hotel and hardly sleeps for an hour or two. After waking up at 12 o’clock, he prepares biryani, rice chhole, zarda and pai and curry nihari or haleem. She takes it and leaves the house at half past four.

“One day I was sitting and thinking and thought, why not name my mobile hotel ‘Behanji’, so that when people come and ask what is the name, I will say Behanji.”

Shahina said that this is how they wrote Behnji on their cart, then the same Behnji whom people used to look at with bad eyes, they did not know well, gradually started looking at Behnji with good eyes and started calling her by the name of Behnji. .

‘Today is the time that I have taken a rickshaw in installments from the carriage and am running my household with it.’