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Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Old Cinema in Pakistan Gets New Life After Quake - IHT
Tucked inside a popular bazaar, there once was a place where women shimmied their hips in full Technicolor splendor. Today, it is a refuge for women who can barely lift their legs. It is an odd transformation, wrought by the devastating earthquake on Oct. 8.
The Melody Cinema had sat fallow for two years, ever since a mob of religious radicals set it on fire and reduced it to nothing more than a charred, trash-filled shell. Today, it is reborn as the Melody Relief and Rehabilitation Center, and the occupants of its 53 beds are women with broken backs.
The youngest patient is 13, the oldest 50. Most of the others are in their 20s and 30s, women who had been cooking and cleaning at home when the earth shook and roofs collapsed. They have all undergone surgery for spinal-cord injuries, and the Melody is a way station of sorts, a place to rest and recover before returning to their homes or whatever is left of them. Their futures are full of uncertainty. Even if they can get into a wheelchair, how will they survive in the terraced hills back home? If they are destined to be paralyzed for life, how will they take care of their homes and families?
Among the married patients, there is this aching question: Will their husbands abandon them for an able-bodied woman? Among the unmarried, another agony: What man will have them now?
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