The Curse of a Beggar: How One Mistake Haunted Generations

The Curse of a Beggar: How One Mistake Haunted Generations

My name is Tameezuddin, and I am the last man of my bloodline.

This story isn't just a confession — it's a warning.

It happened in 1978. I was a proud young man then, newly married, working in a textile mill in Karachi. One evening, while walking home with some colleagues, a frail old beggar approached us. His clothes were tattered, his beard long and silver, and his voice barely a whisper.

“Baba, just one roti… I haven’t eaten in two days.”

The others ignored him, but I… I made a mistake.

I laughed.

I said loudly, “You haven't eaten in two days? Then maybe it's time Allah calls you up for dinner in the sky!”

My friends laughed too.

But the beggar didn’t.

He looked at me — no hatred, no anger, just cold, quiet eyes — and muttered something under his breath. I didn’t catch the words, but my spine went cold.

“May your sons be as hungry as I am,” he finally said aloud. “And may your daughters never speak your name with pride.”

We walked away joking.

But the joke never ended.

That year, my wife miscarried.
The next child — a boy — was born weak, sickly, and blind.
My third child, a girl, never spoke a word from birth.
Doctors found no medical explanation.

Still, I didn’t connect it to that night.

Until I met the beggar again.

Fifteen years later.

He was older, now almost skeletal, still sitting at the same corner.

He looked up as I passed.

“You remember now, don’t you?” he rasped.

I froze.

“My curse was not hatred,” he said. “It was justice.”

Tears filled my eyes. I fell to my knees. “Forgive me. I was foolish. Please lift it.”

He smiled.

“Forgiveness is not mine. It must come from those who suffer.”

I rushed home and broke down in front of my wife and children. I told them everything.

But the curse had grown roots.

My daughter died at age 17.
My son — blind, but brilliant — took his own life after years of depression.

Only my youngest son, born late in my life, remained.

But the pattern continued.

He lost his first job due to mysterious accusations. His wife left him after stillbirths. And when he tried to move abroad, every visa got rejected — often with no reason.

Now he refuses to speak to me.

He blames me.

And he’s right.

I live alone in a house filled with silence. Every knock on the door feels like justice. Every mirror shows not my face, but my mistake.

One day, I opened a dusty old Quran, trembling hands seeking peace.

A verse stood out:
“And the supplication of the oppressed — even if he is a disbeliever — is never rejected.”

I wept.

Not because I was cursed.

But because I deserved it.

Now, if you’re reading this, know this:

You may have money, power, strength… but a broken-hearted prayer from the street can break your throne.

So never mock the hungry.

Never curse the poor.

Because sometimes… they curse back.

And their words don’t die with them.