The bone in the throat

My father had the capacity to remove bones that were caught in people's throats. If someone had been eating meat or fish and if a bone got stuck in his throat, my father knew how to remove it occultly.

Just before my father's death, when I was ten years old, a middle-aged Muslim got a bone stuck in his throat. He went to so many doctors, and they all said he had to undergo a serious operation. He couldn't eat anything and he was in absolute agony, but he was afraid of having an operation. The Muslim found out that my father had the capacity to remove bones from people's throats, so he came to see my father along with two or three of his friends. By that time the Muslim had become very, very weak because he had not been able to eat for so many days, and he was screaming and crying in agony.

Usually when Muslims came to our house, they were not allowed to go past the courtyard, which was sixty or seventy metres from the main house. So this Muslim was told to wait in the courtyard. At that time my father was bedridden and he was near death. Everybody was annoyed that at this time a Muslim had to come to bother him.

My brother and uncle thought that perhaps because my father was on his deathbed, he had lost the capacity to remove bones from people's throats. So they casually asked him if he still had the capacity. He said, "Yes, I have the capacity. Is there anybody suffering from that problem in the family?"

They said, "It is not anyone in the family, but somebody else — a Muslim." My brother and my uncle were dead against his using his capacity to help the man. They said, "We do not want a Muslim to come into your room."

My father said, "He can stay in the courtyard and I will cure him from my bed. Just ask him to lie down."

My father rubbed his throat three or four times, breathed heavily a few times and coughed. Then he said, "Go and see!" When the family members went out to the courtyard, they found out that the bone in the Muslim's throat had disappeared. The Muslim was crying with joy. He wanted to give my father some money, but my father would not accept it.

That was my father's last act for a Muslim. He did not know the Muslim; he was not even an acquaintance of my father. But just because he was suffering my father helped him.

Two or three days later my father died.