"Aaj ki hansti-muskuraati khushiyon mein aksar kahiin kal ke kisi gham ki mehekti yaadein mil jaati hain......"
I was not waiting for a formal invitation card. Am not so fastidious with family celebrations. A casual call asking me to join in is enough.....and that had come more than a month ago. Hence I was prepared. Delhi in December has always been beautiful, inviting, tempting..........
Yesterday afternoon the card also came.
There was something unexpected about it which shook my heart and blew off that layer of dust which was shielding a bunch of memories for quite a while now. I had even tucked away in an unknown corner of the house that one very poignant photograph which reminded me of her.
She was not someone I knew personally. I had never seen her except in the pictures. And was I thankful for that.....
Yes ! In a way I was.
I think a person gives a part of himself / herself to you when they meet you. So had I seen her in person the memories would certainly have been far more difficult to fade away......
The first time I heard about her illness was at a cousin's place in Lucknow. She was then in her teens. I never gave much thought to the news. What serious problem could there be with a normally growing up girl...... some people have this habit of making mountains out of a molehill I thought .........................
Besides Her Family had access to world class medical care .....so if at all there was a problem that needed special treatment it could be taken care of by the most expensive and the very best on this planet.....
In the worst of my nightmares too I could never have dreamt of the actual state of her disease..... I had no idea that the reality she was putting up with at that tender age was distressingly shattering.......
Her Story was therefore out of my system at the first opportunity.
I got a real taste of its seriousness when things were coming to an end for this young girl, who would have turned eighteen had she lived a few more months.......
I felt a chill run down my spine as the realisation came.....her ailment was incurable
My couisn's daughter had come to Allahabad for an entrance exam. She was restless. Genuinely concerned about something , she had a worried look on her face and kept repeating that she should not have come.....What if something happened to her best friend....
"Zohra Khalaa ! She wants me to be with her..... I think she feels lonely without me......she talks to me about everything ......perhpas she wants to still tell me so many things.....but this exam.....I could not miss.... so I had to come...."
And then a little later she would call her friend's mother, talk for a while, cry in a solitary room, come out and mutter "I wish nothing happens to her...."
"Nothing" happened to her ......except that till my cousin's daughter got back to Delhi, her best friend had slipped into a coma......
All those things that she might have wished to share also slipped into oblivion......
And after some days she was gone forever.......
Goes without saying that my cousin and her daughter earnestly stood by the bereaved family in those most trying days.... in those hours that refused to budge.................. in those minutes that just would not tick away.............
I also went for the Condolence Prayer Meet which was held for a soul that was so spotlessly pure , for a body that hardly got time enough to commit sins.....
My cousin's daughter could think and talk of no one but her best friend . She took us to her grave. We said a prayer for the peace of a soul that must have been happy to have left a body which was needlessly experiencing so much pain and despair . At the graveyard the care-taker informed us that he had seen my cousin's daughter so many times sitting there and weeping.
We were now worried for her.
The loss of her dearest friend had immensely devastated her . And what was more disturbing was that she was letting herself sink into a bottomless ocean of pain and an extreme sense of loss. She could be slipping into severe depression
Her parents surely had to work very patiently with her . Convincing her to leave Delhi....even leave India for a while..... and go abroad for further studies was not easy.
She would not hear of it...... "leaving her friend" one more time ......No....Never....!!
"I can't go......I can't leave her this time........"
She would blurt out passionately.
But finally she did go ....... and immersed herself in a new world.
Day, weeks, months......
Time passed.........
Now my cousin's daughter is getting married.
The Card reminded me of the amazing bond that she and her best friend shared ........... I think her best friend's parents are paying the richest tribute to this absolutely divine closeness between these two girls ......and their gesture has touched the deepest corner of my heart
My cousin's daughter's Nikaah is to be solemnised at her best friend's parents' home.......
I was not waiting for a formal invitation card. Am not so fastidious with family celebrations. A casual call asking me to join in is enough.....and that had come more than a month ago. Hence I was prepared. Delhi in December has always been beautiful, inviting, tempting..........
Yesterday afternoon the card also came.
There was something unexpected about it which shook my heart and blew off that layer of dust which was shielding a bunch of memories for quite a while now. I had even tucked away in an unknown corner of the house that one very poignant photograph which reminded me of her.
She was not someone I knew personally. I had never seen her except in the pictures. And was I thankful for that.....
Yes ! In a way I was.
I think a person gives a part of himself / herself to you when they meet you. So had I seen her in person the memories would certainly have been far more difficult to fade away......
The first time I heard about her illness was at a cousin's place in Lucknow. She was then in her teens. I never gave much thought to the news. What serious problem could there be with a normally growing up girl...... some people have this habit of making mountains out of a molehill I thought .........................
Besides Her Family had access to world class medical care .....so if at all there was a problem that needed special treatment it could be taken care of by the most expensive and the very best on this planet.....
In the worst of my nightmares too I could never have dreamt of the actual state of her disease..... I had no idea that the reality she was putting up with at that tender age was distressingly shattering.......
Her Story was therefore out of my system at the first opportunity.
I got a real taste of its seriousness when things were coming to an end for this young girl, who would have turned eighteen had she lived a few more months.......
I felt a chill run down my spine as the realisation came.....her ailment was incurable
My couisn's daughter had come to Allahabad for an entrance exam. She was restless. Genuinely concerned about something , she had a worried look on her face and kept repeating that she should not have come.....What if something happened to her best friend....
"Zohra Khalaa ! She wants me to be with her..... I think she feels lonely without me......she talks to me about everything ......perhpas she wants to still tell me so many things.....but this exam.....I could not miss.... so I had to come...."
And then a little later she would call her friend's mother, talk for a while, cry in a solitary room, come out and mutter "I wish nothing happens to her...."
"Nothing" happened to her ......except that till my cousin's daughter got back to Delhi, her best friend had slipped into a coma......
All those things that she might have wished to share also slipped into oblivion......
And after some days she was gone forever.......
Goes without saying that my cousin and her daughter earnestly stood by the bereaved family in those most trying days.... in those hours that refused to budge.................. in those minutes that just would not tick away.............
I also went for the Condolence Prayer Meet which was held for a soul that was so spotlessly pure , for a body that hardly got time enough to commit sins.....
My cousin's daughter could think and talk of no one but her best friend . She took us to her grave. We said a prayer for the peace of a soul that must have been happy to have left a body which was needlessly experiencing so much pain and despair . At the graveyard the care-taker informed us that he had seen my cousin's daughter so many times sitting there and weeping.
We were now worried for her.
The loss of her dearest friend had immensely devastated her . And what was more disturbing was that she was letting herself sink into a bottomless ocean of pain and an extreme sense of loss. She could be slipping into severe depression
Her parents surely had to work very patiently with her . Convincing her to leave Delhi....even leave India for a while..... and go abroad for further studies was not easy.
She would not hear of it...... "leaving her friend" one more time ......No....Never....!!
"I can't go......I can't leave her this time........"
She would blurt out passionately.
But finally she did go ....... and immersed herself in a new world.
Day, weeks, months......
Time passed.........
Now my cousin's daughter is getting married.
The Card reminded me of the amazing bond that she and her best friend shared ........... I think her best friend's parents are paying the richest tribute to this absolutely divine closeness between these two girls ......and their gesture has touched the deepest corner of my heart
My cousin's daughter's Nikaah is to be solemnised at her best friend's parents' home.......
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