While I was away...

Parents grow old and for them staying away from their children is a very heartrending predicament. Can one decide if they miss you more than you miss them? The feeling, though there, is seldom mutual. I know my parents had missed me miserably. The feeling was mutual but not as grave as theirs, as I too had missed them dearly but somehow it didn't show. The feelings were overtaken by the mixed up gamut of emotions. It is not necessary that life give you a chance to explain your side of the story. Most of the times that side is taken for granted by people. They judge you for it and you are done with them. Eventually one allows apathy to rule over insensitivity, as apathy is always a reaction of it and that was just the case with me.
I only wanted to know how my parents had missed me after I had parted with them. Home is always a place that belongs first to your parents because you are their children and second it belongs to your children with whom you inhabit the place. There is nothing more to it. Individually speaking 'Home' for a person is not his own but it is of those to whom he belongs - i.e. parents, siblings, spouse and children.
I had left my parents home very early in life in the hope there could be another home; I got that home but it was always different from the home that I always carried in my mind. Till this day I miss that home of mine, the home of my memories eventually became the one of my dreams. I live to provide that home to my children in which I have lived and is a part of my memories now.

About 15 years back, when Baba had passed away I had returned back to my home in India. The burial had taken place by then and all I could see was his resting place for eternity. God had taken away my closest friend, my father, but in return had given me a son. When for the first time I had taken the month old child of mine in my arms, I had cried, because I knew that I would miss my father always. And this new child was a consolation for my sorrow in some way. I remember later I had asked my mother, 'I want to know how he passed away, his final hours, what did he say, did he miss me a lot?". She described me the events till his final hour in detail. I listened and imagined him dying right in front of my eyes. That day I knew that I had lost my father but could never decide to come to terms with it, as it was still an unseen tragedy. One need to see the dead body of their loved ones to save it forever in their memories and remind oneself that their physical body is no longer going to provide them that one hug that one will always need in their coming years.They die but then they always live. Life moved on then as it still moves on now.
I moved back to Jeddah, back to the realities of life trying to find a comfort zone for myself. Somehow, I had settled, if that's the word I am looking for. Ten years later, my Mom passed away and I still couldn't make it to her funeral. After her burial, I dreaded going back as I knew that she was no more waiting for me. A few telephonic calls to my sisters and that was all needed to be done. The most critically important person in my life had passed away. Though I had seen her in her last days but her final hours were still elusive to me. In the hope of knowing it all, I called up my eldest sister, who was like the quintessential son to her. She described me in detail her last hours and that she was not in pain while dying and had opened her eyes before dying to tell her that everything is going to be alright. And yes, she did say that she always missed me.
Three years later I visited India. I paid a visit to her grave - There she was, next to her brother, her parents and with other siblings around her, she had finally found her home.
Life moved again not really caring who I was and what I was seeking. I knew that there was something I was missing and that was a home. That day I became more than a parent to my children as I could see myself sharing their home and somehow it became mine as well.

"..it was mine as well"

The bell at 1:30 noon had just rung and all the boys were out of the college premises as the afternoon session was for girls.

After giving the alarm for the boys to leave the premises, while they usually hung around to catch a glimpse of the girls entering the college through the rear gate which was for girls only, the messengers on duty knew the boys only too well. All the nooks and corners of the college were cleaned of the boys, as if they were pests. Nature as they say makes way for those who persist and some brave ones wouldn't just budge.

But these rules were not meant for 'HIM' as he had just graduated the previous year and was now a part of the teaching faculty. It was an easy transition that he had made but it didn't show in his appearance. He looked one of the students while among them. At 24, he  was still more of a student rather than a junior lecturer. It was a temporary job he was doing while looking for better avenues.  His department and classes were in the PG block and he would usually visit the library to return the books on a daily basis and catch hold of some college news from the gang of senior lecturers who had taken him in their wings. Very few knew that he had become a teacher, he had prepared a very calculated demeanor while he moved from his block to the library as he had to cross the girls section - which meant that he had to pass through an intermediary gate, then the corridor and lastly a playground enclosed between the four wings of the college to finally reach the library. Seeing no boys in the premises now, any passerby from the opposite sex would be an intruder and seeing a boy alone some girls would gang up against the unfortunate boy and tease him. It was a scene of the morning that was reversed in the noon - In the morning the boys had fun and in the noon the girls were worse than them. It was a kind of revenge they had on the boys in the noon. He often got caught in the afternoon cross firing.

The early few days were the worst. he would keep his head down while crossing the girls block but that wouldn't dissuade the girls from commenting.

They would shout, 'Your time is up, get out of the premises'. He even heard one say, 'Don't try your luck here, we will see the better of you'. Another one said, 'Why do you keep your head down, look up and face us’. He even heard a whistle. All the time he kept his head down, till he had reached the library door. From the library window one of his senior colleague who would invariably enjoy his embarrassment would ask, 'So I can see that you have made it till here with great difficulty'. With his brows held high, he would smile and say, 'What else can I do? These girls are impossible'

'You can enjoy, at the least'

A faint smile would leave his parted lips and would usually end with a spurt of laughter from him and his other colleagues.

This was everyday's story till he found a way of escaping the embarrassment. In few days he came to know the time when the girls would be in their classrooms. He made his entry then and found his way to the library without getting embarrassed. Though there would still be girls, but when few in number the girls were like boys...well-behaved and quiet. Exams were on the anvil and even the library would be quiet except for the pigeons who would enjoy the peace and cool interiors of the mud windows in the corridors. 

It was during one such hot summer noon, that while he was reading in the library in his usual corner chair at the rear end of the library with no colleagues then to talk, he didn't know when he had dozed off into deep slumber. It must have been about a quarter of an hour when he was woken up by a sneeze which came from behind the book rack which was just behind him. He turned around to see a girl, who must have been a student checking some books. 'SHE' looked at him for a second while saying sorry and excused herself to head towards the librarian for registering the books in her name. While registering the books she had unknowingly registered that look of hers' somewhere inside him. Those thin kohled large beautiful eyes could say a million words. Suddenly though still in the library, he was  transported into someplace which was away from the volumes of books around him. It wasn't in his capacity to avert his eyes from her - In a pink salwar-kameez, with her hair braided in a fine plait with a few strands left on purpose to play with her lovely face, her ears heavy with dangling long earrings, she passed by him but not without leaving an impression on his mind.  Before he could notice anything else, the librarian was watching him, watching her. He averted his gaze and looked into the book but the librarian had noticed the evident. After she had left the library, the librarian teased, 'Sir, you can go back to sleep now. It is quite quiet.'

He got the slur in the librarian’s speech and replied, 'How can I now? I should be leaving now.' 

He didn't see her for the next few days. Wary of asking anything to the librarian, he just waited for her in the hope that she would arrive someday. And one fine day, while he was entering the library he saw her sitting in the library. Happy to see her, he went back to his chair and adjusted it in a way so that he could see her. She was taking some notes while her head stayed buried in the books. The librarian called him out with an excuse "Sir, the book you've asked for has arrived'. He headed towards the librarian, passing by her, she raised her head for a couple of seconds, while he was looking at her, she said a soft, 'Good afternoon, Sir' and went back to her books.

The librarian had sensed his delight on her arrival and had called him to show the book she had returned along with the library card. He naughtily asked "This one?"

He nodded in the affirmative tilting his head in the direction of the library card to read her name...."H. A., Class: B.Ed (1st year).   

He thanked the librarian and left the library.

Heading towards the administrator's office, with his heartbeat audible in his ears, he asked the A.O. for the register of the B.Ed. students.

The A.O. handed the register to him and he found his way to her details in the register. She was a good student with brilliant marks in Chemistry in her B.Sc. years. He also noted down her residence address.

In the meantime he had struck a deal with the librarian over a couple of plates of biryani to make him a confidante. He added one more necessary confidante from his family, a cousin, to whom he revealed his swan song.  

He saw her a couple of times more - sometimes in the library, once in the corridor, once with her friends and sometimes just a fleeting image of her passing away behind him. He turned around to see that it was a thought that had escaped from his imagination and disappeared while he turned around. But even then there was a certain soothing fragrance of her in the air that he was breathing. He dissuaded from calling it love, as it was still a feeling that was half baked while he was bathing in its sunshine.  To get over the enigma, he wanted to return to the library to talk to her, but could not, as it was not in his capacity to do so. After all she was still a student and he was a teacher. After getting drawn towards her, he had crossed the bridge that separates a student from a teacher. And till that moment that was the only established relationship between them and the uncertain path that he was treading could lead him anywhere or rather nowhere. He kept the matters of his heart close to himself and continued with his work with an uneasy passivity but still with her marked impression all over him. The summer was getting hotter and the exams were approaching. He would spend his idle hours in the library in the hope of seeing her someday but she never returned.

He had to make this matter move to the next stage and in the midst of all this one day he handed over her contact details to a his confidante cousin, who was more of a friend.  A telephone call from his cousin led to a meeting of the girl’s family as is done in the cases of arranged marriages with his part of the story kept in the dark. Then the day came when the  girl’s parents asked him if he’d like to see the girl in person as they were unaware that he had actually seen her. But what baffled him by their question was that the girl has seen him but had not revealed this to anybody in her family. Why had she done this? he wanted to know this but there was no way to find this out.

On the day of their families’ meeting, he dressed up rather casually and reached her home with his mom and the trusted cousin who was making this happen. After a brief talk with her parents and sisters, they called out for the girl. She entered the room and with her gaze low, sat on the sofa across him. Though he had seen her before, it was an entirely different matter to even have a look at her in front of everybody. The embarrassment was palpable but he did sneak a moment to have a look at her while everybody was talking.  For a second she lifted her gaze and looked at him and so did he. There was a strange look in her eyes, as if a thousand questions were waiting for their answers. It was good that she could not have asked it there as he would not be able to answer. She left the room couple of minutes later. The boy returned home and when his mother asked him, if he had liked the girl, he nodded in the affirmative. His mother’s  approval had always mattered and he did not want her to get influenced  just by his choice. It was good that his mother had approved because had she disproved of the girl then he was unsure what would have he done next.

Summer holidays ended and the slow festivities of the wedding began. The wedding was fixed post monsoons and there were 3 more months to go. During one such day when his mom was going out to buy clothes for the bride, she asked him if he preferred some clothes of his choice for her. He chose a pink silk saree with a  golden border intricately designed with beautiful motifs. He chose pink as that was the color he had first seen her in. The monsoons passed away but not without the pouring away of the past few months of waiting.

All through those months, since the day he had noticed that strange look in her eyes in their first official meeting, till the day when she sat in front of him as his wife, he had noticed that strange look of a question mark in her. Now was the time to ask her what was that question that was floating incessantly in her eyes  ?

He asked her if she wanted to ask him something. With half of a smile she reached for the curtains and pulling them apart allowing the moonlight to enter the room, she said, “You kept you love story close to you but somehow I knew it then. Had I asked you as to why you did not share this with others, then our story would not have been only your love story. Everybody would know, it was mine as well”. 

My Child's Flight Feathers

They develop their flight feathers but the parents are unaware that their little birds will one day leave the nest to have a flight of their own. Nature persuades it and parents somehow fall in line with it preparing for the parting that often accompanies with their flying. But this wasn't the feeling when I was waiting at Jeddah airport, 17 years back, on a wintry morning, seeing my wife Huma come out of the terminal and handing over a 9 month old Kaleem from her arms to mine. Those moments froze in time as I have no words to describe them, and even as I recollect them now, I am still without words to express that feeling. She had given a life into my arms, which is a part of me. He grew in my arms rather rapidly and I aged with this becoming a habit. He witnessed my good and bad times. He never knew this as a toddler but his affectionate smile would make me forget my worries. In his playful antics I would forget my desperation of bad days. As he grew there came good times in my life. But I always related to him as the one who had unknowingly shared my loneliness. Love of him came as a back-up plan of God for me. 
I was and still am wary of intimate attachments but never realized that I had invested a large part of my energy and hope in him. He grew rapidly beyond my fathoming of the fact that he had starting developing the much needed pinfeathers required for his growth. For me it was time to get back to myself; I just asked myself - doesn't it just seem like yesterday that Huma had given him in my arms ? When and how 17 years escaped my imagination? The question will remain unanswered. Like so many things over which I have no control, even with this, as a reluctant parent I am left with the difficult and only task of mentally preparing myself to leave him to his destiny with the hope that his flight feathers are strong enough to enable a safe flight. With my own questions, doubts and values, I leave him into the wilderness of the dark where he has to make his own light. 
I wonder how would the day be when I will see him off at the airport as an adult and return home without him but with his memories. I may return back to my home without him and still find him in the empty, unoccupied spaces of the house; his empty desk; the empty hangers in the closet; his drawer without his wallet and watch. I may miss his dirty linen from the basket. He may take all his possessions with him but still shall leave those marks of the ball on the walls of the house that he made while playfully hitting against it; his pressing of my shoulders after a tiring day; the smell of his favorite pizza that would upset my stomach; the anger when he asked my mobile to play games on it will turn into a bitter memory; the fight for the TV remote control with his younger siblings;  his favorite TV programs which now no one will watch. I will eventually learn to live with all this with the only one person for whom the parting will be more difficult - his mother.

I leave the rest to time and make peace with my own longing with this very true poem by Kahlil Gibran, as this now resonates in every moment of my parenthood:

"Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable."

....as never before !

There are some years in our lives which we all wish to erase from our memories. The year 1992-93 was one such for all in the family. Majju bhai, my eldest brother-in-law had passed away in an accident. At 45, for anybody, it is a wrong age to die. One leaving the family when the time comes to be with them is certainly not the time to go. And in his case we all echoed this sentiment because he had touched our lives in more than one way. He was always like a son to his in-laws. To my sister apart from being everything, he was also a friend. For his children....I have seen him becoming a kid in their company. How I still wish he was around just to see all the good happening in his family. I wish he could see my sister age with such grace. I wish he could see his children leading their lives with the amount of dignity with which he had led his own. All said, I have yet to meet another man who can even distantly resemble his personality and qualities.

Though we all had to deal with this untimely tragedy in the family, there was one person, whose grief was more profound than all of us. It was my father. He had always loved his eldest daughter the most. He had always stood for her whenever the need arose. We knew he could do anything for her. It will be impossible for me to put in words the pain he was going through to see his beloved daughter, only 33 years old then, having to go through such sadness and pain. it was during those days that he had asked me once, 'How is she going to deal with all this ? This mountain of a life now. If only I could help her overcome her loss...' his eyes had welled up after this. He so often left his sentences unfinished. We knew what he wanted to say or was refraining from saying, but it was his abrupt silence that made us worry for him. It was slowly taking a toll on his already deteriorating health. He cared less as he said, 'Allah should have called me, it is time for me to go as there remains nothing for me now. Why he had to go ?"
Some nights he would keep awake and pray in the loneliness of such vast nights, silently crying his heart out. My mother would console him and would end up crying in turn. He would tell her, 'You know, she doesn't sleep properly. See, it's three clock and she is still awake. I've seen her keeping awake like this so many times. God knows how she is dealing with it.' They would listen to each other without having consoling answers to their unending and intriguing sorrow.
I remember, six months after Majju bhai's death, his belongings came from Saudi Arabia. They were all used belongings of him and my sister wanted to have them with her as part of her deceased husband's memories. Bombay was under its usual spell of rains and I would accompany Baba to Ballard Pier to the agent's office for getting the consignment cleared from Bombay Port. For people who've been in Bombay know well, how difficult it is to travel in trains during the rains. But still nothing deterred him and he would travel unrelentingly, though would grumble how difficult it had become to travel in the crowded trains. We traveled everyday for about 15 days till the shipment was cleared. All through this his health was failing but the love for his daughter kept his spirits intact.

Grief, after a time, occupies a corner in your heart and stays there forever. We learn to live with it; it becomes a kind of compromise that we do for our good and we move with it. Gradually, my sister and her children found ways to deal with this tragedy and their life took a turn from the place which was looking like a dead end of their lives.
But for Baba, the grief didn't move. It stayed with him for two years.
Two years later he passed away leaving behind his simple, contented memories with me to last a lifetime. He loved his family, worked for them tirelessly and led a very simple life without asking for much.
Even now sometimes when I get up in the middle of the night and find the quilt away from my daughter, I move it to cover her.
And while doing so I find a part of my father's heart beating in me.
And my love for her grows as never before.