Come Eid or a birthday in the family, there is a greeting card from a
wonderful person that always kept coming; My early memories of these
cards are when I as a 7 year old kid watched my eldest sister receiving
her share of cards along with letters which her husband would write to
her, as he was an Engineer on a ship and led a professional sea life and
was away from his family for long periods of time. She would look at
the greeting card, run her finger over it and then keep it to her side
and open the accompanying letter to read it. While she quietly read
them, I would often pick the card from her side and looking at it, would
marvel at the picture and then at the words which he wrote in his
beautiful handwriting; each alphabet would be quite measured and would
be delicately woven to give in to his thoughtful expression to greet her
on their wedding anniversary, her birthday, Eid and many other such
occasions. My parents would receive their Eid card from him. As I grew,
I came to know through my many relatives that they would also receive
an Eid greeting card twice a year.
His greeting cards have remained
a very poignant part of my childhood and adolescent memory for long
that I still remember a few ones. As a man of shipping, he traveled
across the globe. The greeting cards would be picture post cards bearing
the pictures of the popular and famous structures of the cities of the
world. There would be other beautiful ones worded with love and care. He
would send those cards when the ship on which he was working would be
alongside and he would get a chance to buy those greetings and post it
to his loved ones. From where ever those cards came, all of them exuded
love and extreme warmth. While wishing a person he would keep that
person's qualities and good things in mind and write to make it very
special for that person. In hindsight when I I imagine those cards, I
find him sitting in his cabin of some ship, in the middle of the sea,
thinking about his wife, children and relatives while writing them.
Isn’t it something to think about that though he was alone and must have
felt lonely while writing those greeting cards, his handwriting didn’t
waver. It was always the same – even and uniform, giving insight into
his strong mind while he wrote them. Yet, he must’ve been smiling while
writing them, as I could see all those receiving and reading them,
smile. For about a decade I read those greetings while growing into my
teens. My perception about him always remained the same – He was a man
who believed more in giving than receiving. Away from his family he
wrote countless greeting cards irrespective of whether they were
answered back or not. They never stopped coming. There was never a
complain in his writing. He was alone for a large part of his life, away
from the very people to whom he wrote those cards but his writing never
indicated any loneliness though he must’ve been very alone. Time passed
and he moved from the sea life to a job as he had wished to and would
say ‘want to do a land job’. There was no dearth of opportunities for
this brilliant man; While leaving the shipping job he said that he was
tired of the sea life and need to move to working other than the sea. He
grew professionally while working in Jubail for seven years, yet his
tastes remained simple – good food and the longing of his loved ones.
Life was changing everywhere for everybody, postal addresses changed for
many, but no matter the change, his greeting cards reached everywhere.
Year ‘1992’ changed the way I looked at relationships; it was the year
in which he passed away in a car accident. It was the holy month of
Ramzan and he passed away while driving back home from his office. We
were expecting him to join us for Eid later that month but God had other
plans. My sister moved to Hyderabad with her children for his burial
which took place four days before Eid. While people were celebrating Eid
everywhere, we were thinking that had he been alive he would be sitting
with his beloved family, eating his beloved food.
I have always
maintained that pain doesn’t dissipate, it just stays there and becomes
numb making us immune to its presence in us after a while.
Four
days after Eid while we were going about our lives trying to fathom the
impact of the sudden tragedy that had struck us, the door bell rang. My
sister who was standing near the door opened it and saw a postman
standing there. He had a bunch of greeting cards in his hand to deliver
and he gave those to my sister. She took those cards and sat in the
chair near the door and sobbed miserably. We all reached to her and took
the bunch of letters from her hands. While giving away those greeting
cards, she said that these are the last ones, even these have stopped
now. Those were the greeting cards he had written before the accident
and had posted to literally all the family members. We had received them
after his passing away. I still wonder, had he not passed away and had
been with us that Eid, he would have seen the smile on our faces which
we always had while reading his greeting cards. The greeting cards did
stop coming but what has not stopped is the good wishes that he had
prayed for, for his family, through those greeting cards. People pass
away and what remains of them are memories unique to their
personalities. Times have changed and nobody writes letters or sends
greeting cards. But for me the memory of the greeting cards will always
be attached to his beloved presence in our lives.
