24/04/2025
Death doesn't knock, It just enters, and with it. takes not just the person, but the air, the warmth the familiarity of love and something inside you that never returns.
It was 11.17pm, 17 April. I was half asleep. Sahil Adeem's one of the podcasts was playing besides my head when the phone rang, it was Bhai-jan (my elder brother). For a moment, i thought may be he had come to srinagar and there are some guests along.. the only thought in my mind was God, i need to pull extra bedding out from the wardrobe" that is how ordinary the beginning of it was... but nothing that followed was ordinary..
He said somethinh, i don't remember what exactly. I just know that the words were enough to make time stop. My Uncle, my father's younger brother had passed away and suddenly, nothing around made sense...
Chachu...
I didn't grew up close to him the way most nieces do. We were not a family that visited each other often. There was always this distance between us. Yet i knew him through the way my mother spoke of her in-laws, her childhood, her early marriage, stories of shared kitchens, shared rooms, his marriage, his rebellious attitude, those kashmiri winters and summer mischief. In those stories, he had always lived, laughing, teasing, scolding, fighting, loving and I had made an image of him out of those little pieces...
I last visited their house was in 2019, it was my beautiful cousion's whom i call Emaan and Haya's wedding where I had all the fun, i danced with Shazu and Anju, sang with them, I remember Me and Laado i mean Anju in kitchen, making roti's, laughing over pranking our Aunt who yesterday lost the noor of her life and other cousions and girls of our Muhalla teasing us for working so hard, and I remember how proud we were to be doing something like that, i mean making more than 500 Roti's, staying up woh bhi fresh for whole night when we already had not slept for days.
Chachu came and stood by the door. His presence was firm and had an aura, He looked at us and smiled and that is when I had seen him smiling for the first time.
Seeing us making all those roti's, He said "thak gaye hongi tum donu"
It was a simple sentence. But it is the one echoing in my head even now.
When I got the call that night, I did not cry immediately. I sat blank, holding and gazing at my phone like it could change the news if I refresh it enough times. I checked again and again. And then I saw Shazu's WhatsApp status, Just his picture with caption "Khuda karinay jannatul Firdous Ata"
I still whispered to my self like NOOOOO, may b it is something else, it is a misunderstanding.
Somewhere I messaged Laado at 1.17am as "Laado ye kya?" But I already knew there would not be a reply that would undo the truth.
I stayed up till Fajar. I had to break the news to my parents, and they weren't well already. I was afraid, how to tell my father that his younger brother is gone ?
And when I told them, I will never forget that moment.
My Dad was still on prayer mat, his hands were folded in dua
When he heard me, his hands just dropped. His eyes stayed open, just open, not blinking, not crying, just open, it was like he was seeing something far away, something only he could see
And in that second, he wasn't my father, he was an older brother, left behind...
We left for Kupwara, there were no cars, the roads were empty. Dad was ready to offer anything who ever takes us there...
I sat in middle seat in silence, holding my breath, and reciting Astagfirrullah, Astagfirrullah just with a hope that his ruh will somehow feel the breeze of my istigfaar... I didn't know what else to do.
We reached, walked in and everything inside me collapsed. I had planned to stay strong and firm and make dua insted but i never knew when grief recognizes grief, it doesn't ask for permission. Me shazu, anju, and my other cousions we all could not control our eyes and heart which was about to blast...
There were so many moments that made my heart sink. My aunt who before a day was like queen, seemed empty, my cousions starring into space, with dry lips, red eyes, hands trimbling and others brusting not less than a cloud on a rainy day.
I stood there, trying to put myself together while the world around me had come undone.
And in that moment A FEAR SETTLED INTO ME THAT HAS NOT LEFT SINCE...
This one death opened a door in my mind that I never wanted to see. The kind of door that shows you what your own future may look like. What happens when it is your own parents?
What happens when the phone call is about them?
I can't explain how much that fear is heavy on me now...
Sometimes I just look at my Dad's number on my phone and feel a cold wave of anxity which chills my bones that what if the number stops calling...
I am not ready. None of us are ever ready.
In kashmir, we say that a girl is protected, respected, and believed to belong only as long as her parents are alive.
After that...even brothers change..
The same brothers who call you their Jaan.. who bring you sweets and scold you for coming home late. One day, they turn into strangers. Not out of cruelty, but because life turns everything cold.
Sisters are forgotten, property spilt, phone calls reduce and I don't want to believe it...
Grief has a way of dimming the world around you. I understand now, there are friends who are of you by choice, whoes hearts somehow know when yours is breaking. And then there are those who come by chance, they are kind, but distant when silence grows heavy.
I know none of them knew. Yet my human nature, my nafs is overtaking my thoughts and somewhere inside me a voice raises that did you not wonder where I went ? Did you not miss the quiet I left behind ?
Neverthless,,, if you are reading this, and something in you shifts, let that be enough... no calls please and no sudden messages asking how i am... Just a quiet knowing that you should have been there when it mattered...
And To Everyone Reading...
PRAY...
Not just for my Chachu, but for all those who love, for our parents, for siblings who love, for daughters who are afraid of loosing their roots, and for hearts like mine... that chidya jaisa dil...
May Allah Karim grant him the highest ranks of Jannatul Firdous, and may we all live with love and kindness... Ameen
Yess this pain is nothing nothing when world around us gives us more chills, the pain of Gaza, the children over there, the sabarun Jameel of those mothers, wives and daughters... May Allah make the best provisions for them and may Allah forgive me for being heedless...
