How often do you hear about the greatest of friendships being blown up in the blink of an eyelid?
How often do you hear about two sisters who get enstranged?
How often do you hear about a girl who hates her best friend?
If you have, I respect you already. If you haven't, you'll hear about it now.
Because what you will read next, is a glimpse of what lies in the innermost chambers of my heart, one of the many factors that still makes me frown despite all the reasons for me to smile. No matter how perfect life seems 'in the moment,' there is always that ONE thing that nags your heart and bursts that short-lived bubble of joy.
Naila. Shireen. Farha.
My Powerpuff girls, my angels.
The people who knew the Nida as she was. The Nida with all her vulnerabilities and fears.
The three people who loved her irrespective of all her flaws.
Naila. Shireen. Farha.
The girls with whom my insecurities were secure with.
They were the people whose presence compensated for every deprivation in my life. I wanted one sibling, God blessed me with three. That is what they meant to me- my sisters.
Although we met in the most unimaginable circumstances, we gelled beautifully.
If one was a confused jackass, the other was a smart ass.
If one was reserved and soft-spoken, the other was an out and out lame ass.
Like all philosophical stories, we faced good times and hard. From rofl moments to crying hard in each other's arms, we had witnessed every flavour of life.
We were checks for the person going astray, we were pillars for those reaching higher.
Together we fell, and together we rose. Against the world and it's discrimination, against narrow-minded people and their suffocation. We were just beginning to understand the meaning of 'perfect.'
We were four extremes, brought closer by the extremities.
They were the missing links to the jigsaw that my life was. The last pieces that fit perfectly to complete the bigger picture. The final link to my Utopian dreams.
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The question thus arises: What went wrong?
Why was the jigsaw shaken up and why did it's pieces go missing?
It happened on the 29th of June, 2012.
A competitive exam that sucked the last ounces of our affection towards each other.
Two of us made it, two of us missed it by a hair's breadth.
Thus came the fall.
Getting into a medical college is the one issue that is so hyped in today's time, that love, friendship and selflessness disappear into the din of frenzy.
I NEVER understood any of that.
I valued friendship beyond everything. I do not know if I was right in doing so, but now I feel I had overrated the concept of friendship. I'd made them the central pillars of my life, while I was just another brick in their walls.
I miss the two of them. Whats ails me further, is that they do not.
I recall as if happened just yesterday, me walking up to my mom on the day of the results and telling her I wished to swap places with Farha. I wanted her to get through, because Medicine didn't mean as much to me as Farha did. I'd have gone into one of the best colleges in Hyderabad- CBIT- to pursue Biotechnology, a field that always held fascination for me. But being a doctor was Farha's dream. It was the sole aim of her life, and of those around her. It was her mother's long nurtured dream.
Here again, I was wronged. While I was concerning myself with the tragedies (sounds melodramatic? It was.) in the lives of my friends, there was a whole new storm brewing in the background. And I was at it's epicenter.
While I was being congratulated with niceties and hypocritical pleasantries, I was also being held responsible for the unfortunate circumstances in my friends' life.
It began with a barrage of question posed by disappointed mothers.
"How did she do it and you couldn't?"
"She is the same as you, what then, is different about her?"
"See? Those two are now ahead of you, while you remain plateaued in failure."
That did it. The firewood was there, so was the coal. Now, came the first spark.
Like all wild-fires, this one spread too. I was being blamed!
I no longer recognized the girl who was my sister. The girl who figured in almost EVERY picture I have of my college life. My FarHawtieee.
No more phone calls, no more texts, no more Nimbuzzing....like we'd never met.
I was always told that people change with time. I never believed that until I witnessed it first-hand. Flipping through my notebooks pulls me down into memory lane. My notebooks have become what the Pensieve was to Dumbledore. I loved sketching Farha. Blessed with the daintiest of features, she was my idea of dusky beauty. Then there was me cracking stupid jokes about how I would clone her hair and wear it myself. She was the closest any girl could get to being prefect. Quite the envy in college ;)
This sketch still gets me tripping in laughter! Sitting through a boring Physics lecture and playing match-maker...only to realize, there was no one who could do justice with my girl. So I ended up proposing to her myself. :P
Ahmed Faraz, you give words to my dilemma:
Tum takalluf ko bhi iqlaas samajhte ho Faraz
dost hota nahi har koi haath milaane waala
I spent a miserable birthday in hope she'd come knocking at my door with that radiant smile I was starting to miss. She didn't.
Even the date of my birth seemed to be conspiring against me...1st of July, two days after those wretched results. I went to her, next month, on her birthday and parted by saying "I didn't want anybody else's birthday to suck as much as mine did, so here I am."
She smiled.
The formality with which she spoke with me last, flummoxed me. For in the past, we had been abuse pelting maniacs. Time is a funny entity, and memories, funnier. They create a limbo right in the middle of reality and leave you to wonder where it is that you actually fit in.
I do not know how to handle situations like these. I therefore choose to resign into muted silence. If I was loved the way I am capable of loving, then my jigsaw shall fit in on it's own and in it's own sweet time.
I still pray, every single day, that her life falls into place. That she tastes the success that is rightfully hers. Most importantly, I pray for a miracle that will bring her back, and us together.
How often do you hear about two sisters who get enstranged?
How often do you hear about a girl who hates her best friend?
If you have, I respect you already. If you haven't, you'll hear about it now.
Because what you will read next, is a glimpse of what lies in the innermost chambers of my heart, one of the many factors that still makes me frown despite all the reasons for me to smile. No matter how perfect life seems 'in the moment,' there is always that ONE thing that nags your heart and bursts that short-lived bubble of joy.
Naila. Shireen. Farha.
My Powerpuff girls, my angels.
The people who knew the Nida as she was. The Nida with all her vulnerabilities and fears.
The three people who loved her irrespective of all her flaws.
Naila. Shireen. Farha.
The girls with whom my insecurities were secure with.
They were the people whose presence compensated for every deprivation in my life. I wanted one sibling, God blessed me with three. That is what they meant to me- my sisters.
Although we met in the most unimaginable circumstances, we gelled beautifully.
If one was a confused jackass, the other was a smart ass.
If one was reserved and soft-spoken, the other was an out and out lame ass.
Like all philosophical stories, we faced good times and hard. From rofl moments to crying hard in each other's arms, we had witnessed every flavour of life.
We were checks for the person going astray, we were pillars for those reaching higher.
Together we fell, and together we rose. Against the world and it's discrimination, against narrow-minded people and their suffocation. We were just beginning to understand the meaning of 'perfect.'
We were four extremes, brought closer by the extremities.
They were the missing links to the jigsaw that my life was. The last pieces that fit perfectly to complete the bigger picture. The final link to my Utopian dreams.
.jpg)
The question thus arises: What went wrong?
Why was the jigsaw shaken up and why did it's pieces go missing?
It happened on the 29th of June, 2012.
A competitive exam that sucked the last ounces of our affection towards each other.
Two of us made it, two of us missed it by a hair's breadth.
Thus came the fall.
Getting into a medical college is the one issue that is so hyped in today's time, that love, friendship and selflessness disappear into the din of frenzy.
I NEVER understood any of that.
I valued friendship beyond everything. I do not know if I was right in doing so, but now I feel I had overrated the concept of friendship. I'd made them the central pillars of my life, while I was just another brick in their walls.
I miss the two of them. Whats ails me further, is that they do not.
I recall as if happened just yesterday, me walking up to my mom on the day of the results and telling her I wished to swap places with Farha. I wanted her to get through, because Medicine didn't mean as much to me as Farha did. I'd have gone into one of the best colleges in Hyderabad- CBIT- to pursue Biotechnology, a field that always held fascination for me. But being a doctor was Farha's dream. It was the sole aim of her life, and of those around her. It was her mother's long nurtured dream.
Here again, I was wronged. While I was concerning myself with the tragedies (sounds melodramatic? It was.) in the lives of my friends, there was a whole new storm brewing in the background. And I was at it's epicenter.
While I was being congratulated with niceties and hypocritical pleasantries, I was also being held responsible for the unfortunate circumstances in my friends' life.
It began with a barrage of question posed by disappointed mothers.
"How did she do it and you couldn't?"
"She is the same as you, what then, is different about her?"
"See? Those two are now ahead of you, while you remain plateaued in failure."
That did it. The firewood was there, so was the coal. Now, came the first spark.
Like all wild-fires, this one spread too. I was being blamed!
I no longer recognized the girl who was my sister. The girl who figured in almost EVERY picture I have of my college life. My FarHawtieee.
No more phone calls, no more texts, no more Nimbuzzing....like we'd never met.
I was always told that people change with time. I never believed that until I witnessed it first-hand. Flipping through my notebooks pulls me down into memory lane. My notebooks have become what the Pensieve was to Dumbledore. I loved sketching Farha. Blessed with the daintiest of features, she was my idea of dusky beauty. Then there was me cracking stupid jokes about how I would clone her hair and wear it myself. She was the closest any girl could get to being prefect. Quite the envy in college ;)
This sketch still gets me tripping in laughter! Sitting through a boring Physics lecture and playing match-maker...only to realize, there was no one who could do justice with my girl. So I ended up proposing to her myself. :P
Ahmed Faraz, you give words to my dilemma:
Tum takalluf ko bhi iqlaas samajhte ho Faraz
dost hota nahi har koi haath milaane waala
I spent a miserable birthday in hope she'd come knocking at my door with that radiant smile I was starting to miss. She didn't.
Even the date of my birth seemed to be conspiring against me...1st of July, two days after those wretched results. I went to her, next month, on her birthday and parted by saying "I didn't want anybody else's birthday to suck as much as mine did, so here I am."
She smiled.
The formality with which she spoke with me last, flummoxed me. For in the past, we had been abuse pelting maniacs. Time is a funny entity, and memories, funnier. They create a limbo right in the middle of reality and leave you to wonder where it is that you actually fit in.
I do not know how to handle situations like these. I therefore choose to resign into muted silence. If I was loved the way I am capable of loving, then my jigsaw shall fit in on it's own and in it's own sweet time.
I still pray, every single day, that her life falls into place. That she tastes the success that is rightfully hers. Most importantly, I pray for a miracle that will bring her back, and us together.
