For a very long time now I’ve wanted to come to Chennai… I’ve been starved of my own people. Of my family. Yes Alhumdulillah I have mom and dad and ammi and abbu with me. I speak to my sis fairly often and Nig visits us often enough – or maybe not often enough. But apart from these people I have no one in the city. No one I am close to. No one i really really love. I am not very close to any of my cousins because of the age gap but at least they are someone! Maybe if i got to spend more time with them they’ll realize I am grown up now and yet like every single one of them am childish. Maybe i’ll grow close? And even if they don’t treat me like an adult I just want to be around my people. People to whom I belong no matter what. People who pray for me because they love me even though they don’t really know me as such. It’s genetic. Their love. And I’ve been craving that love. The unconditional love. Just because I am theirs.
I’ve missed Chennai so much that just finding Arun’s ice cream in Hyderabad made me feel blessed. It made me feel for a moment that I was IN Chennai. I’ve wanted to come to Chennai so bad for such a long time that it was like a constant stomach ache… or tooth ache. But not like this. Not for my maamujaan’s funeral. I mean he can just have come to Chennai for vacation and ordered us here right? Why did he have to come only to bid us all farewell? It’s Allah’s will of course and I know he will be very angry with me for even thinking this – but I tried maamujaan. I tried very hard to not think this. I have complete faith in Allah and his plans. I know everyone will be alright. I know everything will be fine. But when I see that kid of yours… that 7 year old girl who by turns knows and doesn’t know what happened. Who tells me what happened then immediately changes the topic – the girl who lay beside me smiling randomly for no reason just to convince herself that everything is perfect, that you, her father will be back tomorrow or maybe day after tomorrow from your visit to her daadi – that you will bring her gifts from the Jannah… I can’t help myself maamujaan… I just can’t stop that question from arising in my mind. You are of course alive in her and you always will be but she needs you to be physically there – to hug her. She is so scared. So so so scared. She is my only younger sister – she is 14 years younger and I can’t imagine being in her position… I can’t imagine being able to bear the pain that she is undergoing or will be undergoing. And I want to do something for her. I want to protect her. But how do I do it? I can’t bring you back… I… can’t do anything to ease the harshness of reality. And i really wish I could. I was never this helpless. It wasn’t so long ago that you underwent the pain of losing a parent… you know how it feels. Tell me how do i help her cope? Does the feeling of loss ever go away? I don’t think it’ll ever go away for me – losing you is like losing a parent. You are one of the very few people in whose company i felt very secure. Like nothing will go wrong. You know the first memory I have of you is juice-e-mosambi? Do you remember that? I really hope you enjoyed those times maamujaan because i never gave you anything else…. Do you remember the time you gave me the only Barbie i ever owned? It wore a yellow saari and was really very pretty. That was the doll I kept the longest. Maamujaan… do you remember coming to pick us up at the station every summer? Do you remember lalbagh in Bangalore last year? I remember… I remember massaging your head and I remember the way you always had a prickly stubble. I remember you helping papa organize baaji’s wedding (Do you even know how huge a support you were to him then?) I remember you pulsing with life and the way I saw you today just twisted my heart into complex knots and it pains… and it will pain forever because you will never hug me again. You will never hold my hand in your warm hands and you will never tell me to take care of my mum… you will never put your hand on my head and make me feel like i am your very own child. And I will miss you. And I never will be able to bid you adieu.