Epigraph:
(Reading Time: 7-8
minutes)
“O soul at peace, return to your Lord, well-pleased
and pleasing. So enter among My servants, and enter My Paradise.”
— Qur’an 89:27-30
“Our Lord! Forgive me, my parents, and the believers
on the Day when the reckoning is established.”
— Qur’an 14:41
______________________________________________________________________________
18th May
2022.
It has
been three years since my dear Ammi passed away. This happened in front of my
eyes. She was in her room, in her bed. With three long breaths, the fourth one
was cut short. My mother was received by the angel. She remained blessed in
having a full-fledged life into her mid-eighties.
I stayed
with her throughout, barring a few years when I left for education and greener
pastures. The best part of my life with her remains the association my three
children had with her, the eldest being 30 and the youngest 23 years old then.
Ammi was at her best with my three little children and thrived on exchanging
humourous acts and anecdotes between them.
She was a
disciplinarian and an alumnus of Pindi Convent pre-partition. When I was in
Class 7 back in 1975, on returning from school, I remained busy playing
outdoors and did not pay heed to my Ammi’s repeated call for lunch. Finally,
when I got free and went to Ammi and asked for lunch, she replied: “The lunch
is there, but you shall not have it”. I can safely vouch for myself that since
that day, I have always had my meals on time!
My Ammi
had put me in a boarding school, Lawrence College, in Murree, in Class 8th. The
year was 1976. Based on my not-so-good academic performance, she used to make a
trip with my younger brother, who was with her at home from Jhelum back then
and take a private bus to reach Pindi. From there, she used to walk quite a bit
to another venue where she got on a Murree-bound bus and was dropped off at
Bansra Gali. From there, it was a good 2-kilometer upward walk to the College
Main Gate and then quite a bit of a downward walk to the Senior School. My Ammi
used to walk the whole bit and meet the concerned Teacher in the Staff Room. I
dare women today to walk that route in one go! My Ammi used to do so, leaving
early morning from Jhelum on a private non-air-conditioned bus.
This was a
rudimentary parent-teacher meeting back then, and in vogue today! After the
meeting, I used to walk with Ammi back to Bansra Gali and cry, waving her
goodbye and returning to my dormitory. She travelled the same route back to
Jhelum with my younger brother Arif. Later, when at the University in Lahore
doing my engineering, she used to ask me with an air of humour and twinkling
eyes if there was a need for her to meet the university Professor!
She
married my father in the spring of 1957 and moved to East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh). My father was an engineer serving the British Steamer Company
there. A new leaf of life for Ammi. She was blessed with my eldest brother,
whom they named Asif. As a young engineer, my father had his home on a steamer.
That is where my mother lived with him. Asif passed away owing to dehydration
when only 8 months old in 1958. Till the very last, both my father and mother
never forgot Asif. How could they? The memory of Asif remained etched in their
indelible memory.
I married
a lovely coy lady, Hureen. We stayed with our parents throughout. My parents thoroughly
enjoyed them. At times, Hureen used to be livid with my eldest child Waleed’s
endless antics and would want to put some good sense in him, he would rush to
my parents’ room and hide between them. My parents, too, would not let Hureen
do anything and would assure her they’d take care of the matter! Waleed was put
in a boarding school, Cadet College, Hasanabdal, in 2005. His Dadi (my mother) travelled
with us to his new school and prepared his bed and cupboard the way she did for
me back in 1976.
My middle
son, Khalid, was read out of his favourite book, Winnie the Pooh, by my Dadi
every night, having his sleep time milk. Khalid, being fond of pets, his Dadi
used to ensure he always had one. A pigeon. A parrot. A hen. A rabbit. A Labrador.
When Khalid was put in the same boarding school, Dadi repeated the same regimen
with him, making him settle down in his new dormitory.
My
youngest, Ahmed, once remarked to his mother that whenever he leaves for
school, he sees Dadi (grandmother) giving two biscuits to Dada (grandfather) in
their morning tea. When my wife shared this with my mother the next day, my
mother, speaking to Ahmed, said that whenever she is giving biscuits to Dada,
you seem to be passing through our door! It took a while for Ahmed to
appreciate the humour in this!
My father
passed away early in the morning of 29th April 2012. My Ammi, at times, used to
call me Zafar when I lay down beside her in the evening! And why not? She
hadn't for a moment let her husband be missed from her bedside. At times, my
Ammi confided in me that she wanted to be with Zafar. And why not? God created
the first pair on earth as husband and wife. This is the core human relation
and building block of a society.
My
youngest, Ahmed, started sleeping with my Ammi. That was a great source of
strength for her. Ammi used to recite her Qur’an post fajr namaz and had to
switch on the room light, while Ahmed used to switch it off, muttering that his
sleep is being disturbed – and she switched back on again! Ammi used to enjoy
this! While sitting on her bedside sofa, she tickled his feet with her walking
stick to wake him up for school. My children ensured their grandmother remained
busy and usually used to hang out in her room, all three of them, and spend
some time doing their activities there.
Ammi
started fading away. I could see the shine in her eyes getting dimmer, and I realized
the inevitable. My wife took care of her, and whenever she accompanied her to
the hospital, the doctor would invariably ask if she was her daughter. My wife
knew the medicines and details about my mother’s health. Ammi used to tell the
doctor that she was her Florence Nightingale.
In her
late years, Ammi wrote her memoirs “Anwar Nama”. My Ammi’s name was Anwar. With
her flailing memory, she had my elder brother, Jamshed Bhai, recollect and
rearrange her past life and had him type on the laptop. The ending lines of her
memoirs dedicated to her husband were the famous lines of the Indian song:
“Zindagi aur kuch bhee nahein; Tayree mayree kahanee hai”. Roughly translated
as Other than being a love tale about you and me, life itself is nothing.
One thing
about death is that it does not end a person’s existence. It is a gateway to
eternity. A life promised by God, having His chosen servants inherit His
Eternal Kingdom of Paradise, those who remain aware in fulfilling the rights of
God and fellow human beings. The certainty of the advent of the Hereafter, as
the Qur’an puts it in Chapter 69, Verse 20: “I always thought that (one day) I
shall have to face my reckoning”; Ammi’s life reflected this realization. Her
actions always remained in sync with her words. Never to miss her prayers and
fast and feed the have-nots of the society, as the Qur’an aptly puts it in
Chapter 76, Verse 10: “…they used to feed the poor, the orphan and the captive
even though they themselves were in need of it”.
My parents
freed the neck of an elderly couple who used to work at our home. The couple was
in debt, a vicious cycle of paying off the compound interest of the loan. My father
met the loaner and covered the principal amount along with the accrued compound
interest. Qur’an says in Chapter 9, Verse 60: “Charity, in reality, is only…for
the release of necks…”.
They
endeavoured and laboured to put some good sense in me till their very last. The
Qur’an says in Chapter 53, Verse 39: “a man shall only receive in the Hereafter
what he has earned in this world”. I testify that whatever iota of goodness I
have in me is the endeavour of my dear father and mother. Whatever evil I have
in me is a product of my evil self. May God reward our parents in the Hereafter
for all the goodness we exhibit here. It is a direct consequence of their
consistent endeavour. Ameen.
Allahummagh
firlahu warrhamhu, Allahumma adkhilhul jannata maa al abrar. (May God forgive
my mother and father and have mercy on them. May God make them enter His
cherished Paradise with His righteous servants). Ameen!
The Qur’an,
Chapter 89, Verses 27-30: “He will say: “O you with a contended heart, return
to your Lord such that He is pleased with you, and you are pleased with Him.
So, enter among My servants, and enter My Paradise”.
Anon!
They don’t
make ‘em like that anymore!
Aamir
Iqbal Yazdani
