A Black Box Unlatched: By Fariha Narjis

I wrote many long captions for my mother and her motherhood, my best friend and our friendship, my people and their places, for him and my feelings, but I never wrote something for you Abbu (father).

No, today is not father’s day. No, it’s not your birthday or death day. It is just that I am missing you a lot, or maybe it’s the time of year when people start missing people and I am filled to the brim today, so I want to spill some thoughts out.

I have preserved you for a long time now and today just wanted to check if you are there at the right place in my heart where I left you eleven years ago or maybe you left us eleven years and one day earlier.

All the places I sauntered and food I consumed, I remember you. You were so gregarious and I am exactly the opposite. You bonded families and spent on happiness a lot.
I remember how you took your meal; making small loaves of roti (tortilla) and you would never drink water after eating but in between. You always left 2 sips in glass and this bad habit your elder daughter adopted very proudly.

You were a father and mother to us. Yes, she said that you were protecting us not just with your hands but with feet too. After God, you were a shelter.

Abbu, do you remember when you asked me that I love Ami (mother) more than I love you? And I replied, “Yes”. I don’t know why I said this but I would have loved you more if I knew that you’d leave us early.

Sometimes I am tired of loving her so much because life is cruel. People don’t love you like the way you do. I think she doesn’t love me a lot. And she is not to blame. She has to divide her attention to five of us and I have my all love for her only.

I again want to come behind your bedstead; when you are watching Punjabi movies, and I want to kiss your forehead and rub your beard.

You know? Till this day, I sing your favorite song to Ami which you used to sing for her. And she gets angry with me like she got angry on you too.

Let’s talk about your last day. It was like a normal day but that day I was staring you a lot. And I was crying and you asked me to stop worrying about Ami and do as I like. A myth was wronged that day. “When you cry a lot you will laugh a lot too and vice versa”.
I cried that day, and then the next, and after that every night.

People were asking me to hug you and stop you before they bury you but I was too busy observing you. I was scanning your face, how it was glowing. I was counting white hairs of your beard, and the red mole behind your ear, and discovered the burned scars of wire, that ran from your lips to the chin and to cheek.

Maybe people call it illegal if I say that I still saved your one hair and pasted it into my notebook.

People spotted me at your funeral and observed that I looked like you, my nose specifically. So how can I ever do something that will let you down?
“Hamari naak mat katwana”
See. I would never let, a nose like you, get marked by shame. Its bit big but I will still admire it.

Abbu, from the window of your bedroom, when I heard him saying, while he was slapping his thigh with grief, that your body is cold and stiff and you were not breathing anymore. Like a drama queen, I too asked you to Allah with anger, because this is what I learned watching dramas when Parwati shouting on her goddess and the goddess gave up on what she wrote in the book of fate. I was too expecting a miracle. But miracles are for special kids; I was not special, I knew.

I could hear the laughter from one room and shouting from another. I was not sure who was sad and who not. But I was just watching and did no talking.

One day, I was missing your voice so bad and I dialed your office number, then your extension. I hoped that He would not shatter my hope and let me hear your voice from heaven. But the bell was ringing and no voice came from the other side. You didn’t pick the phone Abbu.

After you were gone to another world, I felt like entering my world. I knew it was beginning of my struggles and yours just ended.
I was acting like a black box all these years, and today the plane of my patience crashed and I am unlatched.

Fariha Narjis