Aamir Habib
PART 1
It was 8 O’Clock on a cold morning in December. The chilling gusts crossed the door and windows and froze her feet and hands. She was sitting confused and afraid on a wooden chair placed in the corner of the courtroom, so cold that she felt as if she was sitting on an iceberg. In an effort to make them warm, she continuously rubbed her trembling frozen hands. Her heart was throbbing inside her chest while thinking that yesterday was her 18th Birthday and today she finds herself in this courtroom hearing of her parents’ suit to win her final custody.
Her parents’ love for each other could not last for long yet both of them did not deprive her of their love and care. When her mother decided to dissolve her marriage, she was too young to have some reminiscences of how her parents might have lived together. And why did her mother decide to dissolve her marriage with her father, who, for her, was no less than a superhero? The only thing she could recall was her mother’s struggle to raise her and her father’s pulsation for his inability to give her a righteous portion of time and care.
Fifteen years back when she was just three years old, her mother got custody while her father was given meeting rights twice a month within the court premises. She spent most of her time with her mother because she was her custodial parent, yet she could not refute the valued moments she spent with her father in the same courtroom for years. Today she had to decide for herself for the first time and that added to her anxiety and nervousness. Though her mother compelled her to give consent in her favour yet she could not decide what exactly she wants and still find herself in the middle of something.
“Jameela Vs Nazir Hussain!” the out lauded call of the bailiff brought her back to the courtroom, she saw her mother and father approaching the bench of the Judge. This was the first time in the last fifteen years that she was seeing her parents together because she always came to see her father either with grandpa or with her maternal uncle and in every other event at school and college she saw her mother beside her.
She found herself nervous and stressed as she could have been called for her statement any time and she could not decide anything at that moment. The memoirs of past days overwhelmed her mind; everything appeared as a spectacle to be recognised. A flash glimpse of her 10th Birthday, when her father got special permission to celebrate it out of court premises and they went to a nearby restaurant where all paternal relatives were waiting for her. There she was a bit reluctant initially but after a while found everyone loving and caring. At night, her mother celebrated her birthday. She evoked how her mother hid the stitching of her special dress for weeks so that to surprise her on her birthday.
She could not chuck herself out of the thoughts of how her mother faced all adversities and hardship to raise her being a lonely woman. Her cheeks were glittering with tears while retaining the day when she broke her hand by slipping down the stairs and her mother could not sleep the whole night for her. The other day when she went to see her father in court, he got angry with her uncle for not informing him. That whole day her father held her in his arms and kissed her more than usual with misty eyes till the end of the meeting time.
“Nazneen Nazir!” She heard the bailiff’s call once again yet this time she felt as if she lost all her control over her own body. She wanted to stand but a shudder pushed her back to sit every time. Her hands were quivering and her legs were trembling hard. She tried to respond yet felt her throat dry up as if she would have been thirsty for ages.
“Nazneen Nazir!” The bailiff repeated the same more audibly.
“Yeah…! I am coming,” she responded with a weak voice and quavering jaws.
After taking a sigh she shook herself and stood firm and straight, though inside her there was a storm, blustering her soul.
“Please! Come into the witness box.” The bailiff guided her to the witness box.
While approaching the witness box she felt every step heavier than prior to it. After a few steps, she felt tired as if she walked miles without break. It looks as if the witness box would have been in some other world she never wanted to enter. After much effort, she stepped into the witness box while holding the side rails so tight to restrain herself from falling in there.
“Take an oath from the lady.” The judge ordered the reader.
“Take your hand Ma’am and be witness to God that you shall tell the truth and nothing else.”
Her jaws were still trembling. “I witness to my God that I shall tell the truth and nothing else.” She repeated the same.
“Ms. Nazneen Nazir, Do you know you are here today to give your consent to whether or whom you want to stay now?” The Judge asked her.
Looking at the floor she replied, “Yes, your honour I do.”
“So what have you decided in this regard?” asked the Judge.
“Nothing, Sir,” she replied.
“But you have to decide something,” said the Judge
“I know your honour, but it’s not that simple” she replied. “Can I say something before I tell you my decision?” She asked if she can get permission
There was pin-drop silence in the courtroom, she felt her heart beating fast and loud inside her chest.
“Yes! Of course, my child, go ahead” said the Judge
“Your honour! I was three years old when my parents were separated. I never enjoyed a normal life as both of my parents may have pretended to. I never relished moments of joy together with both of them. Although, both of my parents loved me and cared and I’m really thankful to them for that. Yet, whatever I have received from them is broken into pieces that I could not mend even with my tears, my laughter, my joys, and my sadness. All I could collect was divided into pieces with love on the head and hate on the tale. I know what it means to be a beloved child, yet I don’t know what parenthood is.”
“I love my Mom and Dad, and yet I hate being alienated from co-parenting. Initially, I thought it may be as decided by fate but now I realize it was not just fate and even if it is so, it is not written by some invisible powers but scripted by both of my parents. My parents were just separated yet I feel divorced in real life. The pains I have gone through have never been noticed by both of my parents because their main focus was on their egocentric battles. They could reconcile for me but they didn’t, only to satisfy their ego. Today, standing in this witness box, I am feeling like a commodity that my parents want to get as a reward if they win. But I want to tell them I’m not a commodity. I am not a commodity, Mom. I am not a commodity, Dad. Please do consider me a human being at least once. Her voice now was clear and loud.”
“After 15 years they are standing together,” she said looking at her parents. Here in this courtroom, they are standing to win me yet they never took a simple effort together to let me win their parenthood in the last 15 years. Your honour!”
Her face was now blushing red, with tears running down her cheeks. “But today none of you shall win. She said while looking at her parents with quite an annoyance.”
“I wish I could die here before this situation. Maybe then your ego gets satisfied.”
“Mom! Dad! I still love you both, yet I hate this moment to choose one of you.”
She turned her face to the judge and said, “Your Honor! Since I am 18 years old now and have the full right to whatever I decide for me. I hereby declare that I won’t stay with both of my parents because accepting one means rejecting the other. A year ago I did apply for a scholarship to pursue my graduate studies at SOAS London. That application is accepted now, so I would like to proceed with my higher studies in London till then both of them may be restricted to influence my ambitions. I hope maybe then if not for each other, they may start thinking together for me.”
The Slap of Destiny
PART 2
A sudden jolt and he felt like flying before he hit the hard surface of the road, blood spattering out, head-spinning, and darkness looming on him. The events of the last 24 hours flashed through his mind as his eyes and mind were about to shut out.
It was only yesterday that, panting heavily, he fell on the floor near the witness box in the courtroom, weeping noiselessly while hiding his face into his knees talking to himself “Nazeer Hussain you lost your last battle too”. He felt everything around him spinning like a tornado with heavy feelings of perturbations storming inside him diminishing his ability to recognize objects around him due to misty eyes. His mind was blowing with thoughts of every effort he took to save his marriage and hence the normal future life of his only child.
When he lost all his strength, he loosened his body on the racks of the witness box, spreading his legs on the floor of the courtroom. After a while a smirk appeared on his face as if he had passed into some other world, his eyes still misty. Yet a gentle smile was dancing on his lips.
His thoughts walked the past’s path following the memories of the good days, of how excited he was on their Daughter’s 3rd birthday, that on that day together they had completed four years of marriage. Nazneen too looked cheerful playing with her new toys dressed up in a fancy frock stitched especially for her birthday by her mother. Happily, they spent a full day hanging out in an amusement park before having a birthday celebration at the end of the day with family and friends who came to join the joyful moments at home.
That night Nazneen, snuck into his bed insisting that he read her a story; her favourite “The Beaver in the Woods”. Though it lacked any sequence or a meaningful end, Nazneen loved it. Perhaps the way Baba narrated the story made it more appealing to her than the story itself. His smile widened when he recalled how after every changing scene of the story, his daughter was kissing his cheeks while her gentle fingertips were continuously brushing his cheeks and sometimes pumping his nose, pinching his ear, or poking his eyes ending with deep sleep on his arm.
From that day, Nazneen became used to sleeping on his arm. Though he always patted her gently so that she could sleep calmly in solace yet her warmth was not less than lullaby pats for him. After she slips into a deep slumber and in sweet dreams, he would put her on her bed beside her mother and stay watching her face with a smile as if this gaze would have been soothing his soul.
Suddenly he felt the sweetness of her daughter’s voice pouring into his ears, “Baba Oh! Baba please, opens your eyes”. His daughter was calling him
He opened his eyes and saw his daughter on her knees between him and the witness box. He extended his arms towards her. She came forward and hugged him.
With trembling jaws and a weakened voice, he whispered into his daughter’s ears. “I am so sorry my child; I could not make it possible in your favour. I lost after every effort I made just to reconcile with your mother. I am guilty of the crime of not giving you a normal life. But my dear child I swear, that I did all I could and made every effort for you.
“But I am happy” he continued while wiping her eyes with his sleeves, “I am happy that you have grown up enough and chose your ambition in higher studies. I am happy that you have ambition and my prayers will always be with you.
Nazneen pulled him up gripping his arm with her hands and let him sit on the desk of the courtroom. The court attendant brought a glass of water for him that his daughter poured into his mouth with her hands. She kissed his forehead and while holding both of her cheeks into her hand said, “Baba I love you and I always will”. Holding back her tears, her voice laden with emotions she said, “I know it’s hard but we all need to go through this. It’s important to part from each other now so that we can realise each other’s importance, and be able to get together in some way later on”.
When everyone left, he finally came, absent-minded, out of the courtroom. He sat on the lower step of the stairs of the court and wept like a child who may have lost his parents in the middle of the woods at midnight.
His necktie was all loose, his dusty coat now turned muddy. He looked at the other side of the road and saw the same amusement park, the one he once came to with her wife and daughter. A family was standing by the entrance to buy the tickets. The little girl was pulling her mother’s hair to leave her so that she may grab her father. When her dad came out of the queue, the daughter forcefully left the mother and jumped to grab the father’s waist. Once she grabbed her father she climbed over his shoulder and shouted Yeahhh.
The scene multiplied Nazeer’s agony manifold. At that very moment, he decided to write a letter to his wife … well, ex-wife. Writing a letter nowadays seemed a bit outdated yet he had to do this. After their separation, his wife blocked him completely and even filed for a restraining order.
When he came home, he went to the study room, once designed for his daughter, and after settling down on the chair, he pulled out the drawer and picked up the notepad and a pen.
With trembling hands, he started writing while his tears were dropping on the paper.
Dear Jameela
I know you are also going through the same pain as I do at this moment. This is my first letter in the last fifteen years. I always sent you messages through SMS that you never responded to yet I could not dare to do it after you filed a harassment petition against me and denied having a pretrial conversation for a possible reconciliation. I don’t know whether you got my massages or not, I’d sent them through your father and brother, whenever they came with Nazneen for the meeting.
Since our daughter wants us to reconcile for co-parenting, I won’t go into a blame game. Earlier it was only me who was deprived of my daughter now you also share the same pain with me. The only difference is that I was slapped by you and today you are being slapped by your destiny. How unfortunate is that after winning every case against me today you’re also standing empty-handed.
Jameela! See! We both have become losers today and our daughter has rejected both of us. Isn’t it the slap of destiny on our faces, for all those crimes we committed together to put our only child in a situation where she wished to die before choosing one from both of us? Don’t you remember her statement before the judge?
Look today both of us are empty-handed. I had long ago trained myself to live without both of you in the hope that one day you would be convinced for reconciliation, if not for me, for the sake of your daughter for sure. I can’t measure your love for our daughter yet I know you can’t bear her parting from you.
I always respected your motherly care for our daughter that’s why I never demanded Nazneen’s custody when she was a kid. But you could not recognize any sign or gesture of goodwill.
I know it is not easy for you to reconcile but for the sake of our daughter, we need to make this impossible possible. And remember that even after our divorce I always respected you being a mother of my child.
With love from Nazneen’s Father
He folded the letter to put it into the envelope. His heart was throbbing inside his chest and his hands were trembling. When he turned it around to seal and write the mailing address on it, he could not control himself and cried so loud that its echo filled the room. The reminiscences of the past overwhelmed her thoughts once again, this reminded him of the postcard that he sent to Jameela for the first time when they were still in university together.
It was the 24th fasting day of Ramadan and only a week before Eid, he roamed around the whole city to find a fine postcard for her as it was a ritual to send postcards even being together in the same city. It was a hot summer afternoon and his throat was parched. After a few steps walk, he started panting. After much effort, he found a postcard-worthy of his love and sent it to Jameela.
He put the letter, which he wrote for his wife, into an envelope and while writing the address on it, went asleep then and there. When he woke up it was midnight. He tried to stand up but couldn’t. So much backache and dizziness! He put the envelope into the drawer and decided to post it later in the morning.
The next day early in the morning he came out of his home to post the letter. The post box was on the road in front of his home near the Family Park of the residential suburb. He approached the mailbox and saw an empty bottle of soft drink placed on the mailbox. It was Jameela’s favourite brand of ice cream soda. That reminded him of the moments when both of them were celebrating after the birth of their daughter. There she asked him how much he loved her and while indicating to her daughter he said “that much” with a naughty wink.
That memory brought a bright smile to his face. And he decided to send her ex-wife a parcel containing a bouquet, a bottle of Ice Cream Soda, and that letter, instead of merely putting the letter into the mailbox.
He bought all the stuff on the way to the post office and sent it in a fine package. On the way back just as he was crossing the road, a sudden jolt—he couldn’t even realize what it was or even how it felt—threw him around and onto the pavement. A car hit him hard, his head hit the pathway. The only thing he could see nearby was blood dripping from his nose and forehead.
Now all he could look at was the sky. The sun was hiding behind the clouds. A few rays of sunset kissed his face. He felt like he is flying to the skies, yet, through his bloodshot eyes, the view turned murky, as he was swallowed into muted darkness.
