I Know You Are Watching, Mehr

Editor’s Choice:  Short Story Friends – I Know You Are Watching, Mehr

I

Her name wasn’t actually Mehr it was Mehrunnissa. It was just that I found it a bit too long and shortened it up just like the maths equations I loved. She often made a face when I called her that.

And she, the poor thing, could do nothing to me since my name, Gayatri, couldn’t be cut up or contorted into anything else

We first met when we were 8th graders just finding our footing in the unusual world of adults….both of us came from rich sophisticated families. In fact they were so modern and liberal in their thinking that she would often be sent over to my place during the winters to celebrate Diwali and I was found at her place trying to worm my way into her mother’s palatial kitchen’s enjoying their Kashmiri kehwah tea or commenting on their lovely semolina kheer right after Id.

Our friendship flowered like a rosebud freshly bloomed tasting the tangy, icy wisps of the winter air.

And so we were, arm in arm, roaming Mumbai’s malls…shopping, watching movies……Aaaah!! The fun we had….there was no comparison.

In fact, today when I come to think of it there was actually no dearth of differences between the both of us….I liked Maths; she was devoted to Biology,

Listening to music was what I loved and she couldn’t resist watching an episode of her favourite teleserials.

Anyway, time flew and we were soon grown adults who had different paths in life to follow. Our destinies were beckoning us to come and see what it would bestow on us.

And then one day, before I was to fly off to Canada for my studies, she came and told me that there had been a huge fight in their joint family and that she, her mother, father and brother would most probably have to move off to Karachi. Staying in India was unbearable since at every turn her family would have to face taunts from her uncles……I remember only bits and pieces of the conversation…….I don’t even remember the reason for the fight….it was so long ago.

I felt sorry for her but my mind was already very tense…I was worried about everything: – the new culture and people I had to face, my visa, my tickets, and the jet lag.

I, in what I now consider my selfish haste, failed to comfort my dearest, crying friend.

Of course today thinking of it makes me wish I had known that it was the last conversation I was going to have with her.

But, Alas! I didn’t realise that.

Life is cruel, so cruel, and so fiery that it doesn’t even give you enough time to mourn your lost ones.

I went off to Canada and got lost in the world of accounting, retail, marketing and finance. That jargon of numbers was all that mattered to me.

And one day it was all over. I had completed my graduate studies and was going back to Mumbai.

 

II

After a month’s stay in the city…I happened to find Mehr’s name in the phone directory in our house. Mother wanted to throw it away, but I hadn’t brought any novels along and felt too lazy to go buy some….I decided a phone directory would do, temporarily at least.

It suddenly struck me…and I very badly wished to call her…but I knew that they had left Mumbai long back and were now in Karachi so probably that number was out of order too.

I decided to visit their old house in Mumbai; perhaps the new inmates knew where they were staying in Karachi.

I knocked on the door and was hastily ushered in by a tiny maidservant who seemed to be in a hurry of some sort.

I ignored the cold reception and hurried on to find the man of the house.

He gave me a slip of paper which had her address in Karachi.

I was overjoyed and left for Karachi in a fortnight.

Karachi was a new city; I was enjoying the experience and of course I had taken care not to seem too much like an outsider.

But the day I was to visit her house (I had decided to pop a surprise on her family) I found the city engulfed in flames; a blast had taken place and many people had been left dead and many more

had been left injured.

I silently prayed to the Angels that my beautiful friend was alive and kicking.

“Please, Not now, Not today.” I pleaded….

Crying I hastily searched out their home in Karachi.

I was left shell-shocked. The house they now lived in was no better than a slum when compared to their palatial bungalow in Mumbai.

I slowly and silently entered and found the house in a flurry of activity….

“Her relatives.”I told myself. Nobody seemed to be taking any notice of me.

Everyone seemed to look sullen and woeful.

I made my way to the centre of the room and found an old, haggard woman, her eyes full of tears, but she also seemed to be a woman of resilience and didn’t seemed to let a single drop out of her eyes. She seemed to be muttering something. “Prayers…” I thought.

I silently crept to her side and told her who I was and why I had come.

She slowly turned to face me and said after a period of deep deliberation and thought on my face, “So you are that friend of Mehr’s aren’t you”

“Yes…” I replied weakly.

She broke into a smile and said, her hands pointing upwards-

“Aaaah! Life, must it be so bitter, Oh Allah? You took away my comfort, my only daughter and have left my son injured….Why, Oh, why must you do this Allah?

This child comes seeking her dearest friend, she was my daughter’s solace….and what am I to tell her?

That her friend is gone? That she has left for your abode”

Mehrunnissa’s mother, once a ravishing beauty, she understood the depth of our relation very well.

The moment she finished, I sank down, and let out a wail. She was gone. My Mehr, my Mehr, was gone. Gone forever.

She was an ace at Hide-and-Seek and I was no less but now she was hiding in a place where I would never be able to seek her.

I began to sob. But Mehr’s mother lifted me up and said –“My daughter had been through so much….but these people” she said facing the other people in the room, with a wretched expression on her beautiful, wrinkle-less face “These people…they didn’t want her educated…my daughter had the potential to excel, to take over her father’s business, single-handedly and take it to heights that he would never even have dreamt of….Yes, they were scared, they were jealous….they wanted it all for themselves….Yes…..that is why we had to leave India……And now my daughter, my beautiful daughter…she lies dead…”

I didn’t say a word; I was so overcome by the urge to break down..

“I don’t have anything else to give you but this…”

She led me to a room….she opened the door and inside I found a girl…….

she must have been barely six……

“Take her away please….they won’t care for her…her father is long dead…her uncle, Mehr’s brother will die too….I won’t be there for much longer…”

She was pleading to me…her two hands tightly clasping mine….I didn’t know what to say….she took me to the girl and put her hand in mine…smiled and gently pushed us out the door.

III

A day passed…it was night and I was out on the terrace with my six-year old daughter.

We were looking out at the stars and since neither I nor her had talked much, I thought this was the opportunity to break the ice….I said “Do you like the stars?”

“Mmmmm…”

“Well, I love their twinkling…”

“Mmmmm….”

“So ?”

“All I know is that my mother is in one of them and she’s looking at us right now”

 

“Well…I know it can be a sad thing some times….”

I did not wish to dwell too long on the topic

“I know you aren’t too happy…but may I at least know what Mehr used to call you?”

She was silent for a while and then replied…..

“My name is Gayatri….”

And I vowed that I would bring her up just like my friend would want.

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