Selfishness in sorrow…
‘K’ was my batchmate when I first started med school. We didn’t quite get enough time to become the thick of friends, but developed an affable bond in the time we spent together. We were like chalk and cheese, personality wise.
Anyone who meets me first will think of me as quiet albeit being extremely headstrong. ‘K’ on the other hand was loud and wore her sentiments on her sleeve. As against the image of a devout Musalman, she never wore a hijab and could be the life of a party. We bonded now and then in the evenings post college and she often ribbed me. Our hostel had this huge mirror in the lobby which we both sometimes stood in front of and she would call me ’Ambuja Cement’ :D If you have seen the ad, you will know what I mean. It was her way of joking about my strong physique when compared to her puny self. She made up for it with her nonchalant attitude.
I soon changed colleges when I got transferred officially to a place far away and ‘K’ continued in the same. I got busy with my new life and we didn’t really keep in touch post that. A few months later, my ex roomie called to say that ‘K’ had died. They had lost her to an accident.
‘K’ had decided to join a bunch of friends and go late night clubbing. They were rash driving and the driver, her friend’s boyfriend had rammed the vehicle on to an electric post. The post in turn had collapsed on the hood of their car thus smashing on to them. Her friend died on the spot and ‘K’ had severe internal bleeding including in her brain’s basal ganglia along with multiple fractures. She soon succumbed. She was her parent’s only child, one they had conceived almost a decade post marriage.
A few days later, I attended her condolence meet and before that I penned a letter for her parents and posted it to them. I wrote what I knew about her and how terrible I felt. They had preserved the letter when I visited them and talked about it fondly. In my head, I vowed to keep in touch with her parents always and I did so for some time.
During my final year, a few years post K’s demise, I made a regular phone call to her home when I was told by her sobbing and inconsolable mother that K’s father had passed away. He had a heart condition and also emotionally, he had never quiet recovered from the pain of losing his daughter. I remember bawling on the phone with my mother post that. Aunty, K’s mother always told me that she would pray for me on her Haj visit.
Soon after as I have mentioned in one of my previous posts, I was in a slump post my final year results. I wasn’t speaking much or interacting with anyone. I was so preoccupied putting my life in order that I never called her mom again.
To this day I think it was very selfish of me to not stay in touch with her mother. Not sure if that would have helped, but I feel like I didn’t do my part. I do not know where or how her mother is today or how she managed to put the pieces of her life together. If I was supposed to be of any consolation as her daughter’s mate and check in on her, I had failed in doing so.
I think it is some kind of a survival instinct I have. Whenever I feel like life is kicking me down, I cut out all the noise and choose what is the best for me over anything and everyone else. Then too, I had chosen my selfishness in my sorrow over theirs.
