Before I could add a few lines, she shifted so as not to block my sight any further and pointed to a grave behind her. It was almost concealed by overgrown shrubs, weeds and wild flowers. Dry leaves lay strewn over the granite. The tombstone had cracked due to the beatings of the monsoon but I could make out something inscribed over its surface. The words pulled me, lulling me into a trance and I trudged ahead. Bending down on one knee, I rubbed the dirty surface with my hands. The tombstone had a few lines in Arabic from the Quran, right below which was a name that made me stagger and fall on my back. I squatted on the gravel, unmindful of the scattered bones and dirt around.
Aarusha Khan
1983-2006
Daughter of Hasan and Shehnaz Khan
The date stabbed my chest and I looked up to see the woman staring at me with a grim expression.
“H… how is this possible?” I managed to ask her.
“Aarusha was our only daughter,” the woman said, establishing the fact that she was Aarusha's mother.
“Very beautiful she was and post her graduation, we started getting a lot of marriage proposals for her. No dearth of choices; from doctors to pilots, everyone wanted Aaru as their wife,” she said.
I looked at her blankly.
“But our sweet daughter fell for a guy named Salim, whom she met online over a casual chat around six years back. They used to chat daily, soon phone calls started and over a period of time, she also started meeting him behind our backs,” she said with a faraway look in her eyes. I remained silent, still sitting down, holding on to my trembling knees.
“We were not happy with her choice and tried to influence her decision when she informed us about him but she remained adamant and stated that she would marry no one else except him. She also confessed the same to Salim but whenever she would broach the wedding topic, he would ask for some more time.”
“Then?” I croaked.
“And then all hell broke loose. Aaru had found out Salim's residential address through a misplaced call he had given on her phone once. It was the occasion of Eid five years ago when Aaru decided she would make use of her finding and go unannounced to Salim's place after cooking a meal for him as a surprise.
“When she knocked on the door, a half-dressed woman answered and she found out that the bastard was already married with a couple of kids. My daughter went into a shock but somehow came back home and went into her room. She didn't open the door the entire night, even when I called for dinner, she would not answer. We thought she was tired and had fallen asleep. The next morning, we had to break open the door with the help of some
The Other Side
141 neighbours. We found her lifeless body suspended from the ceiling fan,” she said turning to look at me. For some strange reason, my entire body shook from the mixture of those words and her lost gaze.
“B… but I did see her last night, talked to her…” I tried to voice.
“Since then, every year post Eid a Salim lands up at our house with a similar tale saying he met Aarusha, talked to her, dropped her home and so on. It happens every year on the night of Eid, only the location keeps changing in the city. Initially, we thought someone was playing a joke on our misery but fate had already played that prank five years back. Aaru's father couldn't even make it past a couple of years after her death. The shock of the incidents was too much for us…” she said amidst mild sobs.
“But w…why?” It was the only question I wanted to know.
“No one knows, no one will know. Perhaps her spirit still searches the love of her Salim and it is this love that she comes to seek once every year,” she said, looking at her daughter's grave while walking around me.
Suddenly the sun seemed right over my head, my insides burned and my legs clanged against each other as I tried to hoist myself up, trying hard not to look at the grave, at Aarusha, at the girl who had claimed my heart and taken it three feet below the earth.
As I finally managed to stand up on my wobbling feet, I turned to ask Aarusha's mother one final question. My rickety feet gave away and I fell down again. There was no one behind me. I looked around frantically; there was not a single soul in sight in this part of the cemetery.
I gripped the nearest gravestone apprehensively trying to balance my unsteady frame. Beads of sweat swam on the surface of my body as the yellow orb overhead cast a glittering shine on the marble beneath my hand. I read the words slowly at first, and in a panicky state the next.
Shehnaz Khan
1957-2011
Loving Wife of Hasan Khan and Doting Mother of Aarusha Khan I smelled the gravel before my head spun and my body hit the
ground. The damp mud engulfed what would have been half a scream. This time no one held my hand. No one seized my heart.