All but Death, can be Adjusted—

Before every victory there's often a string of defeats. With every beginning there is a corresponding end. With the conclusion of things comes a start of new beginnings. Dun sets. Sun rises up. Some lose. Others win.

My daadi maa passed away tonight. The same moment, I watched the world coming down and the flags going up. Pakistan had just won the Twenty20 World Cup.

Daadi maa's demise still hasn't set in, I guess. The sheer sense of loss hasn't seeped in. I am more confused than sad. More apprehensive than devastated. I never enjoyed an intimate relationship with Daadi maa. Now that I think of it, I have no fond memories of her. None at all. I would respect her because of her rank in her family tree. Besides that, I never got to know her at all. And that's unsettling me now.

Chuchee told us last week, a baffling narrative. During the previous Shab-e-Baraat, Daadi maa kept praying 'may I never get crippled and may I just get fever and may Allah lift me genlty.' And that is exactly what happened. 2 months of high grade fever which just wouldn't get better. No amount of investigations would reveal an underlying lesion. The most potent, broad spectrum antibiotics, steriods, anti-pyretics: nothing was working. Things aggravated tonight. Daadi maa passed away.

Death! It's long shadows- evergrowing- can creep over you or your loved ones suddenly, at untimely oblivion and leave you dazed. Everyone gets what everyone gets. Life. And death. How we make our lives, break it, spend it, bend it, love it, hate it, how we win, we lose, we celebrate, we mourn- that we can adjust, that we can change. But as Emily Dickinson would put it -
Death—unto itself—Exception—
Is exempt from Change—

One day we'll all turn the corner and we won't be ready for it.