Hania

As a proud citizen of this “world”, I said it loud, “Welcome Hania, welcome. Welcome to this new world, the world of splendid wonders and amazing creations. This new world where you would witness what you have never experienced in your previous world. Welcome Hania to this mesmerizing-ly wonderful world”.

I got a call in my mobile; it was Umma (Mother). The line was noisy, but still I could decipher she asking me to find a new name for the new born baby-girl. The line got cut. I was excited unlimited to know the good news. I tried many times to call her back, but in vain. I stretched out relaxing on my chair, staring at the plastered ceiling of my apartment-room. Memories rolled in my thoughts while my physical eyes gaped up, unconnected to my thoughts. It was then an year and a few months since their marriage, a new member had come to the family. It was more than some news for me, but a revelation of delight, a realization of days of prayers, and an answer from the eternal for the supplications of many. It was a new phase for the family, a fresh start for my elder brother and his wife. My eyes got filled; it was to pour down with few more of such thoughts.

I logged-in to the internet to search for a good name, for my new niece. I thought to myself for a name that should sound and mean different, something that would make her unique and different, something that would inspire her to stand to the true values with the name she has, against the odd waves of the times. I searched and tried to make some combinations with many single names, “Mishal Mehr”, the full moon light, was one of my thoughts. Yeah, to her virtue she should be the unique full moon, standing out to be a bright light for others. I called up my brother to convey my happiness and suggested "my name" to him. He told his wife's wish to name the newborn as “Hania”, the happiness, the bliss. I too thought that to be a great and a suiting name. My brother handled it to make it for, “Hania Mishal”, the light of happiness, which concluded both of our wishes.

The next day at office was very different for me than any before, I went staring the already read paragraphs for hours, went reading the same lines again and again, I was completely occupied with my family back home.  Realized that time cannot also be advanced, for the first time I wished if time could be fast-forwarded for few hours. Somehow when it was four in the evening, I took a leave from office, went running to catch the train at the station.

Throughout my whole travel, I was in thoughts for Hania. I thanked the Almighty for the gift, as always wished and prayed, a baby girl. As Umma always says, “a boy makes a family and a girl a home”. Home being the basis of a family, the foundation of a society, its vastness even counted with culture and civilization, always starts from a girl. My wish to have a girl child could also be from the reasons of me having just one sister among we four bothers. My thoughts were all naive for the reason of such thing to be very new to me. When I got up, it was morning already; the compartment in the train was all vacant. I stared outside through the glass pane, opened the window, the cool breeze showed its mark of November’s chill. I felt like, the wind too was enjoying and dancing for the good news I was bearing, for the happiness I was with. I stretched my hand outside; my hand went rhythmic to the blows of it. I got involved with its celebration.

I reached home to see so-many of my relatives. With a single “salaam”, I received lots of them in return. A get-together and a chance to meet so many relatives always makes me delighted, that day it was more than that because, it was not a planned function, but a surprise forum. We all then packed to make a visit to the hospital. Though it counted just three kilometers in the odometer, the distance seemed miles to the hospital. Saw my brother at the entrance of the hospital gate, he smiled, I hugged him. His usual innocent smile had a different touch that day, was that to the maturity of a father or the hangover of the sleepless night of the previous day? I smiled back and walked ahead to the room.

Hania, she was deep into her sleeps then, eyes closed, her tiny nose and ears sensing the new world in full swing. She was learning the new world with the tiny sensors switched-on for the first time. Everything happening in her was visible like a plane mirror. Inhales and exhales marked very loud in her small angel like body. She forced herself to respond her whole body for every stimulus she perceived. Was it to her openness that she reflected back for whatever happened within her, or the adaptations she was learning for the new world? Is this adaptation then later turns to get a new name, maturity? I thought, if so, can we not stop maturing, that makes us different from being innocent like a child? She was open to what she felt; she was frank to what she underwent; she didn't yet have the blanket of maturity to cover-up anything.

Though for me her reflexes seemed amplified, it was rather not. It was the responses of her fresh new senses, sharp and incomparable to grown-ups. With everything brand new, she could never go wrong with her perception, may be this is the reason for the saying, “child is the father of man”. My thoughts got interrupted when I saw her smiling in her sleep; her smiles took me into an untold eruption of zest. I really didn’t understand the trigger that threw me into smiles, I couldn’t make for a reason why my eyes filled-in with a deep feeling of affection, I couldn’t realize the link that connected my feelings to Hania's gestures. Her tiny hand; she kept her palm tightly closed with her fingers, as if she wasn’t yet ready to give-up the great virtues she held in her previous world. I touched her silken body, it was soft like a furry cat, even that very delicate touch of mine, made her wakeup from her sleep. Her eyes got open, those beautiful globules of vision, the glittering shine of freshness exhibited. Her eyes were big and illustrious in her. Eyes, the most matured one in her yet were the most notable one too. I always thought why only our eyes don't grow with our age, why is it always gifted to be fully matured with our birth? Is it because vision being the most important senses, to have most of our learnings? Or because it being the most vibrant sense nurturing all other senses and then to link with synesthesia?  Or the first lesson by the God to humans that the un-seen aren't really unreal, this new world was unseen for Hania as a fetus in her previous world.

She started crying of hunger, when her mother stroked her with gentle pampers, she got quiet again. I said to my sister-in-law, “God bless you”. I saw a magnificent grace in her, a blaze of a winner, a brightness of a glittering star. When she replied “thanks”, I could see those eyes filled. When she turned towards Hania, she smiled, the smile that covered all the pain that she underwent for the delight of having Hania in her. This relation was new, but very deep indeed. Considerate attachments of being a part of her own self. She, the mother, was the one who took all the pains holding Hania in her for months within her, the one who ate just to feed Hania, the one who smiled for the inner one, the one who patiently suffered all the sufferings for that part of her in the womb to have life, a version of her to be born anew. And then I recollected what prophet Muhammed (pbuh) replied to the man who came once asking, to whom among his parents should he show most kindness, prophet replied; “Your Mother, next your Mother, next your Mother, and then your Father”.

I reached home with a deep feeling of grief for the unfulfilled gratitude and tribute to my Umma, the one who suffered the most for me. For all the pains she took-in, I stood a big zero in giving back anything meaningful to her yet. For all the affection and care she has, for all those intangible morals she shares, for all the tacid know-how she taught, for all her sleepless nights for me when I was a kid, for all the smiles for the years when I gifted her just pains. And being a grown up, nothing made me different than before. I stood still a failure to repay her back for even the smallest pain she suffered for me.

I couldn't sleep that night, my eyes where all open. I couldn't understand myself, who lately had become very impatient to her. Maturity in me had changed me a lot, I had become more arguing, more detached, less considerate, and more temper-less. That night when I thought about it all, I felt belittled like no-one, felt ashamed to compare to none. I thought to myself, “when did I learn all these to go beyond her, when did I grow up to fly away from her wings to voice above her?” I remembered what prophet Mohammed (pbuh) said; “Being kind to one's mother is to; obey her orders, to give her priority, to treat her with gentle humility and mercy and not to raise your voice in front of her”. And I have been crossing all those limits since I have grown up.

I got a hic, I heard Umma calling my sister and brother for the Morning Prayer. I looked into the alarm clock near my bed, it was already 5. I got up from the bed and went to the bathroom. My face was already wet, but the cold water when splashed, made me feel better. When the prayer got over, I walked back home from the Mosque. The weather was cool, cold breeze was enveloping me from all around. The darkness in the sky was already disappearing. Red streaks in the dark background were signaling the coming of the bright Sun, the Sun that would destroy the darkness, the darkness of everyone on the earth. Seeing the sky, at the rise of a new light, I said it loud with an untold happiness from within, as a proud citizen of this “world”, “Welcome Hania, welcome. Welcome to this new world, the world of splendid wonders and amazing creations. This new world where you would witness what you have never experienced in your previous world. Welcome Hania to this mesmerizing-ly wonderful world”.

I took the newspaper from the veranda and headed to the Kitchen. Umma was preparing the morning tea; she asked me if I would eat something. I nodded my head. Though that question from her was very much heard one for me, that day but I could dis-integrate every strand of consideration and care my Umma portrayed. I asked Umma if I could read the newspaper for her, she smiled. I read it loud, “Six more children killed in Palestine”. When I was to the content of the news, she stopped me; she asked if I knew the motto behind the cruel oppression, oppression not even sparing innocent children. I stood answer-less to her, I quivered with a delayed response that the reason could be because of their parents being terrorists. I read her face dis-agreeing my views; she asked again, “How is it a justice to shoot someone's son or daughter for their crimes?” I didn't have an answer to her; stood mum with complete clueless-ness. I knew that the response from her was not from any political view point, but from the deep pain of a mother. The pain of a mothers for the loss of their children that she shares with her-likes across the world. She proved me that mothers all over the world are the same, upholding all the same values of care and consideration; I understood her outburst of botheration for the brutally killed children of Palestine. 

Umma's words taunted me back and again from inside. I just recollected what my elder brother once told me about such brutalities and its impact:

 “Majority of the children who witnesses terror filled savagery in their early life, would never have a chance to come-out of the blanket of revenge, making them more aggressive and more terrifying ‘terrorists’ of the future. The horrendous incidents with their siblings, their parents killed at gun points, houses bombed by tankers, sisters raped, and all other similar atrocities, would remain as “freezed block of time” in their consciousness through-out their life, tantalizing them to retaliate and avenge in all ways. The oppressors of Palestine in-fact are responsible not only for their cruelty towards the current generation, but also for creating a new hysteric generation, who would fail to think logical with any rationality, but understand only the primitive thinking of flight and fight.”

I was disturbed, totally moved with all such thoughts. I walked down to the front courtyard. The sky was already with the bright Sun, brighter than the dark-red of the morning. With deep thought of grief, I fell on my knees, shouldering the responsibility of the whole sane humanity, I shouted loud, while my eyes rained. “Welcome Hania, welcome. Welcome to this new world where your kinds are brutally killed and massacred. Where not the laws and humanity, but bombs and tanks reply your protests. Where not morals and values, but cruelty and aggression moulds legends. And pardon us for being responsible for presenting you such a barbaric world, by standing mum the instill of such reigns of terror”.