Humans Of Coffee World

Red-Headed Book Covers

You know stories which just render you speechless? In which your mind goes numb for a while, imagining that story from the story-teller's perspective.

It happened to me today.

My heart is still heavy when I think about it. Maybe if I let it out, it might get easier to process this.

Sameen* (Name changed) is a really good friend of mine. We are bus-mates. Similar routes and similar class timetables, means 45 minutes of random gossip for us. She is a finance student, while I'm a business student.

She is gorgeous. Long, shiny, natural Strawberry Blonde hair, which is very rare in Pakistanis. She is willowy tall. Graceful. High cheekbones, and pale face marred by a smattering of freckles that she always complains about, but which I find utterly endearing. I jokingly call her a Bratz doll because her lips are very cupidy-full, twisted in a perpetual pout.

She is that one embarrassing friend we all have, who doesn't know how to whisper. She is loud, blunt, confident, and very sociable. Sameen is the one driving most of our bus conversations. I'm always complaining about belly-aches when we ride together, because she makes me laugh so much.

You'd think this girl's life is a one big happy family, when you hear her talk about her four younger siblings, and the funny escapades they get into.

You'd think that she has never been touched by misery.

It goes to show, that a book shouldn't be judged by its cover.

"Is your Mom also light-haired?" I randomly asked her today when the conversation turned to inheritance traits.

"Well. She used to have hair like mine, but it has darkened over the years....My sister though...My sister used to have the most unique hair of us siblings. Red. Redder than mine. *Points at my sling-bag* Kinda like that color."

"Oh wow. That is pretty! So her hair darkened too, then?" I asked, conversationally.

A light dimmed in her eyes.

"She is dead now."

I was taken aback, by the matter-of-fact way she said it. I stammered out an apology, which she waved away.

"So around fourteen years ago, I was six years old. My brother was five. And she was four." Sameen smiles when she starts telling me the story, "She was the prettiest of us all. We were all good-looking kids, if I may be blunt...but she....she was something else."

How did it happen?

"She and my brother decided to skip school, the day she died. I was already sitting in my school van when Mama realized that she had forgotten to pack my Lunch-Box for me. She sent my brother down from our first-floor apartment, to hand me the box. My sister followed him out of the house.

After handing me the box, my brother ran home from behind the bus. Unfortunately, my sister ran from the front of the bus. She was so tiny that the driver couldn't see her when he drove ahead..."

I went numb, picturing that scene. Literally, my hands are frozen even now.

"...there was so much blood, I couldn't understand anything. I remember a crowd amassing around her. Passersby, neighbors...someone fetched a neighboring doctor. All the while she stayed in my brother's arms. My five year-old brother saw her breathe her last in his arms. He says he can never forget the moment she reached for his hand, squeezed it one last time, before gasping her final breath...."

"I heard the neighborhood doctor say, "She has expired". They still desperately carried her out to a small clinic near our flats, in a last ditch attempt to bring her back.... I had no idea what expired meant. I was six!...so when my Mama ran out of our apartment in her panic; nobody could bear to tell her that her baby had died. I tugged on her shirt, and said, "Don't worry Mama. She has just expired. She will be okay."..."

"I still remember the details of the day so sharply. Like it just happened. How she was wearing a yellow frock. Or how my Mama insisted on sending me to school, because I had an exam...and how I had no idea that my sister had died, until I got home from school, hours later, and saw her small body covered by Mama's white dupatta. Mama was admitted into the hospital that day, because she was incoherent with shock and grief. My brother hid himself in a closet, because he kept thinking it was his fault. He let go of her hand..."

"Someone called my Dad and told him that his son had died. This created another confusion. My Dad couldn't bring himself to return home from work, because he didn't want to face the horror at home. Eventually when he came back, he manically searched for each of us, before finally accepting that she was really gone....when Mama returned from the hospital, she kept fainting because of her agony. I cannot forget those details... How my relatives, and other people kept pushing me in front of her, using me to try and distract her, "Hold her. Kiss her. She needs you now. Be strong for her"."

"After several years, we eventually got three more siblings. We are five now. We aren't constantly grieving for her, but somehow, she is always there, as an unfillable void in our family."

I could barely keep my tears in check when I heard it. I have a younger sister, just like Sameen...and I shudder to even imagine going through something so horrifying as a family.

Everyone we ever meet has a story we'll never know. They have a history, a deeper dimension we will never explore in superficial daily meetings...

I am awed by that. How quick we are to judge. Label. Assume things about a person. And how utterly stupid that move is...

I love this quote from The Great Gatsby, where Nick talks about his father's advice:

"Whenever you feel like criticizing anyone, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had."
―"In consequence, I'm inclined to reserve all judgments, a habit that has opened up many curious natures to me and also made me the victim of not a few veteran bores...Reserving judgments is a matter of infinite hope. I am still a little afraid of missing something if I forget that, as my father snobbishly suggested, and I snobbishly repeat, a sense of the fundamental decencies is parceled out unequally at birth " (1.2)

Have you ever mislabeled/misjudged someone? (We all made that mistake with Professor Snape, jbtw. #Always)

(I would urge you to pray for the victims of today's Charsaddah University terrorist attack in Northern Pakistan today. Up till now, I've heard about 40 casualties. May Allah have mercy on this country and its people...)