Star Boy

Day 6

“Back then, we had given the ground floor on rent to some relatives, before these people came.”

Laila aunty said referring to the tenants that now lived.

“So the relatives had a daughter who was my friend. And whenever I used to get a letter from your uncle, she takes it from the post box and hides it for me before my dad gets it.” She chuckled reminiscing her lovelorn days.

I laughed.

“Did your dad ever catch you, sneaking a call or something?"

“Oh yes! One day, I had hidden a small Nokia button phone your uncle had given me to talk to him. I don’t know how but my dad got to know about it and then bam, he was out looking for proposals for me.”

“You didn’t get scolded?”

“Of course I did.”
She took a sip of her tea.

We were sitting on the staircase on the rooftop when I had asked her about how she fell in love with my uncle.

"And when Deda actually brought a picture of someone whom he thought I should marry, I refused.

I told him I would never marry anyone except for your uncle.

And that was the first time he slapped me on my cheek.
I could still feel the sting of it. That was the first time he had laid his hand on me. Even then I was stubborn.” She sighed with a sad smile.

Her father had passed away two years after her marriage with my mother's brother.

“It really amazes me, the extreme to which some go when they’re in love...” I said dipping a Marie biscuit in tea.

A soft breeze blew, as crows flew over us squawking.

My aunt nodded smiling. “Or how much they sacrifice.”

“Like my great grandmother did.”

I pointed out. 

For a person who had never been in love, I had always thought, it was just infatuation that fueled the desire to be with someone, to long for them and spend time with them.

Until recently that is, when I had heard a wise old man say 'an external love is not what you're going to get, but what you’re going to give. For example, when you say you love fish, and you eat fish, you don’t love fish. You love your desire to eat fish. Too much of love these days is fish love. True love is a love of giving and not a love of receiving.' ”

“Or like Khalid did.” She shrugged.

“Huh?” I creased my eyebrows confused.

Khalid was the guy my uncle had been bashing yesterday.

The man who looked like his sanity could be put to question.

“Khaled."

"The guy who came begging for money yesterday. If you would have told me ten years back that he was going to be the drug addict he is now, I would have laughed at your face.”

She let out a little melancholic chuckle.

“What do you mean?” I asked a spirit of intrigue consuming me.

But I couldn’t wipe the memory of his puffed up face, scrawny body and the unpleasant vibe that rubbed off from him, from my mind.

“You know, sometimes it pains me to see him like that. Sleeping most of the time. And when he's up, he's either falling at someone’s feet begging for a hundred or two to buy Cocaine or doing temporary labor work that will provide him with enough money to satisfy his wild desire to inhale that nonsense. 
It pains me to see him weak, sick and lifeless because years back, he was a totally different person.” 

She took a deep breath before continuing.

“He was like the star of this street.”

I raised my eyebrows.

I felt like though she was exaggerating.

Things like these only happened in movies right?

“Really?” I prompted her to continue.

“Yes. Would you believe me if I said he got a prize for the best O.Level results in his school? He did exceptionally well in his studies. But what fascinated me when he was younger was how positive he was.