When encountered with the vagaries of life, we cannot just say if our mind would remain undaunted, distress-free and flawless.
Our early life experience makes matters discrete or run-of-the-mill or even challenging throughout.
No one can be blamed for everything.
So strange are the human beings that amid our trajectory of life and fulfilled or unfulfilled wishes, we sometimes become aware of a momentary, subliminal desire for solitude, for a spiritual introspection, and even a self-appraisal of the past.
Search for a retrievable life-world and for a life of the unlived…the quintessence of our human history, the throb of the life’s engine.
This was also a life ineffable for my cousin Fousia (73), the daughter of our aunt Hasana (grandniece of social reformer Vakkom Moulavi) who left this world on Tuesday evening at the cosmopolitan hospital, Thiruvananthapuram.
The last time we had spoken was just before the second episode of the lockdown in Kerala. Each telephonic conversation was a refreshing of the past and a reminder of the trauma of the present. She never wanted to tell anyone that a person living in the Raj Bhavan—not far from her home—was her friend in Aligarh Muslim University (AMU). She was actually embarrassed when I got them connected through telephone. A bit of thoughts from the AMU days streamed in—in a voice of melancholy—as she unwrapped herself in the Aligarh nostalgia.
Cousin Fousia had lost her mother at her infancy, but got into the right hands of Dr Rahma, aunt Hasana’s sister, with two neonatal babies. Then it was aunt Rahma’s turn to bring up the children against all odds.
Heard a lot of agonising memories of that day in Benziger hospital, Kollam, and the trauma of the family has been told by many, umpteen times.
Dr Rahma, Mohammed Kunju and Family
Cousin Fousia then lived in Kerala, Malaysia, Singapore etc., having had her early education in different places, and higher education at the Aligarh Muslim University in the early 1970s. Aunt Dr Rahma told us several episodes of her life when we visited her in Malaysia ten years ago. It was she who told us how the vicissitude of life instructs us about our limits and possibilities in a world with no guarantees and permanence. It is nothing but a trial—a trial of many things, of our courage and convictions, our faith and priorities, our patience and resilience, and ultimately, our supreme desires.
Cousin Fousia is survived by her husband Naseer Ahmad and two daughters, Haleema and Saleema (Manager, Goodwill Group of Concerns). She has two brothers, Fami (Australia), Faiz (Malaysia) and two sisters, Foumiya Saleem (Australia) and Fadia (Kerala).
Let the departed soul rest in peace.
