Shariqa Malik

Khushi kya hai iska andaza gham aane ke baad hua,
Mohabbat kya hai ye ehsaas, maa-baap ke jaane k baad hua…..

A 21 year old girl lost her mother and went to her father’s lap. Her father calmly said, “Am I a good father?” Without a second thought, I said, of course you’re. He replied now it’s my chance to be a mother to you. That was the day I realised Mother is nothing but an emotion. An emotion to love someone unconditionally, to keep someone else above you. That was the day when I decided to be a mother to my father as he decided the same. We both started learning to live without the lady. Right from praising my burnt rotis to helping me in making a perfect qorma. He taught me everything. Except one thing and that’s how to live without him.

On a winter morning, my newly married brother was visiting us. We had our basic nashta with adrak wali chai and then suddenly things stopped. Not only things but my world came to rest. I lost my father because of a cardiac arrest. Not only my father. I lost my mother, my home, my job, my city and everything that I used to possess at that time. I shifted to my brother’s place in Delhi and started picking up the pieces to re-live. This was something I was not ready for. My planned life had come to a halt. And that was the moment I realised that “external focus can’t be controlled, but what impact they make on you is still in your hand.” I knew that everything had ended. But I also firmly believed that this end must be the beginning of something new. After investing five years in a career, I re-started from an internship. I started speaking out my grief on stage and later my words helped other people heal. And their smiles cured my wounds. Now going onto a stage every weekend has become a thing!

There’s no force in nature that can stop us facing grief. However, it’s us who have to decide how to deal with that. To decide a brunch menu, we discuss a lot and say exactly what we want. But when it comes to sharing our suffering, we often choose to keep quiet.

We are programmed in a manner that we listen to everyone except what our heart says to us.We smile when we need to cry. We remain silent, when our heart is going through a storm of emotions. Even the toxin in blood breaks out of skin when it overflows, then why not emotions. Grief comes suddenly and never leaves you. But to accept it and learn to live with it is a process that can’t be attained in a day. It demands patience and understanding. It brings a CHANGE in your life, thus it demands a CHANGE in you. There are times when there is no one to enlighten your paths, there’s no clarity for you. Those are the moments when you need to relax and trust the process. Because in the end you will surely be saying with a smile ‘everything happens for a reason’.

A quote which summarised my beginnings:

Manzil tay ho safar se pehle zaruri to nahi, 
Bahut dafa ghar se nikal kar hi raaste nazar aate hai

So just start your process of healing, and everything else will fall in place on its own.