There is a thing about suicides; their occurrence demands you to pause, to think, to feel and to empathize. Of course, all this thinking, feeling, and empathy is not necessarily supposed to be towards the victim; because suicide is a sin, suicide is selfish, and suicide is stupid!
But what’s when a 12 year old boy commits suicide? Is it still a sin when he is not even fully aware of what sin is? Is it still selfish when he hasn’t even learned how to be selfless? Is it still stupid, when it is the only thing that seems sensible enough to get oneself rid of all the chaos in life? Is it still all those things?
Or is it something much, much bigger? Like a lesson, punishment or a phenomenon that somehow brings about change?
In this article, I, Sadat Mazhar Abbas, am going to acquaint you all with a story, about a 13 year old boy, who committed suicide. When his mother confided in me the reason behind his suicide, the writer inside me felt the narration of this story obligatory. The boy’s name was Ghani Haider Zaidi.
Ghani’s mother Zeest and I were best friends during our four years at the university. I say “were” because the circumstances that separated us after those four amazing years of friendship were not so happy. Let me give you a little background.
What is your perception of a girl’s beauty? Is it her fair complexion? Her noticeable breasts? Her long hair? Her moderate height? Her curves? Or her skinny physique? If your mind works in the same stereotypical way as the mind of most people does; then I’m afraid you will find Zeest Naqvi to be ugly and insignificant.
I swear Zeest was beautiful; she still is. She had a close to dark brown skin tone, her height 5’8; her physique was not the skinny they show in commercials but the one that is somehow healthy. She might have had curves, but she was very shy about them; always wore loose fitted clothing (mostly a baggy jeans and XL T-shirts). Her hair was neither long nor short, just the right size. Zeest was my beautiful best friend.
In a nut-shell, I obviously fell in love with Zeest because let’s face it; my human nature deemed it needful that I fell in love with a girl who was my best friend. There were three reasons because of which I could not tell this to her;
1) I did not want to ruin our precious friendship.
2) She was a Shia, and I was a Sunni.
3) She was truly, madly and deeply in love with Siraj Khan.
Siraj was too handsome for words and whenever people got to know that Zeest and he was going out they’d pity Siraj for being trapped by a “black witch.” He was not bothered by it because he loved her. He loved her too much. He loved her more than the dust in all the deserts of the world, combined. What I am about to say is real cheesy, but the love he had for her needs to be explained like this; She was his heartbeat, without her, his heart would seize to beat. There, I said it.
He loved her more than she loved him.
There was, however, a teeny tiny problem;
Zeest was a Shia and Siraj was a Sunni.
I told Zeest that this relationship she had with Siraj would end in tears because her parents would never agree on her marrying a Sunni man, and honestly Zeest loved and respected her parents too much to disobey them.
Zeest would always tell me that there was a loophole; It was that she was nowhere near the perception of the beauty that all those rishta aunties had in their minds. No mother would want her son to marry a girl who would result in giving birth to children who were black and ugly. No guy would want his wife not to be pretty. “Loophole Saadat! Loophole” she’d always say.
It pains me a lot to say this, but Zeest was right.
As much as I wished for the “loophole” to play a part in Zeest and Siraj’s unionisation; It did not. Zeest’s family found a suitor for her. She was devastated. She loved Siraj very much, but she loved her family more. She was afraid that when Siraj would get to know about this, he’d make an issue, which would lead to her family being disrespected by the society. She could not let that happen.
So, she came up with a plan, which according to me was really really stupid.
She told Siraj that she was fooling around with him. She never loved him. He was just someone she used because of his good looks, to show the world that she could achieve anything even with the looks that she possessed, and that looks did not matter, cleverness did. She threatened him that if he came to her house, tried to harm himself or tried to make an issue about this then she’d kill herself. She was indeed clever. She knew that he’d never do anything if she threatened him with her life, because to Siraj, Zeest’s life was way more important than anything else in the world.
A year later Zeest Naqvi married Taha Haider Zaidi and moved to Karachi.
That was the last anybody saw or heard from her.
It was only a week earlier that I received a phone call form Aleeza (Zeest’s other best friend), who broke to my ears a sad news;
Zest’s only child, a son, Ghani had died.
Aleeza told me that Zeest now lived in Islamabad and gave me her address too. I boarded the next train to Islamabad and after 5 hours found myself standing in front of Zeest’s house. Mostly the houses where there has been a death seem to be filled with a lot of people, and there is whaling and crying, but this house was calm and quiet. I wondered if Aleeza had given me the right address.
I rang the doorbell and to my surprise it was Zeest who opened the door. Tears welled up in her eyes the moment she saw me. Once I was inside the house, she hugged me with all the power that she had and cried. I cried too. A lot.
After we had settled down, I asked her the painful question about how her son had died. Here is what she told me,
“Saadat, his death was not an accident nor was it a natural cause. I…I..I……It..wa..w..as..was…..a…su…su..suic…suicide!”
When she calmed down, she told me the whole story,
“A year back we moved from Karachi to Islamabad. We were happy, and we were enjoying our life. I should have known that happiness lasts only too long. We had moved to Islamabad because Taha’s new job was in this city. Ghani was excited because he always loved going to new places and exploring them. Ghani was in grade 7, and my baby was amazing at studies. I was so proud of him. Except Math. He never got his head around that subject.”
She paused, took a few deep breaths and then continued,
“Ghani was very worried about math as his finals were getting near. Seeing him worried made me and Taha worry.
One day, Taha came back from his office and told me that he had a colleague who was brilliant at math and was ready to offer his guidance to Ghani. I was happy, and I asked Taha to invite that colleague to dinner so that we could get to know him better before we started sending our child to his house to study.”
A long pause.
“A week later, the colleague came to dinner at our house. Do you know who he was Saadat?IT WAS SIRAJ KHAN. SIRAJ KHAN!
Seeing him, frightened me! What if he told Taha about our relationship? What if he used that against me? What if he had re-entered my life to seek revenge? What if.. What if..”
Wow! okay. Wow!
Zeest had started to cry again. It took a long time for her to calm down.
“That offspring of an owl! He sat there on my dining table, talking to my husband and son, mocked me with his smile, called me bhabhi and pretended that everything was normal.”
Siraj was always good at dramatics.
“When that pretentious dog left, I told my husband that I did not feel good about sending Ghani to study from him. Taha asked me why, but honestly I had no answer. Taha said it was the best for our child, and we needed to do that for him. I agreed reluctantly.”
I thought to myself, Did Ghani commit suicide because of getting a bad grade in math? No! I was not judging Ghani but like no! I mean.. uh. Huh!
The reality was completely different from my thoughts.
“It had been a month since Ghani had started going to Siraj’s house to study Math and then one night Ghani came to me when Taha was asleep. He.. He..t..to..told..me…..He..to..told..m..me…”
It hurt, to see Zeest hurt.
She cried for a long time, again..
“Ghani said, “Maa! I don’t want to do it anymore. I don’t want to study over there anymore” I was sick worried! A child who was dying to get better at a subject, suddenly not wanting to study it from someone who actually could make him score high, was fishy! I asked Ghani to tell me what had happened. He told me. He told me what that asshole was doing to him. I still remember him saying, “Maa. He makes me take off my pants. He makes me suck the thing you say nobody is supposed to touch. He touches me here and there and everywhere. Maa, I don’t want to do it! It’s disgusting Maa!” My baby cried!… Saa…Saad..Saadat… ho..w..how..wh..y..why.. HOW COULD SIRAJ DO THAT?”
To tell you the truth, I myself am asking this question that how could Siraj do that? How?
There was a long pause…
“I calmed Ghani down and told him that he would never have to go back there again. The next day, instead of Ghani, I went to Siraj’s house and confronted him. I told him that I would kill him if I ever saw him near my son again. I Aaaaaaahghhggghhh that he should be ashamed of himself, how could he stoop so low. I told him that men like him deserved the severest punishments and that he was sick!
You know what he did Saadat? He smiled at me. That sick molester smiled at me! Aaaaaaahghhggghhh!”
Sick! I swear, Sick!!
“He smiled at me and said that he would keep on doing it and that I could do nothing about it like he could not do anything about our relationship all those years back! He threatened me Saadat! He said that if I quit sending Ghani to study from him or told anybody about what he was doing to him, he would tell everything about us to my husband! He would show my husband pictures, and he would make me suffer in the harshest way! He said that he’d force my husband to divorce me, and then the society would never accept me. I would eventually bring shame upon my parents, and their respect which I, oh so cared about would eventually crumble away.”
I swear I never expected this from Siraj..
“I started crying loudly, and I begged him to leave my child and me alone! His sister came downstairs when she heard the noise that I was making with all the crying. She laughed at me! I begged her too. I begged her to talk some sense into her brother. She told me that she was the one who came with this brilliant idea. Her brother had suffered enough because of me, and it was my turn to suffer. She said that the next time Ghani would visit their house; she would also do things to him. She said that it was only fair.”
I could kill them both..
“They kicked me out of their house and threatened me that if Ghani were not at their place by 5 pm next day, they would make sure that he and I both faced the consequences.”
“Saadat.. Saadat I sent him. I sent Ghani! Don’t judge me Saadat; I was afraid Saadat! I kept on sending him again and again.. again and again…I knew what they were doing to him, but I kept quite. I could not tell anyone I could not do anything I… I… Saadat… Ghani cried.. he.. he.. cried.. every single… day. He pleaded with me to not send him there again, but I sent him.. I cared more about what people would say than what my son was saying.. I made him go to and through hell! Why did I do that Saadat? Why?”
I don’t know whether to be angry at Zeest or not! It is her fault, but when did blame ever make people realize their mistakes any better? It only made them angrier.
“A day before yesterday dinner was ready, and I sort of shouted Ghani’s name to come downstairs and have dinner. 10 minutes passed, and Ghani was not at the dinner table. I went up stairs, opened the door to his room and….”
Yes, you all know what happened next! I would like to keep the details of how Ghani committed suicide hidden because that is what his mother wanted. There, however, was a note which said,
“God God up above
Is your heaven, peaceful enough?”
Pause. Think. Feel. Empathise.
What’s when a 12 year old boy commits suicide? Is it still a sin when he is not even fully aware of what sin is? Is it still selfish when he hasn’t even learned how to be selfless? Is it still stupid, when it is the only thing that seems sensible enough to get himself rid of all the chaos in life? Is it still all those things?
Or is it something much, much bigger? Like a lesson, punishment or a phenomenon that somehow brings about change?
