Camino

‘Chasing Liberty’, ‘First Daughter’, and quite a lot of other movies that I have watched over the years have more or less the same story line: daughter of the president (it’s always the daughter!), very simple, down to earth kind of person, very caring, helpful…going out of her way to help people, and who always gets pushed over by everyone instead of her bossing around, in short, the kind of person who is almost too good to be true. And every time I’d ask myself…is it really possible for a president’s daughter to be that simple and ordinary, I mean she’s the president’s daughter and she’s got no attitude!

My whole perception about all this changed right after I got to DELL. I was told that the Mayor’s daughter was in our class. I was expecting her to be a complete snob and arrogant; someone who’d be bossing around and being mean to everyone. Not being able to figure out who the mayor’s daughter was, I asked one of my classmates and I was a little shocked when she told me who the girl was. That was the very girl who showed me around the campus and took me out for coffee during one of our breaks. Never once did she mention who she was. She was just like anyone of us. And that’s when I realized that that ordinary and ‘almost too good to be true’ daughters weren’t only to be found in movies. Such kind of daughters actually existed in real life too.

Fauzia and I weren’t the best of pals but I’d be lying if I’d say that we weren’t close either. It was the different occasions and activities and especially the in house production of The Merchant of Venice where the two of us worked together. From there we got the chance to know each other enough to decide on the things we liked and disliked about each other. We didn’t really hang out together that much but whenever we did, we had a great time. Those few special moments that we’ve shared together are some things that brings a smile on my face or sometimes tears to my eyes.

It’s been almost a year since she passed away, even today the teachers call out her roll sometimes and even today we sometimes look around for someone to respond to that roll. Whenever there’s some event in our department or we are in a certain situation, we ask ourselves what would Fauzia have done in this situation? Would she have done this or that? People come and go in our life. We become happy when someone comes into our lives and we become sad when someone leaves us. But life moves on. We continue to live. Time helps us to smile again and live and enjoy life again. The same is in our situation with Fauzia. Nothing has changed. We still forget to bring our books to class. We still get scolded by our teachers for not learning our lessons properly. We still bunk classes when we think we aren’t in the mood of doing the class. We still go out to eat with friends and have parties and sing and dance. Yet again, everything has changed. Fauzia is not among us anymore and we can feel her absence. I still go to auditorium; the memories of the time when we worked together in the play are still fresh in my head. I go to the back stage to say my prayers sometimes and I can recollect the times when the two of us went there to say our prayers during our practices. Someone asks me to check their writings for grammatical mistakes or spelling mistakes immediately I think of Fauzia!

She’s not there among us anymore but I will always remember her- be it for something she said or did. And how can I forget someone who made me realize that not everything we watch on Television is unreal!