profit and loss statement

The family seems to have decided that its going to make up for the losses suffered from 2000 to 2003 in 2005 and make the overall situation a zero-sum game. Well its easy to make up in numbers and that is how i shall keep it, for the sheer magnitude of the losses can never be expressed in words. The cycle started in October 2000, during my first quarter at LUMS, with Chachi. Then on April 4, 2001, Shab-e-Aashoor, Dadi Jaan. Exactly nine months after, on January 4, 2002 the family was shattered forever with Chacha's murder. The weight of the world fell upon a gray head between two stooped shoulders as Dada Jaan tried to keep his flock together and in the twilight of his time took the responsibility of his orphaned grandsons, a responsibility that taxes his every faculty. Someone spoke correctly at Chacha's wake, 'Khan da pahaar da jigger hay.' May he have a long life for our sake. On a tangent though, the exact nine-month difference between mother and son continues to haunt me still. April 14, 2002 Addi Amma. The Lord decided to give us a year-long breather. June 4, 2003, end of Junior year with the final exam of Colex, Chacha Tehroo. And then on November 15, 2003, the night of the 21st of Ramazan, in the middle of the Autumn finals and two days before my 21st birthday, Nana Jaan passed away. Exactly as had happened at Chacha's death, I skipped two exams and made a nocturnal journey back home. Exasperated voices cried out to heaven - no more, please, no more! As the family reeled from one painful shock after another, fate had another cycle planned, a cycle of birth which started not long after. On November 19, 2003, Syed Turaab Afghan stepped into the world, what a kid mashAllah. Can already tell the difference between a fake cellphone and a real one. 'Eeeeee' he calls it. Iblees Jr. Nana Jaan would have called him. April 24, 2004, Jaffer Reza Khan was born and although they put him onto artificial milk which caused the poor baby to inflate he is now the life of the paternal side of my family; spoiling him rotten they are. All his Grand-Uncles are crazy after him; i guess they see their own grandchildren in him. Then came March 2005 with Syeda Itrat Zehra, my Nana Nani's second great grandchild. This one already promises to be a ball of fire with her temper tantrums. April 21, 2005, Mohammed Ghazi Saeed, a baby providence chose to give after years of intense prayer and many a traumatic experience. Ghazi is going to be the wonder-boy of the family inshAllah, may he live forever and make his parents proud. Then came the 'Jahanpur dee pug da waaris' on the 2nd of September, Meekaeel Murtaza. Stately looks this one has mashAllah from the emailed pictures, still gotta see him in person though. Then on October 1 came the 'Sijaalpur dee pug da waaris', Mohammed Taqi, still in peaceful post-natal slumber. Tonight, two days from Taqi's arrival, another one is on its way. And in a few months' time inshAllah, Jaffer will have a sibling. The parents are 'secretly' hoping for a daughter; as am I. My paternal side of the family is in dire need of some 'rehmat'.

If you have taken the trouble of reading this far, I hope you're doing the math as well because i surely am not. My point is that although i pray from the bottom of my heart and even more sincerely than i do for myself that all these babies have long lives and grow up to be splendid people and a source of strength and joy for their parents, it is still a long time before they develop their independent personalities and really start to matter in the scheme of things. Some of the people who were taken away were taken away before it was really their time. And these were people who were already there, who were important to other people in many ways. But the Lord works in mysterious ways. And one can only hope that these newborns, when they come into their own, will surpass those whom they would never see but would hear about a lot in character and personality. But i guess by the time that happens, i would be dead and gone, another statistic on nature's frequency table. And so what im looking at, at the moment, is a deadweight loss. But then ive always been known to be a bit too pessimistic for my own good. Regardless of that, the fact that im writing all of this on a blog for the entire world to see may yet point to another loss that i think i will have to mourn pretty soon. Someday I will write a piece on how to hurt, lose, driveaway people who care. And then i will hopefully choke on my own nasal fluids and die.