28th Jan, 2017

It's funny how some of you thought my previous chapter's title was directed towards you'll. LOL! You guys are on my favorite people's list, don't worry :* ;) 

Those who avoid the major sins and immoralities, only [committing] slight ones. Indeed, your Lord is vast in forgiveness. He was most knowing of you when He produced you from the earth and when you were fetuses in the wombs of your mothers. So do not claim purity to yourselves (claiming you are righteous etc); He is most knowing of who fears Him.

[an-Najm 53:32]  

Chapter: 16

Someone give him an award

"Done with the assignment?"

Anabya looked up at the first words she was addressed with upon entering class, and nodded.

"How long were you awake?" Sonia asked with a knowing smile.

"Is it written all over my face?" Bee questioned, making her way to the desk. "Slept at four," she added.

"Better than not sleeping the whole night, right?"

Anabya looked at her closely and it didn't look like she was talking about herself. Because unlike Bee, who had just put on the first hijab she found in reach over her Abaya, this girl's clothes, lipstick and eyeliner were on point, making it clear that she really wasn't someone who spent her night writing assignments.

There were two types of teachers. The first were the cool ones who asked for printed assignments. They earned the good side of 100 percent of the class, for a typed assignment meant Copy-Paste from professor Google.

And then, there were those who insisted on written assignments, earning a earful from most of the students for making them stay up the night and write stuff they hardly understood, only for the sake of marks. Well, it really didn't matter that these assignments were couple of months old because let's admit it, no matter how much time procrastinators have, they start and finish work the night before the deadline.

That was the case with most of the students as Anabya scanned her surroundings, some hurriedly scribbling last minute bibliographies from books they didn't even refer and others sleeping away to glory.

"Who stayed up the whole night?" Anabya finally asked.

"I was talking about them," Sonia grinned, pointing at a few girls sitting in the middle benches. "Obviously not me. My assignments were all done last weekend."

As Anabya opened her mount to compliment her organisation skills, Sonia winked, "Perks of having a boyfriend."

"He wrote your assignments?"

"Yes he did," She grinned, and walked ahead to occupy her seat.

"How unfair," Anabya mumbled to herself, dropping her head to the desk.

Why didn't she have a boyfriend?

Just kidding, cue the haraam police.

Her head resting on the desk, she was about to close her eyes when she saw a sheet of paper lying on the ground. Instinctively, she picked it up and read through it.

It read,

ACKOWLEDGEMENT

There are too many people I'd like to thank on the completion of this project, so many names that I can hardly fit in this paper.

Firstly, I extend my gratitude to _____________ for giving me such an interesting topic to work on, it opened my eyes to a number of new issues that I was unaware of. I'll forever be indebted to you for exciting my mind and urging me to channelise my time and energy towards something productive.

The information I've received from this will stay with me throughout.

I'd also like to thank my family for being a continuous pillar of support and above all, I'm forever thankful to God, The Author of Wisdom and Knowledge.

Thank you!

She didn't know why, but Anabya giggled at the end of it. It was way too dramatic and she was certain the student hardly meant what he said. There was nothing interesting about this dry dry topic and everything was related to statistics, so it was questionable how much one would remember till evening, forget lifetime!

She turned to look at her side and extended the paper to her classmate. "Hey, is this yours?" She asked.

While in the middle of filing sheets, Sharon looked up. "Oops, yeah! But what was this?" She asked herself and turned to the last page, to find the exact same paper in her file.

"You wrote it twice?" Anabya asked, a bit amused. How much time did she really have to write acknowledgements twice?

However, it was Sharon's turn to be amused as she said, "Oh no, I have better things to do in life. That must have been an extra photo copy. You see, I keep a stock of acknowledgement sheets with me. For every assignment, I write the teacher's name in the space and give it. Who has the time to come up with new thank you notes anyway? Thank God for Xerox machines!"

"Oh!" Anabya exclaimed, bewildered.

Well, that was smart!

When the teacher finally arrived and the students settled in, Anabya was having a tough time keeping her eyes open. As the lecturer went on about a topic she had no idea, Anabya slept with her eyes open. It was a good half an hour and she was completely lost in her own world  when she heard her name being called out.

"Yes, Ma'am?" She asked, and when she looked up, her question was partly answered by what she saw.

"You're wanted in the office," she said, pointing at the boy who had come to deliver the news, and who, by now, was earning more than impressive stares by Bee's classmates.

"But..." Anabya trailed off, not sure why she was required in the office because that was something very unusual and serious. Add to this the fact that Shamaaz had come to deliver this news, it made it all the more fishy.

However, not willing to create a scene, disregarding his presence, she headed towards the door.

Despite herself, she was swarmed by a hundred thoughts as she made her way to the reception. Her first thoughts were if she had broken a rule or something of the likes. 

"Hey, 'Bya, stop," Shamaaz said but she continued to ignore him.

"You're not required in the office, you know."

Well, that made her stop.

"What do you mean?" She finally questioned, halting in her steps as she turned to look at him.

"I wanted to speak to you."

"You barged into my class, lied to the professor, and made me walk halfway to the office because you wanted to speak to me?" She asked incredulously.

Ya Allah! Was this guy mad?

"You blocked me on Facebook and didn't even come to the park with your nephew last evening. I figured the only way to talk to you would be this," he shrugged, as if it wasn't a big deal at all.

"Why don't you understand that I don't want to talk to you. Why don't you just take the hints?" She whisper yelled.

"Why don't you understand that I want to talk to you?" He put forth.

Realizing that  this guy was impossible, and there was no use talking to him or getting him to understand that she was not the kind of girl to mingle freely with guys, she decided to turn around and walk back to class.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly, walking beside her.

No explanations. No reasons this time. Just an apology.

But she didn't know what to say. An apology wouldn't erase anything. It wouldn't wipe away all the disgust she felt when she looked through her journal, nor would it help her enter her feelings into it.

Then again, as humans, all of us made mistakes, didn't we?

We deserved forgiveness, yes, but at this point, she couldn't find it in her to accept the apology because this was a mistake he committed knowingly.

But she was also reminded of the fact that you can't change what's done. And it's best to forgive, for your own peace.

As she continued walking further without a reply, she was jerked to a halt as she felt Shamaaz's hand wrap around her wrist. His gentle yet firm grip lasted for a few microseconds because she was quick to pull her hand away, any positive thoughts she earlier had now replaced with rage.

"Can you please listen to me?" He asked, but seeing her expression, he decided to hear from her end.

She gazed down at her wrist and went blank for a few seconds. Was she dreaming or did he really just touch her?

"I don't understand the need for an apology," she gritted out.

This wasn't want she had been thinking of saying, at least nothing remotely close to the venom and sarcasm, but he asked for it through his actions. "Apologies are accepted from people who matter to you so in this case, no apologies needed. And Shamaaz, do not touch me ever again," she said and walked out.

Someone please give this guy an award for screwing things up.  

***

"Bhai, are you free?"

Furqaan looked up from his laptop as his little sister walked into his room and occupied the chair by the window.

"What's up?" He asked, glancing back to his laptop.

"So.. uhm... I wanted to say something," she started awkwardly.

God! Why did she feel this uncomfortable when she had gone over her speech at least five times?

After returning from college, Anabya had mapped down her thoughts. She had thought back to all the encounters with Shamaaz and decided, this needed to stop. He always initiated conversations with her, read stuff that wasn't his, poked his nose in her business, and today he had the audacity to even touch her!

SO HARAAM!

While she knew that he was at complete fault, she couldn't help but take a tiny part of the blame for him to have reached this stage today. She should have put an end to this a long time ago by letting the right people handle it.

Well, better late than never. 

"What's going on?" Furqaan questioned after a few beats of silence.

"I need your help," she squeaked.

"I'm listening," he encouraged.

"So, you know Tanzila Aunty's son, right?"

"Shamaaz?"

"Yeah, him."

"What about him?"

"The thing is, as you may already know, their family isn't like ours. He's a bit more liberal and modern, and he studies in the same college as me. So since we're neighbors and see each other a couple of times in campus, he acts a little too friendly. Over friendly, if I'm being honest. He tries to start conversations and never gets the hint that I don't want to talk to him. And, he's annoying. Very annoying. So could you speak to him? Don't make it too obvious but you know, just convey to him not to mess with me. I mean, not to speak to me," she corrected.

"He's trying to get friendly with you?" Furqaan asked and Anabya detected the protectiveness dripping from his tone that made her smile despite the situation.

"Something like that." Since she didn't want to take this to another level, she added, "Just speak to him, I'm sure he'll understand our family is different from his."

"Instead of giving him hints, you should have told me right in the beginning, Bee, I would have handled this."

"Yeah, I thought about it, but, it's just..." she trailed off, knowing it was her fault for not reporting it earlier.

"Guys these days," Furqaan said, shaking his head. "I'll speak to him, he needs to know my sister isn't the kind of girl he interacts with."

"JazakAllahu khair, Bhai," Anabya smiled. All the best, Shamaaz, she added mentally.

"Done with today's submission?" Furqaan asked and Anabya nodded, narrating to him some of the stories from her class while Furqaan reminisced his own college days.

The siblings sat chatting about nothing in particular for the next ten minutes, and since Magrib was drawing close, Anabya got up to make coffee for herself and Chai for her Bhai, considering her mum and Aamina weren't home.

When dusk arrived and Furqaan finished Salah at the Masjid, a peculiar scene was projected as he walked back home with Shamaaz beside him.

"No new matches coming up?" He asked.

"I'll be travelling the month for a series. It's an important one, it'll decide my future and stuff," Shamaaz said, kicking a stone in his path and following it up in the next few steps.

"In sha Allah khair," Furqaan prayed and as they reached the apartment gates, he said, "Shamaaz, my sisters are very dear to me. You know, I've grown up in a house full of ladies; my mum, my two sisters, and my wife show me how women are stronger than men in so many ways. And from a very young age, I've held utmost respect for them. I'm saying all this to you to let you know that the family I come from is the type that honors women according to the principles of Islam. And one principle of Islam is that it strictly prescribes a code of conduct for conversation between men and women that are done out of necessity. No free mingling, no vain talks, and definitely no unnecessary friendships. The bottom line, I'd appreciate it if you stay away from Anabya."

As Shamaaz continued kicking the stone while listening to him, it so happened that at one point, it fell on Furqaan's side and while Shamaaz thought he'd end the journey, Furqaan beat him to it and struck it by his foot, making it land back to his path.

While he had no doubts really, the truth was yet again confirmed after listening to Furqaan. Anabya really was mad if she sent her brother to speak to him.

That was like the next level of things, and boy, the girl definitely knew how to take a stand for herself.

Well, if that didn't make him subconsciously fall for her a little more...

"Point noted," Shamaaz finally said, kicking the stone one last time before halting by the stairs.

"Good," he nodded I'm all seriousness. "All the best for your match, I'd love to see you play!" Furqaan smiled, trying to ease the tense atmosphere.

"We play downstairs almost every evening, you must join us sometime," Shamaaz offered.

"Maybe during days I come early from office," he promised, as they ascended upstairs and went their separate paths.

One thing was clear. He was way out of Bya's league. She wasn't girlfriend material, she was made for pure relationships. The kind of girl you signed a contract with, committing the rest of your life to her.

The kind of commitment Shamaaz wasn't ready for.

Back at home, Anabya logged in to her laptop to skim through her mails. However, for the hundredth time, she ended up opening her journal and huffed in annoyance.

Maybe she should have thought over it, or maybe she should have given herself more time but as she read through the entries and felt a fresh set of frustration settle over, she did what she thought she wouldn't.

Ctrl + A + Delete

And it was gone. Her feelings, her heartbreak diaries, the thoughts she had scribbled in the darkest of nights - everything disappeared and the document was left blank.

She didn't want anyone to make her feel vulnerable. This particular journal was proof to one of the most fragile phases of her life and she didn't want to leave it for others to read. She liked to stay in control of her life.

It was funny, but she actually felt good looking at that blank document. It was like erasing all those memories which had held an important place at one point in time, but they didn't matter anymore.

The blank document stood as a testimony to starting fresh.

Something good did come out because of him reading her journal, after all!

As a narrative, and something she wouldn't mind if someone even happened to read, she wrote a few words on those blank pages, that fresh start.

You gazed at the closed door and dreamt of a fairytale with perfect moments, not knowing that Allah planned for you something better and bigger from a door you never knew existed. You had everything planned, but The Best of Planners had everything figured out beforehand.

Take a deep breath Cinderalla, you don't need to lose a shoe to let your dreams come true. Place your desires in the hands of Allah, and He will fulfil them for you. In His Time and in the way He seems most suitable, you will find your wishes alive and tangible.