The Best Friends

She introduced me to my two best friends.

At least, she hoped I would consider them as my best friends.

The first of these two landed me in a bit of a pickle…

But then, after the initial bump in the road, I have savored that best friend to this day.

What landed me in trouble was mostly the fault of my own.

The punishment I got was par for the course.

Especially when the course was nothing but the laziness I showed in completing a task assigned to me.

And it was a simple task too:

Write an essay!

These days, it could be chalked up to a condition commonly known as the writer’s block.

But I am not a writer.

Not yet, and certainly wasn't back then.

But, the way she set about helping me seemed to suggest she considered me one.

And she certainly thought I was suffering from such an acute symptom.

Anyways, when I showed that rather chronic symptom of the worst kind of laziness, and her repeated attempts to stimulate my mind out of that slumber fell on deaf ears, she wrote the essay for me.

Problem solved!

Wait just a minute, you might ask…

What about that first best friend? 

And, what happened to the jar of pickle that I had landed in? 

Was that friend worth it?

Allow me to explain...

Getting summoned to the principal’s office was no small jar of pickle.

He was not only the principal of the school, but he also doubled up as our 7th grade English teacher.

It certainly loomed large on my slender self back then as the mother of all pickles.

And I knew I was in it the moment I saw my brightly colored notebook held by the peon close to his chest as he walked into the 7th grade class room.

I was summoned. 

It was no surprise to me then just as it was no surprise to me, in more recent times, when I ran into that best friend again at her place.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. More on that encounter later.

Another place I was scared to be in, just as much as the principal’s office, was when I was locked up in a room with my second best-friend-to-be, 14 years later as part of a little ice-breaking game at our Nikah ceremony.

Although, another one of the VIP ladies in my life was the real culprit behind that setup, I owe it to the lady I began this blog with for instilling in me a better appreciation for my wife.

And she would remind me of my responsibilities in her typical, affectionate way ever since - citing two years she spent as a room-mate with my future wife during her high school years.

She convinced me that the true companion of my solitude has been right there all along in the love and care that I enjoyed from my better half, my second best friend.

But, I had learned the meaning of the word solitude the hard way.

Flash back to the 7th grade and the principal’s office.

He demanded that I give him the meaning of this word.

Solitude.

He set that condition as my only way out of the jam (or the pickle if you will) that I was in.

Mind you, the medium of instructions at my school was Urdu. So, the word solitude was not exactly a walk in the park.

This word was used in the essay I submitted. I was supposed to have written that essay myself. The sentence was, “… gives me company and comforts me in my solitude.”

That sentence has been burnt into my memory ever since. As if I had written it myself.

If only I could convince him of that!

The lady who was responsible for making me realize my role as a husband and a father was also responsible for introducing me to my first love, back when I was in the 7th grade.

The topic of the essay assigned to the class was “My Best Friend.”

And I, or rather she, had begun that essay with, “My book is my best friend…”

“A good book gives me company and comforts me in my solitude”, She went on to write.

So, who was that lady responsible for trying to introduce me to my two best friends?

She was my late sister, Qammar Jabeen Khan.

She succumbed to cancer on May 6, 2014.

We pray to God that He Enters her in the highest echelons of the Paradise. Ameen.

One of the last things she bought, just days before she died, was a couple of knitting/crochet magazines. And, she had started reading the magazines right there in the car on our ride home.

Books have always been her best friends…

And she certainly tried to instill that love for books in me very early.

Whether I have truly accepted book as my best friend is another matter. But you walk into the study at her home and you see the whole wall decked with bookshelves: With books neatly arranged and categorized.

Then you walk down to the basement and there is another library full of books of all kinds.

There again, in her home, I ran into that best friend that she taught me long ago to befriend.

Had I done so, I could certainly find comfort in that friend in my solitude.

Like she did as she raised her five kids all by her lonesome.

Lonesome?

Solitude?

Or was she surrounded by her best friends?