One of Those Days

It was one of those days. She’d known it from the moment she’d opened her eyes that morn. It hadn’t been a dark and stormy night… rather, it’d been quite pleasant… or so it had seemed thanks to the air conditioner inside her room. She’d wanted to stay in bed until the feeling went away. Dad had always told her never to start a day feeling gloomy. “It’ll only get worse”, he’d said, ruffling her silken black hair and pulling her rounded cheeks to reset the pout on her face into a reluctant smile. The course of your day is usually decided in the first ten minutes after you wake up. If you’re still gloomy by the time you stop shuffling your feet in a half-awake stupor, chances are that you’ll feel gloomy for the rest of the day.

She walked up to the concave porcelain sink in her bathroom and looked into the mirror mounted on the medicine cabinet. Two beetle black almond shaped eyes shot back a glare potent enough to wilt the most beautiful of flowers in an instant. She tried altering her countenance, parting her lips to reveal a toothy smile until she espied a yellow hue amongst the 32 perfectly aligned teeth. It was not very welcoming. The next five minutes were spent rigorously brushing her teeth, especially in the area which sported the bold fashion statement; going against the norm of pearly white and with the more daring yellow. Once done, but still dissatisfied with the outcome, she replaced her brush, splashed some water on to her tanned face and walked out.

Breakfast was quite uneventful. Nobody spoke a word while they munched on the fried eggs and toast her mother had prepared. She poked at the yellow mass on hers with a fork. It wobbled violently as she did so. She frowned a bit, but made no comment. She always liked the yolk on her egg to be hard. Otherwise the yolk burst and flowed all over the plate… reminding her of a substance that was most definitely not palatable.

She downed the meal rapidly. The glass of milk that followed went down with matching celerity. “Breakfast is the most important meal of the day”, dad always said… but he hadn’t mentioned that one needed to consume it slowly. After breakfast, she took a shower, got dressed and left for college.

Life at college always had been a blur of friends, the college dogs, the cows, time spent at the local juice center or the nearby garden and a few hours in the lecture halls. During one of those rare hours spent in the lecture halls that day, she was summoned by the HOD; an occurrence that had lesser odds of being good news than having the teachers believe that the college cow had munched down your homework assignment. (The odds of having the cows munch down the homework assignments were pretty high… the college boasted of ten ravenous bovines … the odds of having your teachers believe you… try it for yourself and see).

She nodded as the teacher conveyed the summons to her and, with head bowed, shuffled out of the lecture hall and towards the Department Head’s office five floors above. As she neared the staircase, she happened to glance inside a lecture hall to spy a scene that brought a fleeting smile upon her lips. 

What had been intended as a surprise test had turned into utter chaos. Pandemonium reigned as girls attempted to break the sound barrier and guys took advantage of a professor preoccupied with evicting one of the college dogs from the room, and copied answers off each others’ papers. The dog, very much used to the commotion typical of a college presumed that the harassed professor wanted to play with her and waited until he was almost upon her before gamboling away across the room to wait for him once more. One could almost see the mirth on her face with the mouth half open and a pink tongue hanging out as she coiled her legs and wagged her tail furiously, waiting for the professor.

Deciding to intervene, she stepped into the class and approached the dog, a well known acquaintance of hers. On picking up her scent, the dog lost all interest in the professor and bounded towards her, tail still wagging furiously. She slowed down into a kind of welcome dance, describing circles with her forelegs before prancing excitedly around her. The girl bent down and drew the dog into an embrace, drawing her face away when the dog attempted to joyously lubricate it with her tongue. Then, once the creature had calmed down, she placed a gentle kiss on her moist nose (something her mother constantly forbade her from doing… she even attributed her chapped lips to the activity) and picked her up in her arms and, acknowledging the professor’s breathless gratitude with a smile and a nod, carried the creature to the entrance of the college, set her free outside and once again made for the staircase.

On her way to the HOD’s office, she bumped into a few acquaintances and friends from the other departments. Acknowledging each with a toothless smile (wary of the image in her mirror that morning), she mounted the stairs two at a time; a habit attributable to her long legs (she was 5’8). When she reached the fifth floor, she saw her friend Rajat rush by, trying to keep up with a professor who seemed anxious to get rid of him. She heard Rajat say “I’m telling you professor. It was the stupid cow. They oughta have a bell around their neck or something. Bloody buggers sneak up on you and munch on your books while you’re chatting with your friends!! I’ll get you photos if you want!!”

Rajat’s rant brought another fleeting smile to her face. She walked down the corridor to the HOD’s office and knocked on the door.
“Come in.” said a squeaky but firm voice.

She walked into the small 15x10 room furnished with a few chairs and a mahogany desk cluttered with papers, files, paper weights, a pen stand, three mobile phones (obviously confiscated from some hapless students caught using them in the campus; it would cost them 1500 a pop to recover them after a fortnight) and a whoopee cushion that a very irate lecturer had produced about an hour ago. A chocolate brown pendulum clock hung in between two framed degree certificates on the peach colored wall and the floor was covered by a cheap bristly carpet (courtesy the generous college management). Behind the desk sat a short and robust lady with graying hair and a stern face. She wore elliptical reading glasses that balanced on the tip of her nose as she stared over them. Her slightly wrinkled pale hands rested on the glass surface covering the top of her desk. One of them rose up to adjust her glasses as she looked up at the new apparition.

“Ahh… Fareena,” she said softly, indicating with her other hand for the girl to take a seat.

Fareena silently complied, wondering all the while as to why she had been summoned here today. Truth be told, she was much less accustomed to the interiors of the HOD’s office than Rajat was. Her grades were well above average despite the fact that she bunked a considerable number of lectures (though she bunked far less than her peers did). She’d always seen to it that her studies never suffered in her pursuit of fun at college. She rarely ever caused any trouble in class. No pranks, no disturbances. She was polite to everyone… in fact… her friends called her a suck up. Not that it bothered her of course. She cared far more about what her father thought of her than the opinions of her friends. And she could see the obvious pride on his face during PTA’s.

Fareena had always admired her father. Her grandmother had expressed disappointment at the first child in the family being a girl, but her father had never made her feel like a liability. Quite the opposite in fact; he encouraged all of her interests (including dancing despite her grandmother’s eloquent discourse on the topic). He always called her ‘beta’ (son), sending out a clear message to one and all that she was every bit as valuable as a son, if not more so. The last thing she wanted to do was to disappoint him and she knew he’d be disappointed if she’d got into any trouble at college.
She looked up at the light brown eyes of the HOD, waiting for her to break the silence. Finally, the woman spoke.

“Fareena, I’ve called you here because of a matter that has only recently come to my attention,” she said, her tone so soft that she was barely audible.

Fareena tried to recall the events of the previous few days, wondering which of her activities could possibly have resulted in a crime serious enough for her to be summoned to the HOD’s office. She could find none. The HOD went on, obviously not expecting a response.

“Fareena, you should have told me,” said the lady in a rather sad and disappointed tone, “You and all other students in this department are like my children to me.”

The last statement caught Fareena off guard and she found herself blurting out “What?”

The HOD gave her a weak smile, ignoring the rudeness of the question. “Your mother called just now,” she said “She says you need to come down to the hospital right away”.

Fareena’s eyes grew wide and her heartbeat accelerated at the HOD’s words. The HOD lifted her hand and pressed a switch beside her desk. A sharp buzzing noise was heard from outside the door and a peon subsequently walked in.

“Please escort Miss Fareena to the parking lot and have my driver take her to Saifee hospital,” she told the peon.

The ride to the hospital seemed like an eternity to Fareena. Each moment stretching itself to the maximum possible duration before making way for the next one. Each traffic signal seemed excruciatingly long, as her mind raced, pondering what her mother’s request could have indicated. She remembered running up three flights of stairs at the hospital until she reached the waiting room of the deluxe ward. She found her mother waiting there for her, with a distinguished looking middle aged gentleman wearing a white coat and carrying clipboard in his hand. He smiled at her as she burst into the room.

“Hello Fareena!”

“Hello Doctor,” she managed to gasp out.

Her mother waited for her to catch her breath before saying, “I called up your college as soon as he called…” she said. Fareena nodded, she had wanted to be there.

She looked quizzically at the doctor who nodded and cleared his throat before speaking.

“His cancer was already in the third stage when you came to us,” he paused “I had told you that there wasn’t much time for him even then”
Fareena nodded, unable to speak. Her eyes filled with tears even as she fought to suppress the empty feeling inside her stomach. Her mother gave a short gasp, apparently sensing where the conversation was going. Despite her own internal struggle, Fareena put an arm around her mother and embraced her. The doctor continued.

“But it’s been over a year since then and he’s still fighting,” the doctor admitted with a wry smile. “I’ve never seen someone so determined to live.” He shook his head before finally saying, “Even Allah couldn’t take your father from you until he were himself willing to go.”

Fareena flung herself at the doctor, giving him a warm hug before saying “… so… the coughing… the blood… it’s ok? For now I mean? ... Can I go see him?”

The doctor nodded. She ran past him, flung open the door to room 302 and, with tears running down her cheeks uttered a quavery “D…Dad”
The man on the bed turned towards the door and smiled. “Beta” he said, now positively beaming. Fareena needed no further invitation. She tackled the man lying on the bed and sobbed into his chest.

“Hey hey!” he said in a comforting tone, running his hand over her head as she continued sobbing into his chest. He gave his wife a warm smile as she also entered the room and once again turned to his daughter. He lifted her face, stared into her eyes and said, “Wipe those tears off your face… I’m fine!”

Fareena quickly smeared the tear drops onto her cheeks with the back of her hand and gave a half sob-half laugh.

“I was so worried after what happened on Monday. I had such bad dreams!” she admitted

“They were just dreams, beta,” he said reassuringly, “I’m not going anywhere.” He stopped to draw a deep breath before continuing.

“Look how your face is swollen up,” he joked “You look like a mango when you pout.” He then proceeded to pull her cheeks into a toothy smile.

Fareena didn’t stop him, she didn’t even care about the yellow hue her teeth had developed. She waited for his next few words. She knew they were coming.

“Never start a day felling gloomy,” he said “it’ll only get worse.”

She nodded and hugged him once again… it wasn’t one of those days after all!

Author’s Note: Fareena’s dad fought lung and spinal cord cancer for five years before finally passing away. (Based on but not identical to the story of a friend’s father)