A Simple Story

A Simple Story

“Life is a miracle in itself”

A perfect life is only some one could hope for in today’s world people have it in their nature to want and to have what they want but very few have the capability to accept what they get even though a WANT does not exist for them. Instead of taking it for granted life should be cherished and what you get should be enough…

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Since the time when a child is born parents would imagine a future for them. This is a story of such a child born at an age in time when women had started to become a dominant part of the world and men were no longer superior. Now you would be thinking this is a story of a girl born in a feminist society but on the contrary I am not telling you yet.

“A child born in a world where he/she would have to prove himself/herself in every way and to everyone he/she ever met…”

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In the beginning the life of Shan was very simple, his daily routine, his troubles were very trivial, his world was of small choices and was limited which would basically mean he had a problem-free-life. Living in a segregated society he had been brought up as a conservative thinker where everything had a rule and a time to happen. But as any other parent would want, his father had decided to send him abroad to the United States of America.

Now at a very young age Shan had discovered a new world away from his parents to an unknown country, culture and society completely alienated in a newly discovered world. This is where Shan thought to himself “Now my life starts” reading this you would think or imply that he would mean a life of complete and total freedom and enjoyment, a life free of rules, a culture where society is what you want it to be, free to choose. But for Shan his past, his teaching and his culture had a completely different meaning for him, it meant a life where he would make something of himself such that when people would hear of him they would be able to think nothing but to praise him and his accomplishments.

Now he would wake up everyday to a sunny morning of Los Angeles, a city in California, a state known to the world to provide the best education in the world with institutes like UC Berkley, UCLA, USC and many others, it was Shan’s dream to be a leading man, a person with power and privilege. But this was a strange world for him where people would compete for the smallest of things where women were treated as equals but as he learned that to imagine as a person, let it be a man or woman it was inconceivable as every person would think of themselves superior to the other, where respect of age, strength, experience was a concept of being inferior and would make you one who is incapable to compete. The world would move faster and faster everyday as people would worry about tomorrow or the year after and every minute to get there, he on the other hand would always think to himself “I have been given the privilege of enjoying today”. Shan, even though surrounded by so much noise had kept his own way of life uncompromized, he would have the competitive edge as he was able to enjoy each and everything he would do, no matter how mediocre the thing would be.

As you would have gathered reading the till here, if you were smart enough that is, Shan’s life never consisted of friends, but now living on his own he found a need to make friends to fulfill his human need of being around people but soon after he had learned that people are not always what they seem, where the synonym for the word ‘friends’ is ‘use’. He had learned that when a person would come up and ask for his help as a friend, one had to be obliged to do as much as they could but then he would end up doing all the work, now you would think this guy was desperate but that is what he never understood, these people could never appreciate another person.

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“Is this, what life is about?”

In the mist of all these new changes in his life with all the new people and culture he was living inn and surviving through the one thing that had changed his life forever was on a cold and rainy day early in the morning as he was walking towards his class, when suddenly his heart started beating harder and harder and blood started to boil almost as though he had died and come back to life just to see another glimpse of an angelic beauty. His world had suddenly stopped, he had forgotten about everything he had to do or was supposed to be doing, and was completely paralyzed.  By the time he got back to his senses he had lost her, the rest of the day he waited in that precious part of the world where he saw her just to see another glimpse but he never did see her again. He thought to himself that she must have been a dream, a cruel joke played by the God on him. From that time onwards, time for him became slower; his world shrunk more and more lost in that moment and in the hope that she might be real.

Months had past, he had lost count himself, nothing would interest him anymore, and he was totally confused life for him now was incomplete; his heart ached as he spent most of the time waiting and hoping for that moment in time to repeat.

“The purpose of my life is to wait, may it be forever”

Saying this to himself, Shan would go through his day, but little did he know that one day his so called friends would lead him to her. It was after an year since he had first seen her he had been given another chance to live a dream he never dreamt.

While attending a wedding of a friend it was there where he found her, the one person who destroyed his world and gave him a new one that only consisted of her. Without even a slightest clue of what he was going to do next, he had already gone up to her without realizing he was on his knees holding his arms wide open and with all the strength in him asked her to be his and only his, but in an instance he realized he was only dreaming. One would think that I liked that person and now that I have found her and now I say, how do I do it? How do I start to end the way I want to? He had than gone up to the groom and asked him to introduce her to him and so it started. His wait was over and now his new life would start.

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‘Life’ a word that has different meaning to person based on the situation and time in life, for Shan life was now filled with joy, with an enjoyment he had never felt.

Shagufta, born in a society, in a part of the world where life in itself was not in any way beautiful. She had seen life in a way where ‘survival of the fittest’ was not just a saying but the way of life. Her father had struggled all his life but to provide his daughter with the best he could, he wanted to give her what he never could have the freedom to chose ones future, he sent her to the United States of America the land of the free. She had lived a completely sheltered life, from her knowledge of the world; her philosophy was simple, “love to be loved”. Her vision of the future consisted of only one goal, to be able to provide a more secure future for her family to help them as they have helped her. Her day would consist of nothing but to work towards that goal.

Happiness was one thing that she could never enjoy completely, feeling guilt of being happy while her family struggled for her future, trying to provide her everything that she had a need for. She would act brave and mature in every situation while only tears were in her eyes when no one would be looking. Shagufta was never able to accept the change that her life had gone through, she would always try to be the most liked, the most hardworking. Life was never easy for her.

‘Love’ a concept her family had always emphasized to her, her family always wanted her to be loved by everyone and for her to be able to find that one person that she would be able to love herself without the excuse of a reason. Her family even though living in a conservative and backward society always provided their daughter with a modern and liberal lifestyle. You would think a beautiful girl like this must have fallen in love or at least a guy must have been able to steal her heart, well on contrary she had only been able to see the world of love from a window but had never kept a step into that world herself.

“God plays the world as Thy wills.”

On a full moon night dressed in all the colors of the world, it was while she was attending a friends wedding when she first met the prince of her dreams, it was a feeling of warmth she had never felt when she saw him. Confused of what she was feeling she looked again and again to see if what he was looking at was really in front of her.

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Is it when in deafening noise you hear nothing but silence, in a blinding crowd you only see one more person, in the darkness of the night you see only one star shinning as bright as the sun itself.

As the groom introduced Shan to Shagufta, they both had been able to discover the true meaning of life, simply the person in front of themselves. As the music started playing in the background Shan asked Shagufta to privilege him with a dance and with all the grace of angels she obliged herself to accept as the song went on, eyes in eyes they started into infinity as if they had just been reborn into a world where no one else exists and the world had been created for them with one sole purpose, for them.

Shan: Declaration of love is something words cannot accomplish.

Shagufta: Declare it from your eyes they understand unspoken words.

Saying this Shagufta realized what she had just accepted but she could not this is not why she was here, her purpose in life cannot change at any circumstance. Shan could only stare in despair as he saw the love of his life run away from his arms, staring into bliss.

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They say literal meaning of happiness is the pursuit of an achievable goal but what does happiness really mean.

“To love, to be loved, to hope…”

Life had continued as it always does, both Shan and Shagufta had been living towards their original goal in life towards their future, a future that they had to spend with out each other. Shan had never seen Shagufta after that night and for years now all he had done was to remember her and what he had done wrong for her to respond in such manner, but life for him was not the same he had lost his edge, he had become a man without passion for anything in life. He had finished his Masters from UC Berkley and now was one of the leading men of his industry but

“I would give all this up to feel the touch of my angel”.

Shagufta on the other hand had become a top lawyer graduating from UCLA, a profession she had chosen so that she would be capable enough to fight for those who were underprivileged. She became a highly respectful member of the community fighting for women’s causes and orphans providing them a much secure future. One would think to be able to help others and to bring hope into their lives one would gain a satisfaction from life, but it were here lonely nights that had reminded her of what she had let gone, it was filled with regrets.

“To regret is to confess, to confess is to declare, to declare is to never forget…”

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“ are dreams ever fulfilled or…”

Life is a mystery only solved with the puzzle piece of death. They say God has Thy reasons for what Thy does & only Thy would know why anything would happen. Everything happens for the best they say.

We go through life missing the chances we get always waiting for the miracle to happen but of course as a part of human nature we forget

“Life is a miracle in itself”

Do we live it or do we chose to live through it?