Shaheen's Flight, Bashir's Call: A Story Of Love And Loss In Kashmir

By Peerzada Faizan Gul

Her name was Shaheen, a word that meant falcon, though her feet were rooted in the soft earth of a village cradled by South Kashmir's hills.

She never read the poetry of Iqbal, but she didn't need to. Her life was his verse: unbound, proud, simple, yet carrying a dignity that turned heads in the market and hushed the chatter of neighbours.

In her youth, she moved like a bird cutting through dawn, her laughter ringing across meadows where children chased butterflies.

But these days, her world was smaller, hemmed in by pine trees and the mist that rolled in before the sun, lingering until the first notes of the azaan lifted it away.

Bashir, her husband, was the muezzin. His voice poured over the valley at dawn, a sound so pure it seemed to wake the mountains themselves. Shaheen would pause when he sang, her hands stilling over the dough she kneaded or the shawl she mended, a flicker of pride in her dark eyes.

Villagers said his voice could soften stone, and children mimicked it in the fields, their high-pitched echoes bouncing off the pines, dissolving into giggles.

Bashir was Shaheen's anchor, her prayer made flesh, the thread that held her world together.

Then came the pain. It crept in softly, like a shadow slipping into her sleep, curling around her lower back. At first, she brushed it aside, blaming long days bent over chores. But soon, blood stained her mornings, a secret she couldn't ignore.

The village health center sent her to Srinagar, to a hospital that felt like a fortress of glass and steel, its halls buzzing with voices and footsteps that swallowed her whole.

She and Bashir, hand in hand, stepped into a world they didn't know. They couldn't read the signs or the forms thrust at them by harried nurses.

The couple sat in waiting rooms for hours, clutching papers they couldn't decipher, lost in corridors that twisted like fate itself.

Bashir held her hand, his calm steadying her, his fingers warm against the cold of her fear. When the doctor finally spoke, the word he used was too big, too sharp: cancer.

Cervix, he said.

Shaheen didn't cry. She didn't fall apart. Her world just tilted, as if someone had nudged the horizon, and nothing fit right anymore.

Chemotherapy became her new rhythm. The hospital bed was hard, its sheets smelling of bleach and strangers' pain. The IV dripped like a slow clock, tethering her to a fight she barely understood.

Bashir stayed close, his eyes tracing her face like he was memorizing a sacred text. He adjusted her shawl, whispered prayers, his voice a soft hum against the beep of machines.

To Shaheen, the hospital wasn't the enemy. It was the way it shrank her world to this bed, smell, and sterile hum. Only Bashir made it bearable, his presence her only home in this alien place.

One morning, he stepped out to fetch her medicine, promising to be back before her chai cooled. She nodded, her lips curving faintly, trusting the warmth in his voice. Then came a screech, a scream, and a silence.

Outside the hospital, where cars roared without mercy, Bashir was struck. They rushed him to the emergency ward, but he was already gone. In his pocket, they found a folded file: her name, her ward, her bed number scrawled in blue ink, crumpled and stained.

A nurse came to her, voice soft as an apology, telling her to ease the drip from her arm. Shaheen didn't ask why. She knew. Somewhere deep, where love lives in the bones, she felt the thread snap. The world didn't end. It just stopped.

Back in the village, the sky stayed heavy, as if it had sworn loyalty to her grief. Shaheen's sobs carried through the night, folding into the valley's winds, a sound so raw the pines seemed to lean closer. Neighbours didn't knock. Dogs fell silent. Grief like hers demanded space, reverence.

Five times a day, it hurt worse. The azaan still came, but not from Bashir. Another voice took the mic, speaking the same words, but it didn't wrap the air like his did. It didn't still the sparrows or draw Shaheen's eyes to prayer. Only to pain. She sat by the window, his coat draped over her shoulders, whispering his name into the wind, as if grief could call him back.

Months passed, and autumn sighed through the chinar trees. Someone, maybe a neighbour, maybe the shopkeeper's wife, mentioned a new oncology ward at a nearby medical college.“Not like Srinagar,” they said.“Not a maze. A place that feels human.”

Shaheen didn't answer, her eyes fixed on the horizon, searching for Bashir's shadow.

But that evening, she reached for the file from his coat, its edges soft from her tears. She opened it, not to read, but to touch the last thing he'd held. Don't give up, he'd said, his voice steady even in the hospital's chaos. So she gathered her reports, her courage, and went.

The new hospital was no fortress. Its walls were whitewashed, peeling in corners, familiar in their imperfection. They admitted her, restarted the chemotherapy. This time, she didn't get lost. The tumor was still there, stubborn but stable, the doctors said.

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