She had always loved her long black hair.
“Bhawana, you need to grow your hair.” She used to suggest me caressing my boy haircut.
Managing my hair and tying them was the most irritating job for me. I used to tease her saying someday I would like to see her go bald.
When I said that, I had never realized how scary it would feel to see her later with no hair.
The doctors had lost all their hopes in her and had asked her parents if they could ask her what her last wishes were.
“I want to be with my best friend” Shova had gestured after her three months long stay at Bharatpur Cancer Hospital.
***
Cycling used to be our best hobby. We used to ride shouting and dancing through the riverbanks, terrains, roads and all.
When I got a call from her mother that Shova is back and desperately wants to meet me, I jumped with happiness. I thought our joyful days were back and we would be riding our bicycles soon unwary of the fact that I would find my dearest friend so weak that she wouldn’t even be able to talk properly.
When I reached her place, she was on her bed with her scary bald look drinking a avocado juice. She gave a big bright smile and gestured to me to sit next to her. She hugged me tight and said, “Bhawana, I love you and I missed you so much.”
I touched her head. I didn’t even realize when tears had already started to roll down my face.
For the first time in my life, I was afraid of losing someone. I was afraid of being lonely. I wanted her so desperately in my life that I could do anything to have her with me forever.
“If you ask with a pure heart, God gives you everything.” My mother always used to share this with me. I thought of asking God to let her be with me. I wasn’t sure if that God was in a temple, in church or in Mosque. That 15-year-old Bhawana couldn’t actually find out whom to ask. I had never walked outside of home beyond school. I asked permission with my mom to go to Dharan just because all three homes of God were there. My mom denied. She didn’t trust me that I could go there alone and return safely. Dharan was well known for goons then. She asked me to wait till Saturday.
But I couldn’t wait. The very next day, I fled from home and met every God to help me. I cried in front of each of them and asked to let me have my friend with me. My mom had a huge trust in them. I was convinced that they would definitely listen to me.
***
My dearest Shova took her last breath a week after.
I was angry with God. I felt he cheats on people asking them to trust him and then betrays them. I went to my home, threw away all the pictures of him. Then my mom said, “God had already decided her life when she was a child and he can’t change it now.”
I contemplated over her saying. If life is really so unpredictable and things can’t be changed why should we believe in some outer being in the name of God? I asked God to let me have her in my life. Was that really possible for him if he was there?
"Of course not."
She is my friend and it’s me who would be letting her be with me or not. Our love was pure and physical departure doesn’t really make me apart from her.
She is inside me, deep inside me. Whenever I am sad, she sits besides me and hugs me. I still feel her kiss on my forehead. Whenever I am alone, she teases me saying, “Bhawana, won’t you go back to your boy haircut?”
As she breathed her last air in, I breathed out my belief in God. I changed my religion.
Life is full of challenges and everyone tries to get through them by trusting some outer being that they call religion. For me, my religion is my inner being, which I can trust in any situation. I hope your religion is the basis of your self-motivation.
