aab e hayat ( English version)

chapter no 33

Just two weeks before resigning from the World Bank's vice presidency, while Salar was busy with farewell meetings and dinners in Congo, The Wall Street Journal broke the news that it had found the reason for Salar Sikandar's refusal to take the World Bank presidency—his brain tumor. Soon after, not just The Wall Street Journal, but many other newspapers also published this story. 

The Western world wasn't particularly interested in the breaking news of Salar Sikandar's brain tumor, nor was the media. If anyone was interested, it was the CIA, who knew that leaking such news before the start of a certain project would effectively cripple it. They knew what Salar intended to do after leaving the World Bank, and they were confident that what he was dreaming of achieving was impossible.

 Despite this, precautionary measures were necessary, and the best defense strategy was the one they had adopted. They were now waiting for potential investors to back off after revealing Salar Sikandar's illness. It was a game of chess. Salar was getting ready to make his first move, but they had already made theirs, and they were sure that the king would be checkmated in the first move itself—or so they believed.

He searched the word "glioma" on Google, then "oligodendroglioma"—words that Muhammad Jibreel Sikandar had added to his spelling list for the Spelling Bee competition when he was just nine and a half years old. He didn't realize that while memorizing the spelling of these words, he was also familiarizing himself with the deadliest brain tumor that his father had. 

For the Spelling Bee competition, Jibreel only memorized the spelling of these words. It was later, when he came across an article about his father's illness online, that he tried to understand what those words meant. It was the World Bank's website, which was often used by Salar and was set as the home page on their desktop. One of the latest scrolling news articles was The Wall Street Journal's story about Salar Sikandar's illness, which had broken just half an hour earlier. 

This nine-and-a-half-year-old boy began searching for information on this illness. Salar had not yet returned home. Imama was in another room, teaching the children, while Jibreel was sitting in front of the computer, reading about how his father had been diagnosed with a grade two oligodendroglioma, a tumor for which there was no cure. Even if a treatment was successful, the patient could live for only seven to ten years. 

Patients with this brain tumor, even if healthy, could not live longer than that. In that moment, the nine-and-a-half-year-old boy grew up. After Salar, he was the first person in the house to learn about his father's illness and its nature and effects. Jibreel didn't know what to do with this terrifying revelation. Whether or not to tell his mother wasn't his dilemma. His dilemma was something else.

"Hameen! Go, call your brother. He should recite the prayer before you all sleep. I don't know why he's taking so long." Imama, having finished teaching the children and getting them ready for bed, suddenly remembered Jibreel. He had been gone for a while. 

"I'll do it," Hameen announced, clasping his hands in front of his chest like someone about to pray, and opened his mouth to start reciting a prayer with great enthusiasm. Imama immediately interrupted him in a commanding tone, "Hameen! Your brother will recite the prayer." Hameen opened his closed eyes and unclasped his hands, just before he left the room.

 Imama noticed the large knot tied in the waistband of his night pajama, which he had just come out of the bathroom wearing. The top of the pajama was tightened with a large knot instead of a drawstring, and the ends of the knot were sticking up from his stomach like a rabbit's ears. "Come here," Imama called him, bending down to try to untie the knot so she could fix the pajama. Hameen let out a shriek and jerked back, placing his hands over the knot. "Don't touch it, Mummy!" "Where's the string?" Imama realized what had caused the knot.