SUFFERING ALONE(SAHAR KASHIF) Staying alone is an endless feeling. Being with your own self when no one disturb you, no one will bother you, no one will judge you, and no one will accept you, no one will reject you. This is a story of a girl naming Zaina who belongs to an elite class family. She lives in a mansion in Islamabad, capital of Pakistan, with her family. A young girl of age 22 recently graduated securing good grades. Her parents provide her with every luxuries as she is the only daughter of her parents having no more siblings in her life. She stayed in a busy parenting upbringing as her father is a great businessman of the state and her mother is a social worker. Both of them stay busy in their lives. She becomes a person of reserve nature. She doesn’t like to make friends, she loves to stay alone in her room where no one can disturb her. One day her mother goes to her and insists her to attend a family party. Firstly she denies to go with her as she doesn’t like to meet people but as her mother insists her a lot she agrees.

She goes with her in her casual dressing and instead of meeting people in party she sits in a corner table alone and starts to gaze people, what they are doing, as she comes to a gathering for the first time. Her mother leaves her at the table and goes to meet people. Meanwhile she encounters a boy standing far from her. She sees him quietly for few minutes and the boy turned around and he notices Zaina looking and staring him. He notices her once and leave her. For the second moment he looks at her and she is looking him the same way. That all seems too strange to him. He goes to her and ask her for permission to sit with her. She says yes in her shrilling voice. He sits with her and ask her why she was looking at him in such a strange way. She stays quiet. He waits for the answer but he observes her as a reserve person. He introduces himself as Shayan. He asks her for the reason of sitting alone. He tells her that it’s his birthday party. She still stays quiet, not even wishes him happy birthday.

Same time her mother calls her and she leaves the table. And comes back to her home. She comes in her room and sits on the arm chair, turns the lights off while a sweet dim light of moon enters the room. Cool breeze is coming from the windows giving her a cooling effect. She is sitting and thinking about the young man. She has been lost into the melodious accent of that boy. She reminds his attractive, deep eyes and how madly he was laughing. She spends all her night in thinking about him.
The next morning she wakes up and does all her works as per her routines as she notices a friend request of her social media account from an incognizant id. She gives a look at the profile picture of that anonymous id. She finds him the same person she met last night. She frequently accepts his request and a friendly chat starts from the question, why you love to stay alone. This simple friendly chat goes on for many days. They spend their nights together. She starts to share her feelings with him. What she feels? She spent her whole night crying thinking she wasn’t special. He spent his whole day thinking how will he make her feel special. Shayan proves a loving and caring person to her. He starts to text her on daily basis, also starts to ask her about her daily dealings and her every need and every point. This is happening with Zaina for the first time as someone is asking her about herself. Someone is in love to hear her stupid gossips and someone is here to ask her to get ready for him. This proves very loving for her. As she fall in love with him. They both start to meet up and inviting each other at their homes, going out spending time with each and getting closer to each other. One day Shayan proposes her by saying you are the reason of my smile and my life. I cannot even imagine my life without you. This proves to be a priceless moment for her. As a reserve girl has been change into a friendliness girl. She accepts his proposal, confesses her love and gives him a warm hug to ensure her love.

The same night she decides to tell her parents about Shayan. She goes to her parents room but there she finds a note on her parents room’s door, written on they are going to attend a party and will see her in morning. After reading that note she comes back to her room and sleeps. The very next morning she goes to her parents and tells them she is in love with a boy naming Shayan and she wants to get married as she thinks it to be a right time for her to get married. Her parents become surprise and happy as well. They ask her to invite him for lunch tomorrow as they want to meet him. She says okay and comes back to her room. She ask Shayan to visit her by tomorrow as she has told her parents about him. They are very happy to meet you. They sleep for that night.
The day starts with the lovely dawn of sun. She gets up early in the morning and starts her preparations for lunch. She takes shower and gives instructions to servants for lunch. Meanwhile her parents come and its 3pm at the clock. They are waiting for Shayan’s arrival. They wait for one hour and ask Zaina about Shayan. She says I just text him and he is in his way. He will be there at any moment. Another hour has been passed but no one arrives. Her parents ask her for his number so her father can call him. She gives them a number. Her father dials the number but instead of hearing someone’s voice he hears a voice from call operator that number is invalid. He suddenly inquires Zaina about the invalid number.
She says, how that is possible, I have been talking to this number from last six months. It’s a valid number. She says look at my call log, calls have been dialed to this number. Her father looks at the call log and there was no calls in her call log. Her parents are shock at her behavior. She goes for finding chats. But there is nothing, not even a single message. She scrolls all and her phone and finds nothing in her phone. She starts to cry insanely. Her mother takes phone and finds for the boy and messages and calls but she finds nothing. Zaina also tells her about the boy she meets at the party who was sitting with her at the party the time she called her for leaving the party. She tells her you were sitting alone. No one was there. They find all that her illusion and fantasy and take her to psychiatrist where they came to know that she is suffering from a disease named as schizophrenia. In this disease people start to hallucinate things and people. Doctor tells them people who stay alone mostly start illusion and hallucinate things. The same thing happens with Zaina as she finds no one around her and she started to assume people around her. Her parents feel ashamed as they did not give her time. They stayed busy in their lives leaving their daughter at her own and resulted in her mental retardation and mental illness.

Money is not everything but people pretend to have everything as they have money. People are lost in their busy lives so much. Parents are thinking that they have provided their kids with luxuries and facilities, and just this was their duty of parenting and usually they forget to give time, love affection and priorities to their kids.
We always gain by giving love not by giving money.

Author name: Sahar Kashif.

---