The Light that Never Goes Out

In school, I was once asked to write about my biggest role model. Guess who I wrote about. For those of you who knew my aita, Fawzia Effie Rahman, you would know that there is no phrase that I can possibly use to encapsulate the kind of woman she was. She was the life of the party. The brightest face in the room. The prettiest flower of the garden. People loved her, and rightfully so. Her charm and kindness knew no bounds.

But enough with the obvious. Let me tell you what she really meant to me. Being her one and only granddaughter, I shared a very special bond with her. I am so proud to be her granddaughter because she was the coolest woman I’ve ever known. I used to recollect stories of her lifetime to my school friends, and I distinctly remember beaming with pride when they said, “Gazala has the coolest aita we know of.” She was always so proud of me, and whenever I achieved the smallest of things, she would announce it to the whole world. She was the head girl of her batch in Pine Mount Shillong, and so when I was deemed the head girl of my school in 2022, her joy knew no bounds. When I became the commander of my school parade, to my embarrassment, she shared my video with everyone she could lay her hands on. When I got into St. Stephen’s College, she was the first one to go tell everyone, distant and close. She made me feel acknowledged in ways no one else ever could.

Aita, I’ll always love you and thank you for being the woman you were.

With all my love

Bibi

(Gazala Fida Sabbir)