HUMANITY | BROTHERHOOD |UNCONDITIONAL LOVE
Anwar: Our Brother
More than a blood relation
Anwar was not a blood relation. He was way more than that.
By 7 pm, every evening, he comes to my home, in Kerala, to meet my father, who is 87 years old, fiercely independent, frail, and lives alone. Before he reaches the gate, we can hear his loud, booming laugh and his cheery “Accha” (father), which is what we, his children, call our father. He was six feet tall and large. He looked bear-like but smiled like a child. When he saw or heard something that moved, or hurt him, he was wont to disintegrate into tears. But when he felt that someone he loved was in trouble, he turned into this relentless, terrifying Hulk.
A thief had once casually walked into our house, through the door, which we never close during the day, and had stolen my father’s mobile. My father called up Anwar, and he called up 10 of his friends. For the next two hours, they roared up and down the countryside, grim-faced, with murder in their hearts, looking for the thief, until my kind-hearted father, fearing for the thief’s life, called off the search and assured Anwar and his friends that he didn’t like that particular mobile anyway.
When my father goes to Anwar’s house, Anwar calls up all the neighbours and tells them, “This is my father.”…
