amela
Part 1
“But perhaps you hate a thing and it is good for you; and perhaps you love a thing and it is bad for you. And Allah knows, while you know not.” (Quran 2:216)
Amela Begum was born in a village where the sound of trains was part of life itself. The steady clatter of wheels on the tracks was her lullaby, the station her playground, and the scent of coal and iron the perfume of her childhood. She grew up with the railway as a constant companion, its rhythm as familiar as her own heartbeat. With time those sounds became something else, not a lullaby but a reminder of how small she had felt in the shadow of her father’s wealth.
Her father, Majid Sharkar, known to everyone as the Zamindar, was the wealthiest man in the area. People spoke his name in hushed tones. Their home was the grandest in the region, sitting proud over wide stretches of land where the setting sun bathed the fields in gold. Yet for all his love for Amela, his affection came wrapped in strict rules.
He declared that no man could marry his daughter unless he arrived riding on the back of an elephant, a condition as grand as his own pride. The rule shaped Amela’s youth. She began to dream of the day a noble man would arrive, high above the crowd on the back of a magnificent beast. Over the years she clung to that vision, almost as though it could prove that her father’s love for her matched the scale of his fortune.
When the man finally came he seemed like a figure pulled from her childhood dream, handsome, tall, dark, and strong. But it was not just his looks that caught her. It was the calm power in his eyes and the gentle way he carried himself. She had dreamed of a prince, but this was a man, flesh and blood, with a gravity she had never imagined. In that moment she believed her life was set, a love story destined for happiness.
In the early days of marriage her world was full of tenderness. Her husband was patient, kind, and devoted. It felt as though Allah had brought them together. But life has its own ways of testing the heart.
After a few years a quiet longing began to creep into their home, the desire for a child. During festivals and family gatherings the laughter of other people’s children felt like a gentle but constant ache. She began to notice how her husband’s smile would falter whenever children were mentioned. He never complained, never blamed her, but the sadness sat in the spaces between their words.
They prayed, went to doctors, sought out healers, followed the advice of elders. Month after month hope dissolved into disappointment. The love between them remained, but the absence of a child became a silent shadow in their home. The rooms that once echoed with laughter now felt too quiet, as if even the air carried the weight of what was missing.
At night, lying beside him, she sometimes felt the truth pressing in, that something essential was absent, something that could only be held in the silence between two people who loved each other deeply but could not change their fate.
Part 2
“And We will surely test you with something of fear and hunger and a loss of wealth and lives and fruits, but give good tidings to the patient.” (Quran 2:155)
Ten years into their marriage the silence between Amela and her husband had grown into something deep and unseen, like a river running quietly beneath the surface. His sorrow had become part of him, and she could feel its weight even when no words were spoken.
One night she found the courage to say what had been in her heart for years.
“You deserve a family,” she whispered. “You deserve children. You should marry again.”
Her husband’s face broke in a way she had never seen before. Tears filled his eyes. When he finally spoke his voice shook. “Amela, I want nothing but you. You are enough.”
His words healed and hurt at the same time. She knew he meant them, but she also knew she could not escape the guilt that had been growing inside her. In his eyes she was everything. In her own she was the one holding him back from the life he should have had.
That night, after hours of lying awake, she made a decision. Before dawn she quietly dressed and left behind only a short note. It was impossible to put her reasons into words.
She boarded the first train out of town. In the city she became someone else, just a woman among strangers. She worked small jobs, the kind that kept her invisible. With no one calling her name and no one waiting at home she found a strange sort of freedom.
She assumed her family thought she was dead. As for her husband, she did not know. Maybe he searched for her. Maybe he accepted her absence. Either way she knew he would never stop loving her.
The years passed, each one folding into the next. She did not find happiness exactly, but she found something close to peace. A life without promises and without expectations. A life where she could simply exist.
Part 3
“So verily, with the hardship, there is relief.” (Quran 94:6)
Decades later, at seventy, Amela stood in a train station once more. The sound of the tracks no longer sang of childhood. It rumbled through her bones. She was no longer the girl who waited for a suitor on an elephant. Time had changed her. Her hands were less steady, and her eyes were softer in both sight and in the way she saw the world.
On the bench across from her sat a newly married young woman, her face glowing with hope. The sight stirred something in Amela, a mix of nostalgia and ache. After a long silence she spoke.
“Life is beautiful, but unpredictable. Follow your heart, even if it takes you somewhere unexpected. Also know this. Sometimes you will wonder what you have lost along the way. Not everything can be kept, and not everything should be.”
As the train arrived she glanced at the platform and for a moment saw herself as a young girl again, full of certainty and believing the future could be molded like clay. She smiled, a smile touched by gratitude and sadness.
She walked toward the exit and blended into the crowd. Her life, with all its love and loss, was behind her now, though never truly gone. The weight she carried had softened with time. Whether that was peace or simply acceptance she did not know. For now it was enough.
October 2024
Disclaimer: This story was inspired by a post from GMB Akash on Instagram. While it draws from real life themes, all characters and events are fictional. Any resemblance to actual people or events is purely coincidental.
