On a normal day in 2011, during the first week of October, the air itself felt quite restless for an eighteen-year-old boy who had just turned eighteen a week ago.
As Hak sat beside his father's bed on the floor, he announced that he had a professional boxing match on the fifteenth of this month, which is a week away.
A simple announcement as it seems.
Something snapped inside his father, who had been suffering from multiple organ failures for many years and was now nothing more than a moving skeleton.
He couldn't even move on his own. Hearing his son say that he would participate in a professional match without moving a muscle made him angry and agitated. He stood up on his own, limped with support from the bedside, and walked up to where his son was sitting. Then, he took his fighting stance.
Which no one knew he had...
He moved his left leg, which was functioning normally, to the front, and pulled his right leg back. His right leg had not been functioning properly since his childhood. He lost the use of that leg in his childhood due to suffering from the polio virus.
He moved his left hand farther away from his chest, while his right hand supported his body to remain still.
Somehow...
As he staggered and suffered to stand still,
he glared at his son and menacingly challenged him to fight with him saying:
"If you can win against me,
Even in this condition of mine then I will allow you to go .
Come!
I will show you how a punch in the face feels like"
Hak just looked away and lowered his gaze as he sat there, not replying out of respect or maybe because he was scared.
He didn't know why his father was acting like that.
Nor did he know how much his father struggled to become a boxer, a boxer who was known by no one.
No one knew...
A boxer who only knew that he was a boxer .
At that time Hak didn't understand anything and just felt angry with his father .
But on the other hand, his father did not back down because he had witnessed Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali in his time.
He was scared.
Scared that his son will be paralyzed or suffer such injuries, He was scared that he stood in front of his son and challenged him .
Hak stood up and left with an angry expression as he found his father's actions quite irritating and irrelevant.
As time went by, the eagerly anticipated parcel finally arrived, containing his prized boxing gloves and all the necessary gear.
Excitedly, he carefully unwrapped the package and rushed to proudly display his new gloves to his father.
It was at that moment that he remembered his father's own boxing history, spanning from his teenage years into his twenties.
By this point, everyone in the household had known the fact that Aamil was a boxer.
But how?
How Did everyone find out?
It's a very funny story.
Hak expected a happy, excited response from his father as well but instead, was met with a scowl and mockery.
"His father told him that he did not need any of these things and that they were of no use to him. Hak once again left his father's room with an angry and disappointed expression. From that day on, he started avoiding his father as much as he could."
In all these small moments where he encountered his father, his father mocked him about how he will be knocked out in the first round and told him to show him his stance, then in between he sometimes showed him how to throw a punch, a jab, a hook, and the last thing that he thought him was:
" In boxing, you die but you do not fall.
No matter what, do not fall down "
As he said those words Hak listened while he was walking and didn't pay much attention.
He sure was going to regret ignoring and avoiding his father, when he knew his father was very sick.
Sure, his father mocked him, But so what?
Didn't he raise you, sacrificing his own life?
Only if Hak knew his father was on his deathbed.
Only if he had remembered the sentence
"Man is Mortal".
But, how saddening that, he didn't.
His father still carried a "disappointed expression" everyday and the day of his departure came.
He had to leave for another city in the middle of the night since his journey was long.
That night, till he left, and even the day before it, his father's expression changed to a begging one, as his father begged him to not go but Hak silently avoided and ignored his pleas.
His Uber had arrived.
He left to catch the bus and the moment he sat down in the car to the moment till that car was out of sight from his home.
His father watched him from the balcony with an expression that pleaded for him to come back.
But Hak was the only one who did not even try to glance back at his father.
How was he suppose to go back now?
That weak father who had pushed himself to stand on the balcony.
Hak didn't understand his father, the father who was losing his life slowly, the father who wanted to be his sons' coach.
The father who wanted to join his son for this journey.
The father who was worried.
How beautiful the youth is...
(HAK'S POINT OF VIEW)
On the coldest day of the year, December 30th, I lost the most precious person in my life, my father, who raised me with all his care.
It was a tragedy that made me realize that I had become a ruthless person.
BUT, this realization had no meaning now.
My everything was gone.
My life was gone.
That single person left with everything.
I let all of it go.
I still haven't gotten his permission about anything.
I wanted to tell him, I-I wanted to tell him,
I want to be a pro-boxer.
I wanted to be your student.
I wanted you to be my coach.
I Knew, How much you struggled to learn boxing in your youth.
I knew you had lost your leg in your childhood and yet you were a good boxer.
You can't go!
you still haven't experienced the pleasures and happiness of life!
Why?
Why was your life only filled with struggles.
Why did I neglect you?
I love you, Father.
I love you, What will I do now that I have lost you ...
I love you...
"And the lovers of the soul do not always stay on time."