What Do You Think?

She used to think I could conquer the world if I could conquer the hearts.

It is as simple as that. 

But is it really simple?

She knew that Aunt Meher was not good. But the thing she couldn’t guess was how bad she was. She was rude but that was not the most hurting point. She was mostly mad. This was her attitude that was unendurable for Rubab. Plus, she used to backbite a lot.

'Why is she so interrupting? Why doesn’t she live her own life and let others live their own.' Rubab had her own principles and she followed them like they were laws. She never imposed her laws on others but knew that everyone respected her principles a lot and respected her personality because of her laws.

So her rule was to promote independence in lives of people who relate to her.

But Aunt Meher was always boring. You could easily spot her as the most talkative person of any event. She was like an information-smuggler, really a smuggler, one who conceals and illegally conveys information from ear to ear.

Once, Rubab swore that she would confront her once. And she did.

‘Do you think that you are superior to everybody else?’ Rubab demanded. ‘Do you mean, from all these backbiting, that you never sinned?’

Aunt Meher blushed.

They were sitting in the main hall of their Grand Pa’s home. Summer vacations were on and all relatives were gathered to enjoy the weather of this hill resort as well to enjoy meeting one another.

Confused from her high pitch voice Aunt made a lame excuse, ‘No! But for these people I am just telling the facts and not backbiting.’

‘This is backbiting!’, Rubab almost yelled. ‘And you are doing this because you think that you are flawless and no one has a point to tell against you when you are away. But... Do you want to know how bad people think of you? I shall tell you.’

And despite others asking her to be quiet she recounted every event she was wrong at and every moment she had fooled herself.

Aunt Meher was surprised at how bad Rubab felt o her. But she was more surprised at listening to Rubab who was against condemning someone’s personal faults in public and who was against judging others according to ones standards. Bad-tempered Rubab she was looking at, at that time, was different from the polite quiet girl she used to know.

And when she finished, Aunt just asked a single question, ‘So, Do you think you are flawless?’ 




Rubab thought she was not. What do you think? Are you?