Buried questions

 They say time reveals the truth. I say memory preserves it. Some stories live in silence for so long, they begin to ache inside the bones of those who carry them. They don’t scream for attention. They whisper. They tug gently, again and again, until one day, you finally sit down and listen. This book is the result of such whispers.

It was sometime after Mother’s Day this year that the whisper became a pull. A sense of urgency washed over me, a need to speak, to document, to tell a story that had long been passed down in fragments, through looks exchanged between my parents, pauses in their words, and the heaviness in their silences. It was no longer enough to know the story in my heart. I had to write it.

My parents will celebrate twenty-five years of marriage this July. I wanted to gift them something personal. Something lasting. Something beyond material. And then I remembered what my mother once told me during the COVID lockdown years ago, when the world had slowed down enough for us to breathe and reflect. She said I should write a book. She didn’t tell me what kind. She didn’t press. It was a passing thought, wrapped in encouragement, the way mothers often hide gold in plain cloth.

At the time, I smiled and nodded, returning to my textbooks and online classes. Dentistry consumed my life back then. And still does, to a large extent. But I’m in internship now, standing at the threshold between student life and professional beginnings. My hours are long, my days packed. But in the rare moments of quiet, I find myself thinking about my grandfather. Not because something reminded me of him, but because everything does.

His name was Mohammad, but here, I’ll call him Salem. A name that means peace. Because in many ways, he was peace. Not the kind that is silent or compliant. But the kind that is firm, steady, unshaken. A man who did not need a loud voice to command attention. He moved quietly, but his presence echoed.

I was nine when he passed away. A man battling the long-term consequences of diabetes and chronic lung disease, worsened by a lifetime of smoking. His end was slow, and it lingered in our home like a shadow. Even as a child, I knew something had changed forever. But it was only in later years that I began to understand just how much he meant. Not just to us, but to the story of our family.

This isn’t just a tribute. It’s a reckoning. A record. A reminder.

Salem never went to school properly. He had the chance, the admission letter, the books. But he didn’t like sitting in classrooms. He told me once, with a smile tinged in regret, how he used to run away when his brothers headed to school. Instead, he flew kites in open skies, played cricket in dusty fields, made friends out of strangers. He was not bookish, but he was observant. He saw the world as it was, and more importantly, as it could be.

“Once you become educated,” he told me, patting my head gently, “teach me too.”

I don’t remember the exact tone, but I remember the feeling it left in my chest. It wasn’t a joke. It was a wish. And yet, the irony was this: the man who never learned to read was the wisest person in the room. Even as a child, I could sense that. As I grew, that truth became harder to ignore.

In our culture, education is both a pride and a weapon. A measuring stick of worth. And yet, here was a man who proved that true wisdom could bloom without books. His mind wasn’t filled with memorized theories or university degrees. It was filled with lived experience, deep thought, and above all, empathy.

Salem was not a conventional man. He didn’t fit into the neat boxes society prepared for him. He didn’t yell at his wife. He didn’t control his daughters. He didn’t fear being gentle. In a world that considered male authority sacred and female silence golden, he offered something radical: respect.

His story has lived within our family in pieces. My father told me about the times when Salem refused to participate in certain outdated customs. My mother recounted how he treated her with care and understanding, even when others in the extended family treated daughters-in-law as less. He had his flaws—of course, he did. He was human. But his core? It was made of rare substance.

I remember him sitting on the veranda, the scent of tobacco clinging to his clothes, his eyes distant as if always watching something beyond our sight. Sometimes he’d laugh at his own memories, other times he’d tell stories that made no sense to me then but feel full of meaning now. He spoke of the past like it was a living thing. And I think, for him, it always was.

There were stories I heard in hushed voices. Of how he once stood up to an elder relative who wanted to marry off a young girl against her will. Of how he welcomed an orphan boy into his house when others wouldn’t. Of how he saved up for months just to buy his youngest daughter a pair of school shoes she liked. They weren’t tales of grandeur. But they were evidence. That he saw people. That he valued choice. That he believed, in his own quiet way, in justice.

Writing this story is my way of continuing his legacy. But not just his. It’s also about the woman who stood beside him—my grandmother, Zohra. She had her own journey, one shaped by the same patriarchal currents Salem quietly defied. She was a woman of patience and grace, who carried burdens without bitterness and offered warmth without needing applause. It is their story. A story of companionship. Of silent rebellion. Of a love that never needed grand gestures because it was rooted in something deeper: mutual regard.

Zohra would wake up before dawn, her day unfolding in rhythms and rituals passed down from her mother and grandmother. Her hands, worn from years of labor, held a kind of tenderness that made you feel safe just being near her. She rarely raised her voice. But her eyes could silence a room. She believed in hard work, in faith, in simplicity. But most of all, she believed in family.

I want this book to reach my siblings, my cousins, and someday, my children. I want them to know that greatness doesn’t always come wrapped in titles. That the truly educated aren’t always the ones with degrees. That sometimes, the best lessons are taught without chalkboards or exams. And that love, when rooted in respect, becomes legacy.

As a dental intern, my life is made of routines and responsibilities. But I’ve realized that purpose doesn’t wait for a break. It grows in the margins. So I write in stolen moments. Between patients. After long shifts. On weekends that could be spent resting. Because this story matters.

We are often told to look forward. To build careers. To chase goals. But sometimes, to truly understand who we are, we have to look back. We have to listen to the whispers.

This chapter begins with a verse from the Qur’an. One that haunts and heals at the same time. “When the girl who was buried alive is asked, for what sin she was killed.” It reminds us that justice delayed is not justice denied. It calls us to remember the unseen and the unheard. It compels us to speak.

This is not a history textbook. Nor is it fiction. It is memory, imagination, and hope intertwined. A story about a man who defied the limitations set upon him. A man who lived with less, but gave more. A man who may never be remembered by the world, but will live on in every word I write.

This is Salem’s story. And in telling it, I am telling mine too.

And maybe, just maybe, by remembering him, I am learning what it means to truly live.