May 24, 2003

I first saw him at a school concert and at first glance I knew that he resembled somebody, but the face he resembled could not click in my mind. All I wanted was to get to know him. Although he was a complete stranger to me, those hazel brown eyes and facial cut were familiar. It seemed as if I knew him very well but just could not recall who he was.

A week had passed since I saw him but I still could not get his face out of my mind. I tried to get him out of my mind thinking maybe I had seen him somewhere at a shop or maybe at a funfair or something. Still something inside me kept insisting that he was somebody I had always looked for, somebody I knew very well. I called him my “Known Stranger” because that was what he was. I did not know him, yet inside me I did. I just could not put my finger onto it. My curiosity kept on growing as the days passed. Finally, however I saw him again at my best friend’s sixteenth birthday party. When I saw him my heart leaped with joy for no reason and left a hollow feeling inside my stomach. I quickly went to my friend and asked, “Who is that boy over there? The one wearing a black shirt and khakis?”

“Hey, don’t tell me you don’t know him!” Esha replied in surprise. “Wait, let me introduce you to him.”

We went over to where he was standing all by himself. “This is my brother’s best friend, Hassan, who lives in a boarding school but he is here for the holidays and staying with us,” Esha said pointing her hands at him. “And this is my friend Ayesha,” she introduced us. As he looked up at me I saw those mysterious hazel eyes. I went still for a fraction of a second as he looked at me. Oh I knew him, but how?

After the introduction Esha and I went upstairs to her room. I told her how Hassan’s face seemed to haunt me all the time. She assured me that maybe I had seen him somewhere in pictures or her brother’s year book or something.

“Maybe....” I replied lightly and sighed. My heart still kept on nagging that I knew him and that he was someone close. After half an hour we went downstairs again for the birthday celebration. The party was a very small one, only my foster parents and some close friends were present.

As I was standing there I felt something slip down my neck. I caught the chain just in time but the heart-shaped pendant had opened. Before closing it again I looked at the familiar, yet unknown faces. The pictures it held were of my mother and father. They had died in a car accident leaving behind my brother and me. We were sent to an orphanage but had been separated when I was seven years old, since my brother was adopted and had to leave the orphanage. Now I had no pictures of Sahil, nor did I remember his face very clearly. I still remember how I had cried that night for my parents and my brother. My eyes started to well up as I looked at my father’s face closely .

Just then Hassan called out to me to come forward. I blinked my tears away and looked for the last time at my father’s hazel eyes and closed the pendant. I looked up at Hassan and the same hazel-brown eyes looked back at me. I froze right there and seemed as if my heart had lost a beat. Hassan’s face resembled my father’s! No wonder I had seen those hazel eyes and that typical square-jawed face cut somewhere. Hassan looked exactly like my father. My lower lip quivered a bit and the name “Sahil” slipped out of my mouth. He turned back in surprise and gaped. He closed his eyes and opened them again, not believing what I had just said.

Tears streamed down my eyes as Hassan hugged me tight. At last I had found my brother after nine years! It seemed like a story out of a fairy tale but it was true enough for there he was in front of me. After two weeks of staying at the orphanage my brother had been taken away and three years later I was sent to a foster home too. I never got any news of my brother and the only memento I had of my family were some confusing memories and this gold pendant. Everybody was surprised at this strange behaviour of ours and looked at us with confusion. Sahil (Hassan) got up and explained everything to them. Esha just looked at us with surprise and could not believe that something such as this had happened. I had seen Hassan after so many years that I just kept on clinging onto him.

Hassan still stays with his foster parents but I visit him almost everyday whenever he comes back from boarding school. This is how I realized the real value of family relations and how it feels to find something, which you had lost and had lost hope of finding again. It was surely a miracle, or was it a coincidence... I just don’t know what to call it. But whatever it was that got us together was the best thing that had ever happened or could ever happen to us.

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