On the morning of January 17, 2020, when she hiccupped with every breath she took through the ventilator, I would wait with anticipation for her next one.

With her big, doe eyes shut tight, she lay still in the ICU of the hospital. And then, the hollow sound of a vacant ventilator cried out the news that she was gone.

Sheema Kamal, nee Sheema Afsar Jafri, had been the eldest and perhaps the most pampered out of all our five siblings.

A smile that spread warmth, eyes that peered with kindness, and the voice of a nightingale; tall like a Cypress tree and self-effacing like a true dervish — this was my beloved Sheema Apa to us, her family.

But she made an equally lasting mark on the outside world — as a creative arm of the advertising sector, as a television playwright and briefly as a blogger for BBC Urdu. Few among us would be unfamiliar with the advertising jingles “Yehi to hai woh apnapan” and “Ufone tumhi to ho”, or slogans such as “Jahan khwaab wahan HBL”, and “Jo light hai wohi right hai” — all taglines coined by her.

Sheema Kamal, a creative force of the advertising sector, a television playwright and a blogger for BBC Urdu, passed away on January 17 after a protracted illness. Her sister remembers her beloved older sibling

Many TV drama junkies may also have seen Geo TV’s Bano Bazar or ARY’s Bahu Begum. All these were products of Sheema’s unhindered urge for creativity, even in the worst of times.

She started out as a concept writer at MNJ Communications in 1987, and went on to head creative departments of some of the top advertising agencies of the country such as Prestige, Orient, Manhattan, Asiatic and Adcom.

Former Senator and Chairman of MNJ Communications, Javed Jabbar, has described her in an obituary note as initially “a somewhat tentative, withdrawn young woman who bravely attempted to adjust quickly to the quirky organised chaos at MNJ in general and in its creative department in particular.”

Over the years, she evolved into a self-confident member of the team, “working in smooth tandem with the design department and the film unit,” he says. “It was clear that beneath that under-stated manner, Sheema was an individual of exceptional inner strength and endearing virtues.”

Jamal Mir, Managing Director of Prestige Advertising Agency, describes her as an “enlightened and intelligent mind, always ready to go the extra mile to raise the bar of creative excellence.”

Back home, as her second youngest sibling, I always found her lost in the world of music. She loved to listen to the songs of Lata, Kishore, Asha Bhosle and Phil Collins, but her real love was Nazia Hasan. And she was a fan of actors such as Amitabh Bachchan and Sean Connery.

She was also an avid reader, wrote a lot and loved to cook and feed others.

And she had her eccentricities. She could not tolerate heat. The fan at its fastest, the AC at its chillest and showers at their longest; these were all non-negotiable.

At MNJ, she fell madly in love with Kamal Ahmed, one of her colleagues. Javed Jabbar recalls how Kamal, “who so energetically assisted me in the office — without giving me even a hint of what was brewing with Sheema — eventually succumbed completely to her charm.”

She brought him home to introduce him to our parents, and bandied him around as if she had won a trophy. I can still recall the thrill it sent through our family.

They were married in 1991.

One of those blogs appears to be emblematic of what was probably going on inside her. It’s a gloomy, almost defeatist take on the life of a ‘woman on pills’, a woman who would see “the lovely scenes from the past light up like the instant glow of a firefly, only to vanish as quickly, leaving her in the dark pit of her forlorn present.”

After our father died in 1995, Sheema Apa, who lived right next to our place, became our saviour; a solution to all our big and small problems. Whether it was getting to a job interview on time or needing a ride home from my law college, everything was sorted with a simple phone call to her. We got so used to the proximity that Sheema Apa, Kamal Bhai and my two nieces, Areeba and Sara, came to be seen as part of our own extended household.

But Sheema Apa’s dervish-like devil-may-care approach to her personal well-being gradually started to take its toll on the lovely times we had been having. In 1993, during the birth of her first child, she developed rheumatoid arthritis. Her joints shifted in such a way that they never settled back. This initially made her busy work life a challenge, and later a struggle.

The pressure of her professional life, constant doses of cortisone steroids and serious stress started to take a toll on her. She did hold on for some years. She continued to create and churn out famous ad campaigns, send her daughters to school every day, make calls to manage her home and coordinate with my mother.

Her creativity, which began in the kitchen, started to seep into the decorative bottles of money plants scattered all over her home. She continued to collect dried custard apple shells, continued to stoke her childhood fascination with crows, and kept adding to her walls the art pieces made from melted candle wax.

Books remained her companions right till the end. Collections of poetry by Mirza Ghalib, Mir, Faiz, Sahir Ludhianvi, Parveen Shakir and Zeeshan Sahil gave her company and stayed by her side on her bedstand.

Bollywood too continued to be a big part of her life. Magazines such as Shama, Stardust and Cine Blitz were regularly purchased. For her interest in home decor, she bought Women and Home. And amid all this, she continued to be almost recklessly unmindful of her failing health, until the time came in 2008 when she reluctantly had to give up her full-time job.

Yet, while the limbs were caving in, the head was still strong. And there was a horde of friends — all accomplished in their respective fields — who were around to help her keep it that way. There was her long-time film and advertisement director, Asim Raza, and known professionals such as S.K. Pasha, Mansoor Mani and Kamal Mir. And then there was her old-time buddy, the late Musaddiq Sanwal, a poet, singer and journalist who had launched the BBC Urdu’s website.

So while she was semi-bedridden, she penned teleplays for Geo and ARY television channels, and wrote several blogs for the BBC Urdu website.

One of those blogs appears to be emblematic of what was probably going on inside her. It’s a gloomy, almost defeatist take on the life of a ‘woman on pills’, a woman who would see “the lovely scenes from the past light up like the instant glow of a firefly, only to vanish as quickly, leaving her in the dark pit of her forlorn present.”

During this time, the primary focus of her life, her two daughters, received scholarships to study abroad. With the future of her daughters in mind, Sheema Apa took this heartbreaking separation in her stride.

But the loneliness and longing that followed made her health take a turn for the worse. Not only did she become confined to her bedroom, she was almost never able to leave her bed. With the help of her family, her housekeeping staff and her husband, months turned into years.

And then, just like that, one day she shut her eyes, such that I never heard her call my name again.

Published in Dawn, ICON, February 23rd, 2020