Kathmandu:

Hi, what are you doing?’ I asked my sister.

She was sitting at a table chewing on the end of a pen and thinking deeply. “I’m writing a story.”

I wasn’t surprised. She was always writing. “Oh, really! What’s it about this time?’ I asked.

“It’s about a young man who loses his happiness, smiles and interest in life.”

I was taken aback not just by what she’d said — she used to write ‘the happily-ever-after’ kinds — but also by the way she said it — she sounded genuinely sad as though she were writing about someone she knew, someone who had forgotten to smile.

“Why does he lose interest in life?”

After a long silence, she answered, “Well, he kills someone. Actually, he runs over someone with his car; but it’s an accident. But he can’t forgive himself. Everyday of his life, he thinks about that day, every night he dreams of the little boy who lost his life. Though the law forgives him because it’s not his fault, he can never forgive himself.”

I didn’t know how to respond to that. My sister had just turned 13, was four years younger to me and was writing something I couldn’t understand.

I asked, “What about the little boy’s family?”

“That is why I’m writing this story. People always feel sorry for the victim and his/her family — rightly so, but what about all the torment the other person goes through? What about his family, who can’t bring back his smiles and laughter? You see, it’s not his fault the accident occurred but he can’t stop feeling responsible,” she replied.

I turned the pages of the magazine I was flipping through. She went back to her writing. I asked her how much she had written.

“I am just building the character... how happy he was before...,” she said.

After two days I asked about her story, and chewing her food thoughtfully, she replied, “I’ve decided against writing it.”

I waited for her to elaborate, but she just kept eating. I asked, “Why?”

“There’s way too much emotion involved. I can’t understand what the man would be feeling, and I can’t imagine what would be going through the minds of the boy’s family. I couldn’t bring myself to pretend I could look inside the heart of someone who goes thro-ugh so much sadness, who knows by taking someone’s life he has lost his soul.”

It’s been six years since my sister abandoned her story, but it is still fresh on my mind. Whenever I hear of an accident, I can’t help thinking of the two victims — one who is directly affected, and the other who lives in guilt and shame for the rest of his life.