Goodbye, poker cheater!

Abid Hussain Zaidi (1987–2021)

A friend, a comrade, a fighter, a cancer warrior. Abid and I have been friends, we were almost inseparable because we shared a room and we both were battling the same form of cancer called Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma. Abid was stronger than most people I knew, he was sturdy and stoic. He wouldn’t hesitate to hit me on my head ever so lightly if I spoke morbidly about our condition. He had no complaints about having had the disease and would only be silent after a cycle of chemotherapy and when in pain. I never saw him pensive, sad or without the faintest smile on his face. His battle was way longer than mine, he never went into remission and he was the most upbeat about it. He would say, “dekh lena Pramanik, when I am in remission, it will just be it, uske baad no relapse, so no more cancer, f*ck cancer”. And I would always get annoyed how could someone be so positive despite such pain. Now you know from where I get all the positivity from and the fact that grace is the only way to deal with this disease, after all there is no other option.

One of my fondest memories of Abid is, we would sit and play Uno/ Poker in the afternoons at times and he would always cheat, he always had these tricks up his sleeves (despite wearing hospital scrubs), although I was terrible in poker. He would always laugh overjoyed at the aspect of being the winner. Winner he was, he won, he won over me in this race and now he is gone. When I spoke with him on Saturday (20th February) and told him what was diagnosed and how there is an impending surgery that I would need to undergo, his words were, “dekh bhai, we have to do what we have to do, we are all here for a purpose and we need to fulfill that. You will do it and you will win, phir uske baad you will make me some nice mutton biryani and feed me, okay?” This was two days back and now he is gone.

He would tell me, we would live until we were 80 and that we would have to hire people to change our diapers, and I’d cringe at the thought of letting someone change my diapers and I would always tell him how that was a disgusting thought. He didn’t live to be 80, but he is now gone at 34.

Abid Hussain Zaidi, my dearest friend breathed his last on 22nd February 2021 at 3:45 am due to multiple organ failure. I am sorry Abid, I couldn’t feed you the biryani you wanted me to but your infectious laughter and that smiling face will always stay with me. You will be missed and there will always be a little space in my heart for you which will be irreplaceable, I promise.

“Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing there is a field. I’ll meet you there.”- RUMI