Smell of neglect declared her dead
Ayesha Khan’s story didn’t begin with her death. It began with the quiet disappearance of human connection. Long before her door was forced open by the police, something far more tragic had already unfolded. It was the gradual fading of care and companionship from her life. The post-mortem may determine when her heart stopped, but the true loss occurred much earlier, in stillness and solitude.
The iconic actress from the neighbouring country, who once basked in limelight, was found lifeless in her apartment, days after her passing. Her body betrayed by no one but time and silence. She was 77. Her neighbours complained of a foul odour. The police came, the door was forced open. And thus ended a life that once lit up screens, now quietly dissolved into a statistic of lonely deaths.
She had three children. One daughter, two sons, all abroad. Not one called. Not one noticed. Not one came.
This is not a news story. This is a warning bell, one that should reverberate not just in Pakistan, but in every city, town and suburb where senior citizens live alone behind locked doors and emotional walls.
This could be about your mother, waiting for a WhatsApp call from Dubai. This could be your father, scrolling Facebook to see if you are active. This could be you, 30 years from now, staring at a wall calendar, wondering if anyone will remember your birthday or your body, when you are gone.
We have seen this play out repeatedly everywhere, especially in South Asia. Elders with chronic conditions living alone. Multiple children settled abroad. Once-a-week calls. Sometimes missed. Always hurried. This is the dark side of globalization no one wants to talk about. We exported talent. We imported loneliness.
Ayesha Khan had a roof. She had walls. She had doors and furniture. But she didn’t have voices. She didn’t have footsteps. She didn’t have someone saying, “Ammi, are you okay?”
What she had was the unbearable sound of nothingness, a quietness so complete that even death had to announce itself through a foul odour. Her neighbours acted when her children didn’t. Think about that.
In South Asian cultures, we often lament children who lose their parents early. But what of parents who lose their children emotionally while they are still alive? They become the new orphans--- wandering their own homes, not because they lack resources, but because they lack relationships.
Ayesha Khan’s death is not just a personal tragedy. It is a symbol of what happens when connection dies before the body does. In a world obsessed with anti-aging creams and Botox, let us remember that the greatest anti-aging treatment is human companionship.
Not vitamins. Not gadgets. Just presence.
We mourn at celebrity funerals but ignore the seniors around us who are slowly fading into irrelevance. Let Ayesha Khan’s story not be another viral headline. Let it be an honest headline, one that haunts us enough to act.
Even as many children care for their parents deeply from afar, to the ‘global’ sons and daughters who visit only for weddings or vacations: Don’t wait for the funeral. Come while your old parents are alive. Let them hear your laughter, not your condolences. Let them feel your warmth, not your wreath.
To the readers here: If your parents are still alive, don’t scroll past this. Today is the day. Not because they are perfect. Not because they raised you without flaws. But because they raised you anyway. Not because they asked for anything. But because they have stopped asking.
Call them. Visit them. Sit in their silence. Hear the stories they no longer tell aloud. Because the greatest tragedy isn’t death. It is fading out of existence unnoticed. It is being alive in a room full of memories, but with no one left who remembers. It is dying like a forgotten actress in a locked apartment, where the only thing that spoke for her absence was the smell of death. Don’t wait for rituals. Reclaim the relationship while there is breath. Give them the comfort of being seen, before the world gathers to see them one last time.
