So, it was an ordinary bright Friday. The June heat was in good flow and the wind was slow. I bathed, performed my ablution and dabbed some musk on my crisp white kurta. Then I walked down to the nearby mosque.

 The sermon was going on when I reached there. I tried to give it my full attention, but it diverted anyway to the plans I had for the day. Muttering “La Hol…”, I tried again. But the sermon was now over. We arranged ourselves for the Salaah.

  We were around twenty five men, fewer young, mostly old. I folded my hands when a bearded heavyset man came and stood beside me. My elbow touched his, and the roughness of his jacket was felt by the surface of my smooth sleeve. It felt thick, as id there was something underneath it. I averted my gaze to the ground in front and concentrated on the recitation. As we bowed, I heard a rustle from beside me. It felt strange. Something was definitely up…but what…That I couldn’t fathom.

   By the end of the second Rakat, I had come to the conclusion that the man beside me is a suicide bomber. He had all those telltale signs; he had a beard, was sturdy like an Afghani. In the humid hot room, this realization gave me a cold sweat. I felt cold. A chill, like a wave, swept thought me and I felt as if a bucket of icy water was emptied upon me.

I couldn’t see him in the eye. The bomb could go off any second.  I had death waiting for me, so close by, so soon.

I was in a daze. I wondered when he would blow himself off. Now?  In the prostration? Not in less than ten minutes, this quiet room, with all its sounds, the humming fan above, the shuffling of the feet, the melodious Recitation, the breaths and the coughs, the sounds of sheer reverence, would turn into chaos. A bang, and then the room would fill with shrieks, cries and shouts of urgency. We would be blinded by the color of blood, of doom and destruction.

 My lips quivered as they moved. My hands shook, and I intentioned to make the most out of my last few moments. My each move begged for forgiveness. Every single word I heard from the Imam revealed its meaning to me. Realization of the love for God overtook the fear of death. I was ready. Ready for the end. Ready to turn to pieces. Ready to be cried upon, to be missed, to turn to dust.

 But then nothing happened. All prayers were said, duas were made, recitations done. The Masjid was now empty. Even that assumed bomber had left. But that incident changed my life, my views and my outlook about life, death and the afterlife. That heavy jacket taught me things I could have never learned otherwise. It replaced my terror of demise with the sense of gratefulness towards Allah. It taught me to make Him my friend for eternity.