Years Of Solitude

Octogenarian Fatima lives in her 37-year-old divorced daughter Shaheena’s house at Zoonimar. Before moving in into her daughter’s house, the mother of two sons and three daughters lived alone.

“My daughter may provide me the last drop of water on my deathbed, this may be why she came back,” says Fatima. Shaheena is divorced, with two children aged 10 and 15.

The family of four lives in a “two-room” house where only a six by seven foot room is functional and a small corridor serves as a kitchen. The other room is just four walls. The house is bereft of a latrine. A bathroom came after five years of struggle.

Fatima once lived happily with her husband, Khalil Muhammad Bhat, and their children. Khalil used to process Pashmina thread. “Those days such shawls were either exported or bought by rich people as these were very expensive,” says Fatima. Khalil’s earnings were sufficient for the family until he died of a heart attack, leaving Fatima to fend for their family.

Both of Fatima’s sons had dropped out of school when they were still in 5th and 4th grade, and her daughters did not go to school at all. All her daughters started doing embroidery on rugs and clothes from a tender age. For the next ten years, things returned to a relative normal life. Fatima married off her children at very young ages. Her daughters contributed for their own marriages. more

The Lone Survivor: Nanak Singh

I was 46 years old in 2000. I was a government employee in Animal HusbandryDepartment. I remember that night, while coming out from the Gurdwara we saw some uniformed men with faces covered running in our streets.

They asked us to remain there as they were conducting a search operation in the area. Some of them had already entered into the houses and had called some of the male members out. They told us they just want to talk to us. I was living near the Gurdwara and they had asked some of my family members also to come out. In total we were 19 people standing in a line. I remember they asked us ‘do you play Holi’ as next day it was the Holi festival. We told them it is not our festival so we don’t celebrate it. Then they asked ‘do you want to drink wine’, they were carrying alcohol bottles with them.

I remember they were calling a man as ‘CO Sahab’, who instructed them to check our identity cards and then let us go. They asked us to show our identity cards and with that that CO opened a fire in air and with him started the other uniformed men. They fired a barrage of bullets on each one of us but before that they asked us to face the wall of the Gurdwara so to fire at us from the back. We all fell on the ground but luckily every bullet targeting me just pierced through my pheran (I have preserved that pheran). I was lying among the bodies. They shot around 15 bullets on each body.

After the shootout the CO asked his men to see if anyone among us was still breathing then shoot another bullet. Then they checked with torch lights and shot single bullets again. Ironically, this time a bullet hit which fracturing my right hip. I still managed to remain silent. Then, I put my hand on the wound which was bleeding profusely. They were about to leave by then and they were laughing loudly. They were calling each other with the names Pawan, Bansi, Bahadur and then finally they left while shouting ‘Jai Hind’. In that incident I lost my son, brother, four cousins and uncle. more

LIFE OF A MASSACRE

On the surface Chattisinghpora is like any other of the thousands of Kashmiri villages, nestled in the Himalayan surroundings. But a few minutes into conversations with the villagers here, one is engulfed with living tragedy and grief. This village is distinguished by a Samadhi, a memorial to the 35 villagers, members of the Sikh community who were brutally gunned down by ‘unknown’ armed men 12 years ago late night on March 20. The Samadhi reminds the villagers, every day of their life, of that horrible night when they witnessed a ‘river of blood’ flowing down the village dirt tracks. The massacre grabbed global headlines as it was carried out while Bill Clinton;the then US president was on an official visit to India. Chattisinghpora has lived under constant trauma ever since. Those left behind, the families of the victims, as of course their Muslim neighbours, feel that they may never get justice as the perpetrators remain unidentified.

Neelam Kour, a mother of two has brought up her kids all by herself. The children, daughter (14) and son (12) don’t know anything about the night of March20, 2000 in which their father and other three other family members were killed. They think their father works in Army, posted far away and he doesn’t get leave to see his family.

The husband of Neelam had his electrical business and that fateful night while coming back from his shop he was stopped by the ‘men in uniform’ who had already cordoned off the whole area. In some time he was fired upon along with his younger brother, two uncles and 12 others– all residents of Showkeen Mohalla. Neelam recalls, “We got so scared when those uniformed men with covered faces were running in our lanes. Myself, my 18-months-old daughter and my mother-in-law were all alone in the house. We were so frightened that we couldn’t even once see what was happening outside. All we could do was to hear the noise coming from outside.”

Since Neelam’s house is beside the Gurdwara in Showkeen Mohalla she was able to hear the guns being fired including that initial shot fired in the air “may be to give signal to the other murderers who were waiting in another Gurdwara, Gurdwara Singh Saba Samadari Bagh where 18 more were killed and later one injured succumbed to his injuries”. more

Not Stopping Yet

From his appointment in the mechanical engineering department as a section officer, to his retirement as AEE (Assistant Executive Engineer) in 1998, Haji Abdul Aziz Dar has had a somewhat smooth life. However, at that point, all his children—four sons and a daughter—were either still unemployed or studying.

“I didn’t have enough money to make them doctors and engineers,” he says. “So they simply did their graduations.”

Haji Aziz had completed his BE in mechanical engineering before joining service in 1964.

Now, after 14 years of retirement, Haji Aziz is still earning. He works as a supplier and contractor to various government departments. “It is the duty of every parent to make their children independent and to marry them off, so I had to work again (after retirement).”

He has only married off his daughter and the elder son. All of his sons work in the private sector.

Haji Aziz says he could have lived a “luxurious life” like his friends did, but he did not want to spoil his hereafter - life after death. He claims to have never taken “bribes and commission.” “If I had taken bribes, my sons would have been doctors or engineers,” he says.

In addition to his motivation for ensuring his children settle down, Haji Aziz says his passion for work did not allow him to stay home. He has been a footballer and played in various inter-state tournaments. “I am 70; I don’t take any medicines and never complain of any old age symptoms like my friends do. I feel it is because of my habit of being active throughout my life,” he says. “After all my sons are married, I might assist my elder son who is running a computers sale and service business.”

Busy and healthy

Ahmadullah Shah, an electrical engineer started his career in 1971 when he got the job of a section officer in the electricity department. After progressing steadily in his career, Shah finally retired in 2007 as AEE. He has good memories of working in the department. “Ours is the department with which people are never satisfied - the great electricity department,” he says with a smile. more

Powerless Lineman

Two years have gone by since the Chief Minister Omar Abdullah himself assured daily-wagers of the PDD (Power development Department) that they would be regularized. That promise has been met in breach while the problems of daily-wagers have persisted, besides some among them becoming disabled after meeting accidents while on work.

“It is not only the matter of regularization for me, it has become a do or die like situation” says Abdul Rashid Wani. He is a daily-wager with PDD for the last 18years (from March 1994) but on March 1, 2005 his work left him physically dependent forever. He recalls, “That day I was on duty working on a pole in Bemina area where I got electrocuted and when I opened my eyes I was in Delhi. I was lying on bed half dead with my family, all of them weeping around me. After some time I realized I was lying there without both my arms”. His family shifted him to SKIMS hospital in Srinagar where he spent more than two months.

Abdul Rashid has undergone five surgeries since but when he met that accident his ‘department was waiting for him to die’ because they didn’t want him to become a burden on the department. But his parents arranged money from wherever they could and gave one lakh rupees to a private emergency charter to shift him to Delhi. Later he asked his department for compensation but when they refused he filed a case with Labor Court through which he got a compensation of 3,08,000 rupees. He distributed the money among those he had borrowed from for his treatment.

“With the start of the day my dependence starts, from dusk to dawn my wife has to be available with me. She takes care of everything, from my bath to putting clothes on me and from feeding me to making bed for sleep. My mother and children also help me and most of the times they try to counsel me” shares Rashid trying to hide his emotions. It is going to cost him more than 8 lakh rupees for artificial limbs but he avoids getting them, he feels he has more responsibilities for which he should start saving now.

Rashid has a daughter who is in class 11th now and son is studying in class 6th. His eyes start twinkling when he talks about his children who have promised that they will take care of him in the longer run. He is desperate to get regular for which he has filed a case with High Court also so that he could satisfy the demands of his children who want to become doctors. more