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MOTHER STILL WAITING FOR HER DISAPPEARED SON
-- Hilal Ahmed Sada-E-Aman, Voice of Peace, Vol. 1, No. 4
[Ed. Note: The author, Hilal Ahmed, is a Srinagar based journalist]
For the 65-year-old Mughli of Babapora, Habba Kadal here, Mothers' Day is just another day of endless wait for her only child, the 37 (now 48 if alive) year old teacher Nazir Ahmad Teli who went missing following his arrest 11 years ago. Parental love and affection would be shared elsewhere in the world today. For Mughli it is sighs, tears, hope and despair with the indifferent walls of her house.
In the forlorn tone of a victim who has been divested of everything precious, Mughli says, "I became widow at the age of 18 and for the sake of Nazir I turned down pleas of my parents to marry for the second time. He was only 9 months old when my husband died. He took charge of the household at the age of 10."
As if the haunting memories of her son were not enough, arthritis, hypertension, cardiac ailments have become adjunct to her suffering. Mughli hailing from a well-to-do middle class family has now become a destitute. Relatives and neighbours help in the primary needs, for, litigation and search for her son has drained both her energy and the money.
Narrating her woes, Mughli breaks into tearful sobs and recites poignant Kashmiri verses, Ha Myani Dardilo Walo, Pyaran Chasai Ya Walo. "I pray God to take my life or else give me my youth which I would spend in search of my son-my life for a single glimpse of him", she says. "I don't even have a brother or sister with whom I can share my grief or who would sympathise with me and neighbours are not allowing me to leave this place. In fact, they often help in domestic chores."
Adding insult to her injury is the official apathy. "Education authorities told me Nazir was not in the services. The headmaster of Buchwara School where Nazir was teaching in September 1990 in fact said that they would have recommended my case for relief had I not published news of Nazir's disappearance in the newspapers." She is still waging the legal battle to prove that her son was a teacher.
Nazir would swear by Sheikh Abdullah's name for he had received ‘Rehbar Sehat' certificate from his hands, Mughli said adding Nazir used to look upon the document as a sacrament, a precious gift from great ‘Bab'. "I wished to approach Bab's son Farooq, but I have neither the energy nor the means", she says.
She doesn't believe her son to be the victim of circumstances saying Nazir feared and hated violence. "Ask earth and heavens whether my son had affiliations with any political or militant organisations. He was devoted to my welfare. Allah won't forgive those who took him away."
Mughli's tale is just a part of whole represented by the collective tragedy of Kashmiri motherhood. Blissfully, she has no idea about what Mothers Day means.
Posted on 2002-10-16
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