Death of a Mother

WITNESS

Muhammad Tasim Zahid

Srinagar, Aug 3: I have tears in my eyes as I enter Maisuma. The remnants of tear gas sting my eyes. Police is standing at a distance as protestors, mostly teenagers, shout at me to close the lights of my Bike. I comply as the group tries to burn a truck tyre on the road.

As men in the roads swear vengeance, the women wailed silently and quietly in an old school building. I climb the narrow stairs of the school and enter a room which a sign declares as assembly room.

The room is full of women as someone points me to an women who is hardly in her late 30's. Her cheeks are pale and drawn but she is hardly in the room. Neither the oaths of vengeance nor the silent wails of women seem to have an effect on the young widowed mother of Asif Mehraj, Shammema. She is sitting almost impassively among the women. As Women around her wail, her pale face grows darker.

A teargas shell hit the heart of Shammema's 16 year old son during the protests. He died later in the hospital. But it seems she is yet to accept the fact. I ask Shammema, " how old was Asif ?" She mumbles but does not say anything. I make out from the neighbors that he was younger than 18 and worked to feed his mother and his siblings. I ask her how many kids she had; she tries to remember and calculate but the answer eludes her.

Her neighbors tell me, that she had five children. Her elder son too works as a Denter but the others are very young.

Two years ago Shammema's husband had died of cancer. He was a tailor by profession who had a small shop in Maisuma. But after his death she was forced by circumstances to move to a two-room rented accommodation in Mehjoor Nagar.

Asif had come to visit his friends in his old locality when a verbal spat between the police and residents led to a ding dong battle. As soon as the police fired the tear gas shells, Asif was hit. He was taken to the SMHS hospital, where people did not allow the police to take his dead body for post-mortem.

Shammema was brought to Maisuma by her old neighbors who are looking after her, for now. I take leave as women around me began wailing afresh but Shammema is impassive.

I have tears in my eyes as I leave Maisuma, but this time it's not tear gas.