Gurmeet Singh Bekraar
The old haggrd lady suddenly burst into a heart wrenching wail. I sat bemused as I could not grasp her mystifying behaviour. Yet I could feel she was in utter pain. She was there at my office to close her son’s account. An illiterate to the core, her first impression seemed of a mentally retarded woman who faltered sporadically with her words. During her incoherent speech, she often lost her words and stood dumb as if she had to say nothing.
I sought the help of my lady peon to translate her pure yet incomprehensibly spoken Dogri language. She told me that the lady had lost her son in an road accident few years ago. Realizing that I was being made to understand what she intended to convey, she placed a crumbled polythene bag on my table and out took an photograph of her dead son.
I cross checked his son’s account details on the computer. It showed a zero balance. As I explained to her about this, she took out another old photo of her son. It was taken in some studio when he was in his teens. Attired like a Bollywood hero with a hat on the head and a black goggles on the eyes, shot with a canvas of some hi-rise buildings in the background, it reminded me of my childhood when we used to have our snaps taken in studios in the absence of present hi-tech digital camers.
“He is my son”. She said in a voice choked with emotions as tiny drops of tears began constructions in her sucked-in eyes. I moved my fingers further on the keyboard to figure out the account. A command on the menu showed up a photo of her son on the monitor taken while the account had been opened.
Not ever seen this photo, momentarily took her by surprise. “Oh my baccha.. he is my son..”, she moved closer over my shoulders to have a near view of her son. The very next moment, a volcano of anguish blew up within her. A loud shriek echoed in the premises as a stream of tears ran amuck on her shrunken cheeks. She was about to collapse when I beckoned the peon to hold her onto the chair. The visitors in the hall brought their movements to a standstill. An eerie silence suddenly gripped the occasions as I came to recollect somewhat a similar episode of misfortune years ago when while working in marketing division, I had to travel far and wide in the State. In an office at Hiranagar one day, I was shaken in my chair by the raucous behaviour of a women. I tried to listen closely to her freak grumble but could not follow her mumbled monologues. I figured out she needed some assistance. As I proceeded to help her with some money, the security guard of the office held my hands back. “Sir, she is not asking for money.”
“Then what for she is creating a scene in the office ?”
“Sir, her only son got electrocuted while on duty as an electrician at Srinagar and since then she has lost her mental balance. That is why she keeps shouting.. that fire shall extinguish soon…. her son shall come back. She is not normal Sir.”
As the guard told the facts, the lady tired herself by bemoaning her misfortune but alas there was no one around to measure the depth of her grief. No one could assuage her mountainous heap of sorrows not even God. First time I felt that even God was like a faqir, helpless to help others.
Another heart-tending story of a hapless mother came to front me in my life was while posted at Srinagar in the year 1996 when militancy in the valley was at its peak. Once on a picnic to Pahalgam, a burqa clad woman suddenly appeared before me with an extended arm. I thought her out to be seeking alms from me and as I went looking for my wallet she opened her closed fist for me to see a photograph of a teenaged boy. She spoke something in Kashmiri which I could not comprehend. I called up my Kashmiri friend to translate for me. He told me that the lady’s younger son got disappeared a month ago. Those were the days when a multitude of young boys from the valley were often lured across the border for arms training to wage war against Indian army. This lady’ son seemed a victim of this.
But the mother in her wont let her believe that her son had gone across. She hailed from Kupwara, a distance of 200 km from the Srinagar. And she travelled all over the hill spots of the valley in the lingering hope of finding him somewhere.
My no might have saddened her for few seconds yet the unrelenting belief of a maa would never dampen her spirits to go for eternity searching for her beloved son. The only way she could resign her efforts would be after her death.I saw her like a vagabond moving from one person to another beging people to recollect her son face if seen anywhere in the vicinity. Never in my life I felt so helpless, not me every one around there could ever mollify a mother’s predicament by telling her; oh mother, do not panic, your son will be back.
Some one said : “God created mother because he could not be there all the time to safeguard the little babies and children”. But what about those babies and children who are prematurely snatched away from their mothers? Perhaps the God wont tolerate that mothers should outgrow bigger in size and stature vis a vis Him. Oh my God…. so human of you !
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