Every morning before leaving for school, and every evening after dinner at his now new donated home at Pampore, Aqib would fasten his eyes on a picture, in which his father had nicely posed with a benevolent smile. The smile of his father, seemingly, would then spur a smile on his son a while, and later a gloom.
Though the beckoning picture gives him a bout of immense joy at least, but it stirs a wave of dismay, and dawn a truth that although his is father is smiling, but dead.
Aqib will be thirteen this year. At this age, children would certainly desire to play with friends, and have a lot of fun. Childhood is synonymous with fun, but his endurance has made him to think, and do things like grown-ups.
After having salt tea with bread in the early morning, he orders his elder sisters upright, to recite Quran. If we dont follow his orders, says his elder sister, he would get upset and wont talk to us for days. They made him believe that he is the elder in the house, and he can manage as his father used to when he was alive.
Their mother, 28, her skin paler, and her body lean with a stoic look, listens to her children reciting Quran from hallway with broom in one hand, and repeats some verses with them. I would recite this page before you, Aqib says to his elder sisters as they sit together in a huddle. The two sisters adore their only brother so much that they never refuse him on any matter.
After one hour, Aqib looks at the clock. He puts the Quran on the shelf with his tender hands, and wipes his hands over his face. I ask him why he would do that. Wiping hands over face after you had recited holy book, gives me strength, and keep me away from sins, he acknowledges.
He returns to his mother in the kitchen. Have you finished, asks she. Yes, mother I have, and give me money to buy food for lunch, says Aqib. Mother fidgets in her pockets for some traces of money. She doesnt have money, says Aqib later, while choking back tears, I know that. We are very poor, and none in our family earns. He goes to the shopkeeper, and asks him for 1 kg cabbage and some onions. When a shopkeeper asks for money, he boldly replies that he would pay him later this month.
I dont know how I would pay him, he says, but God shall help me to pay his debt.
His father, who was a truck driver, had died in 2008, when the valley was in turmoil, and every truck returning from Delhi was attacked in Jammu. He was lynched, says the mother, they murdered him, and we mourned twice. One for his death, and the other for our only source of income was snatched.
A study in 2009 by UK-based child rights organization, Save the Children, has revealed that estimated population of orphans in Jammu and Kashmir is 2.14 lakh and 37 percent of them were orphaned due to the armed conflict. According to an article carried by Tehelka Last year, has revealed that-Orphanages are a 120 crore business.
Despite that, the survival of this family depends upon the small donations, and help from local mosques and neighbours. Aqib says that they once survived on tea for some days until their relatives came to know about it, and brought them food. A friend of their father donated the house they are living in at Pampore. Before, they were lived at Pantha Chowk in one dark room. That was a slum, says Aqib. I could no bear my sisters having to use a toilet that was outside, and my mother would guard them from anyone peeping, he recounts vividly. Living there was hell.
Today is Sunday, and schools are closed. He is in sixth class, and he likes science and mathematics. I ask him who pays his and his sisters fee at school. He replies that they (school authorities), after learning that we have become orphans, stopped asking for fee. Principal is good man, and he profoundly would call me at school, and ask me if I need anything.
Their school is 5km distance from their home. They have to board bus twice. He says, giggling, When conductor would ask for the fare, which we dont have, I would point my finger anywhere in the bus, and tell him that there is my father, and he would pay. That idiot would believe me.
His dreams are to become a doctor one day. His sisters would spend two hours every day to help him with studies. At 6 pm, he sits with his sisters to finish homework. He likes science, says his sister. He always talks about the human body and knows a lot about the organs and their working.
He tells me that, heart is on left side, and it pumps blood, and kidney, and lungs, and spine, and intestines, and bones. He points his hands deftly to show the organs.
Children love to watch TV, and when it comes to cartoons, they would fasten their eyes not listing to anything and anyone. But Aqib has no desire to watch cartoons. He says he would go to their neighbors to watch discovery channel. They show everything that I read in books. One day I would buy television, he says ardently.
His mother has a lot of hope on his son, whom he foresee as a doctor, and tells me that Aqib would one day treat patients in his own sprawling clinic, and would earn lots of money. I asked him why not she would see her daughters as doctors, she replies, they have to get married someday and Aqib would marry his sisters.
Sitting on the porch watching ceaseless highway traffic, Aqib turns his gaze and says that my mother has many expectations on me and if something happens to me, who shall look after them. Saying this, he wiped his eyes, and went down.
While he reads his books, he whispers to me that if there is any part time job in the city so that he can earn, and aid his hapless mother.
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