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The 'terrorist's' mother

Discussion in 'Snippets of Life (Non-Fiction)' started by PujaInk, Dec 18, 2012.

  1. PujaInk

    PujaInk Bronze IL'ite

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    In the dim whiteness of the sole, small tube light mounted on a wall of her courtyard, Razia Amin looks at me and exclaims, “Oh you!” She holds out one hand, and as I clasp it, I re discover the familiar smooth, warm softness I had first found some four years ago.

    We embrace.

    I am in Azamgarh—a small town of big notoriety which was labelled “Atankgarh” and “nursery of terror” by an overzealous media in September 2008, after, what has come to be known as the ‘Batla House encounter’—an operation in which two alleged terrorists of the Indian Mujhaideen were killed. This was followed by a spate of arrests and disappearances of boys and young men from Azamgarh purportedly because of their links to acts of terror—executed or planned.

    Razia is the mother of 24 year old Atif Amin, a ‘terrorist’ who fell to police bullets in the encounter.

    When we had first met, she was a mother crazed with grief, but permitted no concessions by a media greedy for ‘quotes’.

    “Miss, you too will call me the mother of a terrorist”, she had shouted at me then. I had shrunk into silence.

    This evening, as we sit across each other—she on a cot, me on a plastic chair, we are not journalist and subject. We are women—caught in circumstances we neither created nor willed. It is a relationship forged without design or intent over our many meetings since that initial collision.

    On every trip to Azamgarh since, I have been drawn to Razia’s home. I have imagined that she wants me to visit.

    On every visit to her home, I have not known what to say. I have been unable to bring her a lexicon of comforts, of answers, of closures.

    Today too, we sit in silence for a while. And then she speaks—the fire and defiance of that first meeting now a deep, hollow resignation.

    “What more is there to say?’ she asks.

    I understand.

    Despite what many well meaning friends have told me, I have not taken sides with Azamagarh. I do not defend its accused sons, but I do not join the charge against them. I see the many discrepancies and the duplicities of that indictment. Just as strongly as I feel the ache of the many who have lost loved ones to terror over the years. I have cried at the ghats of Varanasi in 2010 after standing by the bed side of the mother of a two year old who died in a bomb explosion. Just, as desperately, as I have cried for Razia.

    As women, Razia and I are bound by that deep, inexplicable love we feel for our men—fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. We are bewildered at our inability to pull them back from the edge. We are angered by what we did not see. We are burdened by the rights they did not do, the wrongs they might have. We are mauled by the pain they have inflicted on us.

    That is our link to each other as it is to all women.

    I ask Razia if she does not feel the need to chronicle her grief—an important voice we have ignored in our accounting of terror.

    She shrugs, “It does not matter now. What I said was not understood. Now the anger is gone.”

    She tells me that she had tried calling me one—just like that. And that when I did not take her call, she deleted my number. I give it to her again.

    She remembers small details of my family that I have shared with her, and asks questions.

    I ask about her sick grandson and, about her daughter who studied English literature.

    Atif is a faint shadow in our conversation when she introduces me to her other daughter—the one who was in Delhi when he was killed.

    I ask if there are no more questions she has of her son’s brief life. She tells me that she has stopped looking for answers.

    “You come, you think of us—that is a blessing”, she says.

    I tell her that we share a language of loss and grief. Of womanhood.

    It is getting late. I have a six hour road journey ahead of me.

    Though reluctant, I have to leave.

    At the door that leads to her courtyard I tell her that I will come again—that we will speak for longer. She hugs me.

    I hear the tears in her voice as we say our goodbyes and I step out into the dark.
     
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  2. rgsrinivasan

    rgsrinivasan IL Hall of Fame

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    One of the most gripping ones that I read of late, PujaInk. Thanks for writing this here.
    And yes, it unravelled a lot of questions now. We are forced to accept something which we do not like, at times. Very true. -rgs
     
  3. sanrags

    sanrags Bronze IL'ite

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    one of the best writings. Thanks for the post.We can feel how you would have stood there.
     
  4. PujaInk

    PujaInk Bronze IL'ite

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    There is a huge problem with disagreeing with the system. However the field has taught me that there are no blacks and whites. And that the greys are getting bigger. Thanks for stopping by.
     
  5. PujaInk

    PujaInk Bronze IL'ite

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    Thanks for your comment. So many years, so many women....and yet it has never gotten easier.
     
  6. ramyasanthosh

    ramyasanthosh Senior IL'ite

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    Well written. Liked this much.

    " We are bewildered at our inability to pull them back from the edge. We are angered by what we did not see. We are burdened by the rights they did not do, the wrongs they might have. We are mauled by the pain they have inflicted on us."
     
  7. PujaInk

    PujaInk Bronze IL'ite

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    Many thanks for dropping by and leaving a comment.
     
  8. PujaInk

    PujaInk Bronze IL'ite

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    Thanks much. Women have their own language of pain. It is often more layered than men.
     

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