For militancy-hit children Diwali is a misnomer
Pradeep Dutta
Jammu, November 15: For the children of 23,000 families of border migrants putting up at various makeshift camps in J&K it was once again a dark Diwali - a grim reminder of tragic moments.
Few years back, Pakistani shells forced them to abandon their homes and settle in make-shift camps. Since then life has never been the same again.
Thirteen-year-old Pinkuji at Purkhoo migrant camp cannot bear the bang of crackers. ``He has been picking up fight all through the day with whoever bursts a cracker near his single room tenement,'' said his mother looking apparently worried over the unusual behaviour of her son.
The reason for Pinku's unusual behaviour can be traced back to 1990, when they lived happily in Pazalpora village of Baramulla (Kashmir). It was on Diwali day, when the whole locality was celebrating Diwali, a group of militants dragged his father out of the house and pumped bullets into his chest.
Though the sound of gunshots got submerged in the bursting crackers, the brutal image of the incident got entrenched forever in Pinku's mind. Even after 12 years, he continues to get irritated by cracker bursting.
It's not just Pinku for whom Diwali has assumed a distorted meaning. Eight-years-old Golu's wait for his father to arrive with a bag full of sweets and crackers once again ends in despair. A week before Diwali, he had been getting up early in the morning and marking the date on the calendar. Diwali is nearing and his father will bring lots of sweets and toys, he used to shout, little knowing that his father had attained martyrdom during the Kargil war.
It is tough for Golu's mother to console him. ``He is too young to understand the meaning of death."
Since morning he is asking whether this year, too, his father had forgotten the Diwali. ``..I have no answers,'' says wife of Kargil martyr, Sepoy Joginder Singh of 8 Sikh, who sacrificed his life at Tiger Hills while fighting the enemy.
Manjula Raman, who has done a research on the psychological impact on the children of armymen after their father's death, said: ``Papa's death makes them lose the secluded and protective atmosphere of the army cantonment. And suddenly living a civilians life does not gel perfectly with them.''
Stories from militancy-hit Doda and Kishtwar area are no less melancholic.
For these children, this festival means, occupying the Home (the name for orphanages) gates till evening, waiting that some good Samaritan might turn up with sweet meat and crackers so that they too can celebrate the festival.
In one corner of an orphanage is sitting Vijay Kumar, 12, trying his best to restore smile on the face of his eight-year-old cousin Anil Kumar, who is angry as on this day too his mother failed to keep her promise of sending sweets.
``How do I tell him that at their home many a times his sisters and mother have to sleep without food,'' said Vipin.
Ever since Kumar's father was killed by militants, his mother had to work as a labourer to keep the kitchen fire stoked. At times she can hardly earn anything to get food for the members waiting for her at home.
In one of the camps, Rano Devi, a mother of two handicapped children, Ajay and Suresh, held the hands of this reporter and took him into a dingy room.
Glancing at her sons, she said, the two had been pestering her to take them home so that they could celebrate Diwali in the same spirit as before.
``Ma wahan roshni thi, yahan ki tarah andhera nahin, they tell me,'' rued Rano.
Like Rano, many a mothers of violence-hit victims can only try to make their children understand that they have to learn to live in this darkness till peace is restored. But when that day will arrive? Nobody knows. |
