A Home without Windows

The devastating floods of September made many people home-less. Some of them living in the make-shift camps are trying to fight the loss and putting themselves together to rise again. Syed Asma visits one such make-shift camp located in the middle of the City

Under construction Chinar complex in Munawarabad is a makeshift home for dozens of flood affected families.

Abdul Raheem Kumar, a 60 year-old-man puffing a cigarette is looking-out across the river Jhelum. Wearing a serious look on his face he does not talk much, his wife Rafiqa says. Kumar’s eyes are stuck at something very far. After staring at something for a long time, he looks at his wife and asks – why isn’t the noise in my head stopping?

“Since the flood stuck us, he is complaining of something unusual!” says Rafiqa, “usually we complain of headache, but he says some disturbing noise is going on in his head.” The doctors in SHMS have advised him to go for some medical examinations but the fear of being diagnosed with a non-curable disease is stopping him from consulting a doctor again, perhaps!

A resident of Bemina, Kumar and his family are taking shelter in an under construction building: Chinar complex at Munwarabad, Srinagar. It is a huge structure erected in Khyam chowk without doors and windows, even the walls inside are missing. An open staircase in the edifice caused a few causalities when the flood victims were residing there.

“A few of my friends got injured while we were playing in the building,” says Faizan, a 10 year old mischievous child who with his parents is residing there for a few weeks after floods. Two boys had a fall, one from the open staircase and another from an open slab and fell on the ground. He presently has a fractured leg and arm.

Faizan and his friends called it a ghost house as they had to live in those ugly raw cemented walls with no electricity for almost three weeks. “Ghosts would have eaten us up but we were smart enough,” Faizan winked.

The entire locality of Chinar Bagh was inundated in water and these helpless people could not even move to their relatives’ places as they mostly live near Dal Lake, Bemina, Mehjoor Nagar or Sumerbug. Almost all these families in this locality (Chinar Bagh), lost both their shelter and livelihood after the flood stuck.

The population in the area earns hand to mouth. Almost all of them are laborers and do not have many options and places to live in, so they collectively built up their new huts to face the approaching harsh winters.

They all lost everything and have to start from a zero!

Kumar used to run a tea-stall in Lal-chowk. The flood left him helpless – washed away his hut in Bemina and his cart in Lal-chowk. Kumar has had a tough life all through. He had a shop in Lal chowk which the government dismantled for being an illegal construction. Then he took loans from people and bought a hand-cart which the flood washed away.

Feeding the family of five – his wife, two sons and a daughter, Kumar had earned all his life; had built up a hut in Bemina and married off his daughter, he says. Flood destroyed everything. His daughter was married a month ago to a shopkeeper living in Sumerbug. “I had married my daughter in a comparatively well-off family. They owned a concert house and a shop in their locality. I thought she should live a luxurious life which I could never afford,” says Kumar, “but our plans can’t change our fate and destinies.”

“You know what, we are destined to suffer! Floods devastated her house, their shop and all the things that we gifted her in marriage,” sighs Kumar and turns away towards the Jhelum again. “Even her trousseau wasn’t spared,” shouted Rafiqa from behind.

Kumar lights up another cigarette and started staring again at something far away.

From a past few years they lived a relatively contended life. Earning almost Rs 10,000 a month, they could manage a good dowry for their daughter. Rafiqa, more expressive than her husband, points out to the same side at what Kumar is perhaps staring, she says it is the hut of my sister that is being re-constructed.

He (Kumar) must be looking on those wooden huts (dhokas) that are being re-constructed in Chinar Bagh, says Rafiqa, one of them is of our brother-in-law’s, Abdul Rashid Shoda. The entire population of Chinar Bagh who lived in the wooden huts were submerged in flood waters for one and a half month.

“He (Kumar) has lost all hopes,” says Rafiqa, “he is completely shattered.” His sons working as laborers are now helping people cleaning the flood affected houses or help them dismantle them.

Rafiqa pointing her finger at a reconstructed hut belonging to her sister. They had a four rooms hut. When the level of water raised, their hut got inundated, so, they had to leave hastily.

Their three month old grandson, the first one in the family, compelled them to leave everything aside and run for life. The first stop they chose to reside was Rafiqa’s hut in Bemina. As luck would have it, just a few hours later water ran into the lanes and roads of Bemina. Afroza, a new mother, along with her three-month-old son, had to walk through the flood water till they reached back to her home. What was left was the submerged ruins of their huts!

Unfortunately, the new born baby got infected and was admitted in the lone Children’s hospital in Sonawar for a week. Afroza says he still doesn’t sleep and give her sleepless nights as well.

Like Afroza there are many daughters sitting with their parents waiting for their in-laws to call them back. Besides, many of the marriages have been postponed as the huts and the trousseau along with rest of the property has been washed away with floods.

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