COMBATING COLD

Unable to move back to warm places owing to financial constraints, many nomadic families were stuck in Kashmir this winter. As cold snap hits severely, the impoverished nomads caught in the crisis shiver in tarpaulin tents, reports Yawar Hussain

- Yawar Hussain

As Valley shivers with extremely cold weather, dozen-odd families in south Kashmir’s Awantipora, are braving the chill inside tarpaulin tents.

Zareena Akhter, 27, a Bakerwal woman says that she sleeps with her daughter, Akhter (5), and son Showkat (3) to keep them warm at night when the temperatures plummet several notches below the freezing point.

She along with many others couldn’t go back to warm Rajouri where others from the community migrated, owing to financial constraints caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Throughout the night I keep asking my half-asleep children if they are feeling warm,” she says adding that the government’s relief for four of them is just one blanket.“They aren’t accustomed to the cold weather of Kashmir and back in Rajouri the weather is warm.”

Akhter says they had to go foraging for items to build their tents.

“We bought something from the market. We couldn’t afford everything. Then we had to go looking around to collect other things,” she says adding that many people helped them. “I am hopeful that this winter passes so that we can reunite this year with our relatives who could manage to reach Jammu”.

She says her husband goes looking for work every day and if lucky returns with some money to feed the family. Akhter, however, is scared for her children after she learnt that two nomadic children died due to the cold at Kulgam.

“I heard they were living in similar conditions like us,” she says while firing up Chulha (clay stove).