THE REFUGEE

A tale of severance and disjunction from motherland.

- Savita Singh

My father and I left on a Thursday." I spoke softly as I looked at the baby the village midwife placed in my arms. She had been helped by the wife of my old friend Asif, who had been the son of the old headman in my childhood and had taken over from him now. The old lady smiled. "Today is also a Thursday," said she softly.

"Yes. I know," I said softly and held the precious bundle of life in my arms.

Only the day before, I had buried my father's ashes in the courtyard of our ancestral house, which I was visiting after more than twenty years. My wife had insisted on accompanying me although she was in her final month of pregnancy.

She knew how emotional I had become. She had heard the story of our exile many a time.

I was barely a lad of ten and had spent all my life in that tiny village in Kashmir.

I had been born there.