Integrity Score 120
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Not Just Cricket continues
The Muslim caretaker of the house took me inside to a room where an old lady sat behind a desk.
An almirah full of medicines stood behind her.
According to the caretaker, her memory was fading and she was now no longer treating patients, something which she had not stopped doing even at the height of militancy. She had refused to move out of Srinagar, not heeding the requests of her children who were living outside the state to come live with them.
Muslim neighbours and friends had taken care of the doctor who had tended to the medical needs of the larger Kashmiri community.
I tried my best to help her recall a memory from over five decades ago: the Magazine family, a patient of hers called Raj Dulari and the birth of a child, who was now standing in front of her. She asked me to write down the names, which I did on a piece of paper. She smiled, though I doubt she could recall a past that I was trying to connect with.
I came out of the house overwhelmed by many emotions. The frail old woman had withstood the onslaught of time and the traumatic upheavals of her homeland. She had had the courage not to flee and abandon her roots. I felt, somehow, we had betrayed her.
Concluded