Nowhere to stay

A few months ago, I visited a famous sufi shrine in my district. As someone who has spent years tracing the forgotten footprints of Kashmir’s anonymous Sufi saints, such visits are not new to me. This shrine, known for its deep spiritual legacy, had drawn me in once again. I had begun reading both oral accounts and the scattered, yellowed pages of written sources about the saint resting there. But something about this visit was different.

I had to visit the shrine and its nearby locality four times to collect what little remained of the oral traditions. Each time I arrived, I noticed an old man—always seated quietly in a corner. Dressed in clean but simple clothes, his white beard neatly combed, he sat with his eyes lowered, sometimes gazing at the grave of the saint as if deep in thought. I assumed he was like many who come to the shrines in search of peace.

But after seeing him on every visit, I grew curious. One afternoon, when the shrine was nearly empty, I mustered the courage to sit beside him. His frail body was bent with age, but his eyes, deep and brown, still held a certain strength.

“Assalam-u-Alaikum, baba,” I greeted him.

He slowly turned and nodded, returning the greeting softly. I asked if he had been visiting the shrine frequently. What he said next left me silent for a long while.

“I have been here for over a month now,” he told me, his voice almost a whisper.

A month? I asked why.

He smiled faintly, a sad, resigned smile. “My son and daughter have gone for Umrah,” he said. “Before leaving, they locked the house. I had nowhere to stay, so I came here.”

I struggled to respond. The words caught in my throat. I asked him gently, “Did you try calling them? Maybe they don’t know…”

He shook his head. “No,” he said simply. “They have not called me, and I have no phone.”

I sat down next to him on the cool floor of the shrine and thought deeply. Is this the same Kashmir I have written about? The land once known for its reverence toward elders, where the old were treated as treasures of wisdom and experience? Where once, in every village, the aged were never left to eat alone or sleep in isolation?

I felt dejected and dismayed. Here was a man who had spent a lifetime raising his children, investing his hard-earned money into their education and comfort. And today, he was left alone, sitting in a shrine, his home locked behind him.

As I left that day, I promised him I would write about him. Maybe his son, or someone who knows him, would read this. Maybe they will remember the father who once carried them on his shoulders. Maybe they will realise that even the greatest journeys of faith are incomplete if the duty toward one’s parents is forgotten.

There was a time in Kashmir when a father’s footsteps echoed respect, and his words were law. Today, many elders sit quietly in corners, their stories unheard, their lives unnoticed.

The author is a regular GK contributor.