Anjali and Viraj Navadia, 11 and 10, have no recollection of their mother Poonam. All they know about her is that she was killed when terrorists attacked Mumbai on November 26, 2008.
Poonam, then 26, was shot dead at the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus while her husband Bharat, a small-time cloth merchant, was seriously injured. The couple, residents of Vasai in the far suburbs of Mumbai, were on their way to Kolkata with their children, then toddlers. “We have seen our mother only in photographs and heard about her from our father and relatives. We don’t know what she was like,” says Viraj.
For almost five years after their mother’s death, Viraj and Anjali watched as their father took on the role of mother too, until he married their maternal aunt in 2013.
“I always felt weird that my father cooked, cleaned the house and even tied my hair before I went to school. None of my friend’s fathers did that,” Anjali says.
Bharat’s struggles, emotional and financial, continue. Every year on 26/11, the kids ask about their mother, he says. “With the passing years, the number of questions has reduced. The kids are growing up, they now understand that their questions make me uncomfortable and sad.”
Nine years after the attack that changed their lives, the family now lives in a 10 feet x 15 feet room in the Sant Jalaram Bapu Nagar slum in Vasai. The kids have grown close to their new mother, and to the addition to the family, three-year-old Alok. They go to school regularly, play with one another and run along the narrow bylanes of the slum with friends. Anjali loves to dress up her doll, while Viraj loves to race toy cars with his baby brother.
Though the siblings do not recollect the terrorist attack, the incident has left a deep impression on their minds. Viraj wants to join the police force, he says, and wants to find an end to terrorism. “I lost my mother, nobody else should lose their family to terrorists,” he says.
Viraj and Anjali play with their younger brother at their home in Vasai. Express Photo by Amit Chakravarty
Anjali aspires to become a computer engineer, and wants to buy a flat so that her family can leave the the slum they have been residing in. “My father has seen a lot of hardship. His shoulder still hurts, but he carries heavy bags everyday to work so that he can give us a good future. Whenever I ask him to take a day off he says he will stop working the day I start earning. I want to make my father proud,” says Anjali.
Bharat was rendered without an income for nearly four years after the attack as he recovered from the physical and emotional trauma. We faced the worst financial crisis. But one thing I have taught my children is that we are not scared of whatever happened, we overcame it and are happy today. I hope my kids grow up to become very successful, away from the memories of 26/11,” says Bharat.
