By: Ketaki Latkar With Jammu and Kashmir facing its worst flood that has caused devastation and loss of lives, people of the state living in Pune city are anxious to know the fate of their family members back home. Hailing from Kashmir, Mohammad Muneem who is domciled in the city is a member of the Sufi rock band Highway 61 and co-founder of Baner’s Muziclub, a platform for providing music services. Apprehensions about the fate of his family made Muneem leave for his home in Hyderpora’s Shah Anwar Colony, one of he inundated areas. “It has been more than three days that I lost contact with family members. The information I am able to gather is only by means of news updates and internet, which is indeed depressing and worrisome,” said Muneem. He added that due to contamination of water and rising disease, he is carrying medicines and more than 40 kg of mineral water. “I have no inkling about my family; it is giving me sleepless nights. I can’t take it any more and have resolved to go and do whatever I can,” he summed up, before leaving to board a flight to Srinagar from Mumbai on Tuesday. Mudasir Bhat hails from Kashmir’s Kupwara district and is struggling to put together finances to arrange for his transport back home. Bhat has five sisters and a brother and had lost his father more than a decade back. “All my family members are scattered across Kashmir and for the last three days, I have lost all connectivity with them. The news updates talk about people who have gone missing and about ones who have lost lives, disturb me,” he stated. Bhat has a rather modest family background and is the only one in the family to have pursued postgraduate studies. “At 10, I moved into an orphanage as there were no finances to sustain my school education, following which I completed my graduation from the University of Kashmir, Baramulla on financial aid,” he said describing how he subsequently made it to city’s Sarhad College of Arts, Commerce and Science, where he is studying computer science. Bhat is hopeful that rescue operations launched by the Army and NDRF would have saved his family and he would see them soon. While most of the kith and kin of the affected families in J&K are worried over the situation, some of them are optimistic that the situation is under control. Among them is 25-year-old Shiny Sher, a talent advisor at one of the city’s talent acquisition firms. Sher said, “The situation has improved in the last two days and I spoke to my family this morning. My folks are safe and the scene looks reassuring.”
