Saumya

A heartfelt message by a parent, K Sharad Haksar to Neha Bora. “When I got married, I knew I wanted only one child. And in my heart, I hoped it would be a girl. I was blessed with a daughter. The first time I held her, I made her a silent promise. You will never have to share my time. You will never have to wait for my attention. Whatever I have, you will get all of it. I had seen families with four or five children. Parents running from morning to night, and still some child was always left waiting. I also felt our country has too many people, and nature is paying for it. One child felt right. It felt responsible. For years, I never questioned it. Then this year, I saw Neha Bora. She is 29, a PhD student at JNU, a theatre artist from Khatima, a small town in the hills of Uttarakhand. When the NEET paper leak happened, she sat down at Jantar Mantar for students she did not even know. Children who had studied for years. Parents who had spent their savings on coaching and still lost. She did not eat for 23 days. She was 66 kilos when she started. She lost more than 7. Near the end, doctors were taking her blood three or four times a day. The night I read that, I could not sleep. I kept seeing my own daughter in her place. On a hot Delhi road. Thin. Tired. A doctor holding her wrist again. And I knew I would not be able to stand there and watch. I would have begged her to stop. But Neha did not stop until the work was done. And when it was over, she said her body had forgotten how to eat. It had to learn again, like a baby. Even then, still weak, she went to Bihar to meet more than 600 students who had been arrested. She did not go home to rest. She went to the ones who had stood by her. I am a dowser. Every day I work with energy. I have learned that anger is heavy. It burns out fast. Nobody can live on anger for 23 days without food. Only love can carry you that far. Then I read that her father was in the Army, and the family kept moving from one posting to the next. My wife's father was also in the Army. I never call him my father-in-law. To me, he is simply Papa. My wife studied in 13 schools. Thirteen first days. Thirteen times walking into a class where nobody knew her name. Thirteen goodbyes to friends she never saw again. Army children learn to smile, pack their bags and start again. Nobody asks them how much it hurts. I see that strength in my wife every day. I saw it in Neha too. In Ranchi, a man threw ink on her face and called her anti-national. She said she had already faced pellets and lathis in Delhi. Ink would not scare her. Ink washes off. In energy work, we say that what people throw at you only stays if you take it in. She seems to know this without ever holding a pendulum. Her family did not agree with her. There were fights at home. But during the hunger strike, her mother came to Jantar Mantar. I don't know what they said to each other. I don't need to. I am a parent. I know what a mother feels when she sees her child weak and thin on a road, and still standing. Every argument is forgotten in that moment. All that is left is: this is my child. Neha said she has not spoken to her father yet. I don't know him. But I am a father too, and I know how hard it is for men like us to say some things out loud. So if he cannot say it yet, let me say it for him, from Chennai. Beta, we are proud of you. Now go and eat something properly. Somewhere in all this, a thought came to me that I never expected. I wish I had one more daughter. One like Neha. This takes nothing away from my own daughter. She is my world. She always will be. But Neha made me ask myself a hard question. We spend our whole lives keeping our children safe and helping them get ahead. Do we ever teach them to look back at who is being left behind? And if one day they stand up for someone else, will we stand next to them as Neha's mother did? Or will we ask them to come home and stay quiet. Our job is to protect that light, even when it scares us.