The Day He Passed Into The Light Of Kashmir

(MENAFN- Kashmir Observer)
Syed Iftikhar Gilani

By Syed Majid Gilani

He came home tired that evening. The summer had turned cruel, the kind that clings to the body and steals the air.

My father, Syed Iftikhar Gilani, said he had drunk seven glasses of water at work. That alone should've told us something wasn't right.

But he prayed, as always, and didn't complain. He never did.

It was June 11, 2001. I had just returned from Banihal, where I had been posted only two days earlier. I couldn't settle there: sleepless, restless, hungry in a way food couldn't fix.

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I left without thinking much, and when I stepped into our house in Khanqahi Moula, Srinagar, my father was in prayer. I hugged him the way sons do when they need something only a father can give: steadiness.

His embrace, warm and certain, told me I had done the right thing by coming home.

He was fifty. A government officer, a man of order and belief, with a degree in Electronics and a love for his family that went beyond words.

That night, we sat together for dinner. But something shifted. His breath grew shallow. I called my maternal uncles, and together we rushed him to SKIMS Hospital.

The ECG looked fine. The doctors gave him a sedative, told us not to worry. I clung to that word: fine. We brought him home.

Around 4 a.m., he stirred and recited, Qul A'udhu bi Rabbil Falaq - I seek refuge in the Lord of the dawn.

The way he said it, it didn't feel like prayer. It felt like goodbye. Still, none of us understood.

He asked for candles. He said to call the tailor. We were puzzled. He bathed, changed his clothes, and grew quieter. Paler. We helped him to the same spot where he always prayed, on the floor of our living room.

There, he began reciting the Quran. He held my sisters' hands.“Allah, Allah,” he whispered. Over and over.

We sat by his feet, crying, praying, hoping the morning light would save him. But he was already drifting.

Neighbours helped us carry him toward the car. My sister and I on either side. Then something strange happened.

His eyes locked on a place we couldn't see. His breathing stopped. I called his name. Once. Twice. Then I shut his eyes with my own hands.

That moment stole the air from our lives.

In the hours that followed, silence became a presence. In the years that followed, my mother became a force.

Shahida Chishti, forty-two, newly widowed, stood tall for us. With gentleness and iron in equal parts, she made sure we didn't crumble. That we stayed rooted. That we lived in the light of the values my father left behind.

My grandparents, too - Syed Abdul Rashid Gilani and Syeda Sakina Gilani - stepped in with arms wide open. Their love held us like a net under a falling world. They taught us dignity. They gave us faith. They filled in the blanks left by his absence with everything they had.

And yet, I still go to my father's grave and speak in silence. I tell him what I can't tell anyone else. That I miss him. That I try. That I wish my children had known him.

They never saw him, my sons Arshad and Murshad, or my daughter Sarah. But when they recite the Quran, when they say his name in prayer, I feel him near. It's a strange comfort, a bond unbroken by death, kept alive through words and blood and faith.

My daughter's voice in our home, echoing verses, makes me believe love survives in memory and sound.

There's something holy about this chain we carry. The love of a man who left before his time, and the way it keeps returning through the lives of those who never even met him. It's not grief anymore. It's inheritance.

And on nights when the sky turns the colour and my heart feels heavy, I remember that one night in June. When a father waited for dawn, whispered his prayers, and walked into the light - calmly, with grace, and holding on to the hands he loved.

• Syed Majid Gilani is a government officer and storyteller who writes about memory, family, and the unseen community threads. Reach him at [email protected] .

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