My Dearest Ruban,Today, sitting thousands of miles away from our home in the Valley, an email arrived from your school. They requested that your mother and I be present by your side for an upcoming event. As I stared at those words on my screen, a wave of bittersweet memories came washing over me—transporting me straight back to my own childhood in Kashmir, to the crisp morning air, the quiet school corridors, and a young heart carrying an unsaid ache.When I was a boy studying at the Muslim Model Educational Trust (MMET) in Pulwama, there were so many days when the teachers asked us to bring our fathers. I remember one morning so vividly. The school needed my father to come, but your Grandpa was posted far away in the distant, snow-lined reaches of Kralpora, Kupwara, bound to his government duty. He couldn’t make it. Once again, it was my Chacha or my Grandpa who walked through those gates holding my small hand.

For years, that quiet pain stayed buried in my heart. I used to complain to my father with a child’s innocence and hurt, asking him why he couldn’t just take a day off, why he couldn’t carve out a little time to stand beside me at school like other fathers did for their children. I wondered if work meant more to him than I did. Whenever I brought up this grievance, your Babba would look at me with gentle, weary eyes and say, “My son, when you grow up and step into this hard world, life itself will give you the answer. It is never that I don’t want to be beside you. But to fulfill your dreams, to ensure your hands never face hardship, to put warm food on our table and give you the finest education possible, I must be where duty calls. My love for you is written in the miles I travel and........

© Greater Kashmir