Category: Articles

With creating brand Amigo’s, Tariq Bhat popularised pizza in valley

A successful entrepreneurial venture generally has a small beginning. It starts with an idea and grows with the addition of right ingredients. Then it is the constant tinkering with the recipe to make it the best. But for Tariq Ahmed Bhat venturing into restaurant business and making Amigo’s city’s most sought-after eat-out place among the youth was to completely provide a new menu. He has to popularise Italian pizza in Wazwan-loving Kashmir.

Within 10 years of his ‘humble’ beginning, this 33-year-old not only developed Kashmir’s appetite for pizza but has been able to also disrupt the traditional restaurant business of the valley with providing an alternative successfully.

Started with two people, three serving tables and Rs 1.2 lakh investment in 2008 as a ‘kind-of-a’ sub-franchise of a ‘not-so popular’ Indian pizza chain outside Amar Singh College in Gogji Bagh area of city, which would see hardly any customer during the initial days, is now the most popular pizzeria of Srinagar. Amigo’s, as the restaurant was later named, besides serving about 50 varieties of pizza, is now offering Lebanese, continental, Indian, Chinese, fast foods and other Italian dishes with staff support of 150 people in its three outlets. With a daily business of about half a million, Amigo’s gets to have the biggest piece of pie on pizza’s Kashmir sales.

A 2006 science graduate from Amar Singh College, Tariq like any other youth of Kashmir wanted to go for some government job after completing his education.

“My father was a government officer and I was expecting he would help me in getting some job. But he did not,” says Tariq. “I had never thought of doing a business. It was sheer coincidence of being at the right place at the right time, which became reason for me to venture into this business.”

A family friend suggested Tariq’s father that to make use of their two idle shops outside their home in Gogji Bagh they should open some kind of a business. The family friend was also friends with the owner of a pizza franchise in Srinagar, which was recently opened then, he helped the family to make an arrangement for selling the pizzas at their shop.

While a semi-trained chef and a waiter was hired to run the pizza shop, Tariq was asked to sit at the counter as he was not doing anything at that time.

“The franchise-owner would supply us semi-prepared stuff and we just had to put it in the oven and provide to a customer. But we could not make any mark with this arrangement,” says Tariq. “Daily sales would not be more than Rs 1,000-Rs 1,500. I would pull out the money from the drawer 10 times a day and count it. We would be sitting mostly idle. Not many people would visit initially.”

Those days friends and relatives would visit Tariq’s family and suggest them many businesses, like opening a stationery or a photocopying shop as the place was located outside a popular city college.

“There would be hardly anyone from this side those days,” says Tariq, pointing towards the area his restaurant is situated in. “Sometimes some college going boys would come inside and ask for mobile recharge. When we would tell them that we make pizzas, most of them would not know and they will ask what is that.”

“It was a very difficult thing earlier and we had to be extremely patient due to non-popularity of the pizza here in Srinagar city. It is very difficult to introduce a new idea in a place like Kashmir, which is already facing many challenges,” he adds.

Finally, Tariq, who was not initially that much interested in the business, took the lead and started to look for the ways to make it work. After, observing for some time and thinking about different aspects of it, Tariq found that, besides pizza not being that popular, the stuff they provide is not also quality wise that good. So as a first step towards the improvement, Tariq hired a well-trained chef.

“The chef was highly trained and very sharp but would throw lot of tantrums. So it was very hard to work with him. But I would deal very patiently with him. We started to prepare the pizzas on our own instead taking the semi-prepared stuff and within sometime things started improving,” says Tariq.

Explaining, how unpopular the pizza in Kashmir was those day, Tariq has a number of anecdotes to share.

“Once a doctor came here, and ordered a roast chicken pizza. When we prepared the pizza and put it on his table, he refused to eat and said that he had ordered a roasted chicken, which we were not serving at that time. We had to take back the order,” says Tariq.

He says within the span of next two years, when Tariq started to give attention to all aspects of the restaurant personally, daily sales reached Rs 40,000 to Rs 50,000 and the clientele increased day-by-day.

Besides his hard work and stress on quality of his product, Tariq says there was an invisible hand in his success.

“Those days there were lot of advertisements of Pizza Hut and Domino’s (two American pizza restaurant chains) on television. Kids and teenagers would be curious to eat a pizza. So they would demand pizza from their parents. As these brands were not here in Kashmir, they would come to Amigo’s,” says Tariq.

Most of Amigo’s customers even these days are kids and youngsters from 6 years to 30 years of age as they want to taste new things and do not just want to stick to traditional stuff only, he says.

“Now we have reached a stage when I see children holding hand of their grandparents bringing them in to eat pizza here. Pizza has made Amigo’s popular in Kashmir and Amigo’s popularised pizza here,” Tariq says, with a smile on his face.

Amigo’s in real sense has become the friend, as it means in Spanish, of the youth in Kashmir. “Besides tasting their favourite food, it is the entertainment place for them. Amigo’s provided this new place to youngsters of Kashmir, where they are able to enjoy something different. Kashmir undoubtedly has some great restaurants but for the youngsters you won’t find anything attractive and Amigo’s filled that gap,” says Tariq.

Besides its main restaurant in Gogji Bagh, Amigo’s Foods and Hospitalities has now two more self-owned restaurants, one outside Kashmir University campus in Hazratbal area of the city and another in southern Kashmir’s Anantnag town. It also has home delivery facilities in most of the areas of Srinagar city.

Tariq says Amigo’s clients are not Srinagarties only but people from far-off places like Kupwara, Bandipore and Shopian come to eat at the restaurants or takeaway.

“The Anantnag restaurant of Amigo’s has been first such place in the second largest town of Kashmir, after Srinagar city. Before, opening Amigo’s in the town there was no such place for people to go out. It has developed the culture of eating-out in the town, which is good for overall business of the town,” says Tariq.

However, for opening more such outlets in the other towns of Kashmir, Tariq has a strict plan. He won’t be awarding any franchises. “We will have our own outlet were will have full control over quality. We won’t harm our brand name, which we have earned with lot of hard work. It happens most of time, when you provide franchises. Maintaining food quality is our primary objective,” he says.

For Tariq, there is no compromise on quality and hygiene of food, and services even if that comes at a cost.

To keep grip over things and maintain quality, Tariq has learned all the technical aspects of the trade himself. He has even received training in the pizza making. “So there is no chance for things to go out of hand. I take charge of things myself, whenever there is need,” he says.

The biggest challenge for Tariq is availability of skilled staff locally. He has to bring the chefs and other skilled service providers from outside, while as his majority workers are hired locally.

While there are no immediate plans of opening new outlets, Tariq is working on some other projects in the food industry.

The first project is a mechanised bakery unit, which Amigo’s is setting up at Khanmoh Industrial Estates. “This project is near completion and we will be providing all items of bakery, biscuits, cakes, confectionary etc from the coming Eid. Presently about 40 people are working on this project and our outlets would be spread in all the towns of Kashmir,” says Tariq.

Amigo’s second project is from farm to table. On experimental basis, Tariq says, he rented a poultry farm and started rearing chicken on his own. “The aim is to have control over quality and know what you are feeding your customers,” says Tariq, adding that all the chicken consumed this year by Amigo’s was self produced. “When there are so many apprehensions about the chicken, we know what we have fed them and can provide assurance to our customers.”

However, Tariq wants to take a leap in the sector, which can lead to lot of employment generation and help empower local farmers. But he rues that there is no policy support for such initiatives from the government.

Tariq says he has never used social media or advertising for promoting Amigo’s. “Facebook, Instagram and Twitter can introduce you in the market but you cannot sustain. I have not given a single advertisement so far. It is only through word of the mouth and our quality of food,” he says.

Tariq claims that he has never taken a loan from bank or received any other financial support except for the initial investment of Rs 1.2 lakh from his father.

“However, whatever I earned, I reinvested it in my business instead of buying properties or spending on buying expensive cars,” he says.

But he says it needs lot of family support. He thanks his father and brothers for taking responsibilities and making Amigo’s what it is today.

His advice to youth is that money or finances can never be a roadblock for becoming an entrepreneur. Business is not about money, it is about an idea and its execution with a rebel attitude to do it, he says.

The Article Was First Published in Kashmir’s Leading NewsPaper Greater Kashmir

Asma Ali Zain

It may be an expensive spice but you cannot put a label or price on health, said Professor Amr Amin who has researched a breakthrough in the properties of saffron in fighting liver cancer.
Speaking to Khaleej Times, Professor Amin from Cellular & Molecular Biology at United Arab Emirates University said that researchers have investigated and found saffron to have anti-liver cancer properties.
“Safranal, a major biomolecule of the golden spice saffron arrests and stops the cancer cell division at two different stages,” he said.
“It can now be made into drugs and we are looking into whether the same can be used to fight breast and colorectal cancers as well,” said Prof Amin.
The UAE researchers have been working on this project since 2011 when they first published the research in the Hepatology Journal.
The study suggests a novel mechanism of anti-proliferative activity of safranal against human liver cancer cells.
“This molecule could serve as a novel and/or adjuvant drug to treat liver cancer,” said Dr Amin.
The findings are now also published in a Nature journal Scientific Reports.
The work is in collaboration with experts in RNAseq analysis and System Biology from New York University Abu Dhabi and in Pharmacology from the University of Sharjah.
Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) accounts for about 80 per cent of all liver cancers, among top common cancers in the world and is the second leading cause of cancer death worldwide.
Poor prognoses remain the most challenging aspect of HCC therapy. Consequently, alternative therapeutics are essential to control HCC.
“Liver cancer was the fifth cause of death in the UAE but now it is at number four.this is how serious the disease is here,” he said.
Saffron has 160 ingredients and the team identified the active ingredient (molecule, safranal) fighting cancer.
“The ingredient works in two ways; it stops cell division and promotes cell death,” he explained.
Prof Amin and colleagues concluded that safranal exerts its anticancer effect in HepG2 cells by inhibiting DNA repair, resulting in increased DNA damage.
“To translate this in real life, we have already done the testing on rats/mice and in humans it will be done not in the far future,” he said.
“We hope we can achieve a clinical trial soon,” he added. Clinical trials depend on permissions and may take from anywhere between six months to one year before being developed into a drug.
This study was supported by Al Jalila Foundation Fund and UAEU Programme for Advanced Research Fund by Zayed Center for Health Sciences Fund, and in part by New York University Abu Dhabi Faculty Research Fund and by NYUAD Institute grant.

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Siddiq Wahid

After reading the last edition of this column which argued that “Real resistance must think local, act global”, a friend called to question me about the use of the word “real” in the title. A nuanced reader, he was too polite to say it, but was probably troubled by the hierarchy of resistance implicit in the essay’s title.
The word was a last-minute addition by me, almost frivolous self-criticism. But frivolity can echo mental spontaneity reflecting a genuine political problematic. The questions occupied me for some time. Then it occurred to me that my insertion of the word “real” was an instinctive surfacing of questions about our resistance lingering within me. At what stage of our resistance are we in? Does venting opinion in social media without influencing reasons of state for its unreason merely justify complacency? When does emotional rhetoric give way to grounded action? When does personal grief cease to be shared voyeurism? When does enraged reaction stop translating into mob action?
The questions are not meant to disparage rhetoric or to decontextualize angry opinion, voyeuristic trend or mob passion. When we resist, even imprudent reactions to oppression have their reason. And, as we well know, our reactions are directedly proportionate to the quality and quantum of violence perpetrated by raw state power. In this context, understanding stages in resistance helps us to define, hone and articulate it, to take it to the next level. It makes the resistance historically more self-aware, legally more defined and politically more diagnostic. Gilgit, Baltistan, Ladakh and Jammu (the other constituent parts of the disputed State of J&K) may not be at the same stage in the trajectory of political movements, but Kashmir has entered it. And it is a powerful one.
Vocal and overt resistance
The resistance in Kashmir has several layers to it. Of these, the first is the establishment-defined moderate (often a euphemism for “people who think like us”) Kashmiris. In the last thirty years, such “moderates” have become an endangered species, thanks to the efforts of icy governmentality. It has managed to alienate large swaths of Kashmiri society – from school going children to senior citizens to senior bureaucrats to businesswomen. They bear witness to Delhi’s transition from being biased (the logical outcome of politically cunning) to being prejudiced (the result of ignorance) to being bigoted (the harvest of not wanting to know). To convince anyone in Kashmiri society today to expect good faith from Delhi will take no less than reversing the country’s (majoritarian driven) domestic doctrine and its (Islamophobia driven) foreign policy of the last thirty years.
The second advance in methodical resistance is the work of the Kashmiri resident and diasporic intellectuals. The young and young-at-heart among them have become a formidable pressure group in South Asia, the United States, Europe and elsewhere. Many are writing books, doctoral theses and academic articles on Kashmir’s history, anthropology, politics and other academic disciplines. Others are writing journalistic editorials with sound polemical analysis and nuanced argumentation. If they are under 40 years of age, they have known nothing other than military rule and political deceit. On breathing the air of freedom of thought and expression, it is easy for them to bear witness to how Kashmir has been deprived of determining its own future. Their academic work becomes effortless resistance. It is causing many world capitals to learn that the dispute over the State of J&K is not fully understood. And more immediately, that not all is well in Kashmir. Such work provides a qualitatively different interpretation of the dispute. It is not going unnoticed.
The third aspect of the political maturation of Kashmir is the anger of the politically radical insurgency among its young. It is an anger powered by the knowledge that in recent history scores of smaller nations in the former Soviet Union great state and the experimental post-colonial ones of Indonesia, Sudan and Ethiopia have demanded freedom and won. In part, these nations have reaped, successfully, the results of an “emerging” (albeit for almost three decades now) new world order. This political youth bulge understands future history as they learn about the Quebecois, Scots, Kurds, Uyghurs, Catalan and other nations that negotiate or agitate for greater political equality and access equity. They are many and they know that they are on the right side of history.
Incremental resistance
However, such vocal segments of society, even combined, are a minority in any resistance against injustice. What of the less outspoken or non-vocal sections of society?
The last installment of this column argued that the time for incremental progress toward the resolution of the conflicted dispute (CBMs, “jobs for youth” and the so-called “peace process”) over Kashmir has passed; that it was time for state to state (so statist) efforts at resolution to accept hard political truths to unravel the tangled web woven by conventional statecraft. Resolution, we argued, can be expected only with a paradigm shift in idea. This can either be forced or it can evolve. The choice between these options is in the making as we speak.
Meanwhile, resistance will continue in all the forms that we have grown familiar with, including writings and speechmaking, strikes and stone pelting, armed insurgency and unarmed protectors. All of them together, however, are but a small segment of society. What of the civil society majority, sometimes unfairly called the “silent” majority? Homemakers and teachers, farmers and shopkeepers, academics and NGO workers, journalists and researchers, corporate workers and small business employees, shopkeepers and entrepreneurs. What must they do to resist as they continue to lead their everyday lives?
Even when their lives are illegitimately intruded on, people want to lead normal lives. To sell and buy, teach and learn, read and write, circle families and friends. Governmentality works to intrude in all these arenas, to be omnipresent in the interests of control. It must be resisted even under normal circumstances. But, under conditions of territorial occupation, oppressive power or citizen suppression (whichever is your interpretation of our condition in Kashmir) it must be resisted in the interests of collective self-determination and individual privacy; it must be resisted every day despite the abundant use of state guile.
This last comes in many forms. With propaganda, by telling us that we can be “global” before the “local”. Resist it, because we cannot understand globalism by abdicating localism. By coopting us, to make us employees of governmentality. Literally, so that our livelihood depends on it; metaphorically, so that we feel (irrationally) beholden to it. Reason out of it, because it is not natural. Another guile is to use us as the state’s “assets” in our roles as writers, academics, businesspersons or employees by recruiting us for anti-people projects, to divulge strategies and even to inform. Reject it out of hand, because that is betrayal.
These methods of resistance are slow and long term. But they are a method and a loyal response. Call it the incremental resistance of citizens.

To understand the knockout punch delivered by the BJP to the PDP months ago, we must dig deep

Siddiq Wahid

The first business of politicians is to acquire power. Usually their second errand is to build an edifice to retain power. Their third and crucial task, often neglected, is to regulate the use of power to prevent abuse. So, to say that a government collapsed because ‘politicians are interested only in power’, as some analyses have done, is to state the self-evident. And stating the obvious fosters tolerance for the merely acceptable, as opposed to the search for what is right.
Therefore, to understand the knockout punch delivered by the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) a month ago, we must dig deep. The so-called coalition became dysfunctional almost immediate after it was born and turned out to be a treacherous mismatch. Why?

Because on the one hand the BJP is the synthetic outcome of an organizational network that has been cultivated for a century with a clear vision of a territorial, literalist and puritanical Hindu India. The Muslim-majority State of J&K has been a threat to all these claims. The PDP, on the other hand, is an infant political party. Its vision was drafted to nuance divide-and-rule. Its mission was crafted to clip the wings of the National Conference (NC). Its politics is defined by individual guile rather than collective wisdom. It underestimated the BJP’s potency.
In coalescing with the BJP, the late Mufti Mohammed Sayeed’s stated ambition was to “change the politics” of the state. But it was delusional to think that this could succeed in alliance with a party that is diametrically the opposite of the PDP in historical maturity, stated creed and tactical prowess. And, also, a party that the PDP vilified during the 2014 campaign. Consequently, both PDP Chief Ministers were forced to swallow the uncertainty of several ups and downs and the indignity of repeated affronts and insults. In advancing a tactic that was a colossal miscalculation and a cynical gamble, the PDP overestimated its capability.
It is normal to overestimate oneself at times and, at other times, to underestimate others. But to do both at the same time is to fall prey to hubris, false pride.

A predictable fall

The formal collapse of the government was predictable, especially after the death of the architect of the PDP’s strategy and tactics. There has been a lot of finger-pointing between coalition partners, but common sense tells us that both parties are equally to blame.
The BJP’s motives for initiating the final fall are not difficult to discern. It desperately needs to consolidate its strategy for the 2019 general elections. J&K, as a Muslim majority state, has always rankled the BJP-RSS combine. Short of decreeing demographic flooding (as is openly advocated by its more radical family members) the BJP is doing all it can to foment Hindutva-centric politics in Kashmir. The PDP has provided it with a toehold in the state that may become a permanent platform for it in the astonishingly short span of three and a half years. To start Campaign 2019 in the J&K state is to strike at two birds – the state and the general elections – with a single stone.
A second BJP inspired reason for bringing down the government is the failure of the military’s Operation All Out, which was designed to not let human rights violations be a hindrance to policy. The Report of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was a stinging rebuke. The BJP cannot be seen as weak by its base, so the world’s bulkiest democracy has resorted to stone-walling and its brazen denial of human rights violations. In this approach, it panders to that audience.
The PDP’s role in the fall is simpler: weaknesses in its individual and collective leadership. At the start of her political career, Mehbooba Mufti distinguished herself with a startling instinct and capacity for political mobilization. She sympathized with individuals, stirred crowds and protested cruelty, of which there was plenty, as there is now, between 2000 and 2014. It served her well as an opposition leader. Then, during the 2002 – 2008 coalition with the Congress, it was helpful as a good-cop-bad-cop routine between mentor and mentee. But in power the second time around, especially after her father’s passing, she has proven herself unable to sit at a table to dialogue and negotiate with her party colleagues or with the BJP. She became untenable as the Chief Minister of a state that is all about negotiating, both internal and external.
To be fair, Ms. Mufti was emotionally blackmailed by the loss of her father and political mentor. She believed that her father’s political legacy was his role in the formation of the party. In truth, his legacy was his ability to compromise and cobble coalitions for a party without a history. His daughter was not required to acquire such dexterity. On becoming Chief Minister, it was too late to learn these skills for herself and she was unable to them in those in her ambitious coterie who possessed it. In their turn the coterie, rather than compensate for the void in her political skills, used the vacuum to further their own personal ambitions.
It resulted in the PDP becoming a party of ambitious individuals rather than a party with an ambitious vision.

Fallout – the local dimension

The coalition’s collapse has had many fallouts – personal and party; state and national; local and global. Some thoughts on the two spaces paired in the last category.
The security approach in J&K has not been different through several governments in Delhi. Today, it has an overtly stated Kashmir policy. To understand it we need to travel to the other end of the Himalaya. In Assam, the government has a proposal to “delete” (digitally speaking) millions of Muslims from the electoral roles. In Kashmir, such a brazen policy will not succeed. But the restructuring of the polity through Hindutva assertion, “militarized pilgrimage” and the recruitment of snollygosters are already in play as tactics.
Strategically, the PDP may have “changed the politics” of J&K state since 2002 but it has also helped Delhi restructure the polity to disable any homegrown party from forming a government singly. Logically, this suggests that the task of the regional political parties must be to foil (“undo”, again digitally speaking) this practice. Instead, the two PDP Chief Ministers have stoically borne the many ups and downs and the indignity of affronts and insults during the 42-month life of the coalition. It should give pause for thought.
For the every-person in Kashmir the mask has been off since 2008. But between 2016 and 2018 she has had to bear the costs of a murderous muscularity that the numerically senior partner in the coalition, the PDP, was unwilling to protest and unable to reject with any conviction. Its non-action has revived armed rebellion and confirmed Kashmiri apprehension about Indian intent.

The global dimension

Delhi’s stated policy on the State of J&K has enhanced the dispute’s international dimension. We have already mentioned the 2018 OHCHR Report. The Government of India’s knee jerk denials and self-righteous responses have only underscored its false reasoning, which was aptly rebutted by the UN Secretary General. It is a tactical defeat for India on the global stage.
There may be strategic set-backs too. New Delhi and Washington have drawn closer to each other since the collapse of the Cold War regime. Almost immediately after 1991, the United States saw Delhi as a counterweight to Beijing’s assertiveness in South Asia. By 2014 Narendra Modi’s charm offensive (his invite to the South Asian states for his inauguration, for example) and self-confident (56-inch chest) personality were also cause for hope in Washington’s relations with a presumed democratic government. However, the charm and democracy quotients have both been belied. Delhi is hugely isolated in its neighborhood and an irrational Indian Islamophobia has sharply raised doubts about India’s democratic robustness. This is not lost on the United States. An insulated and nominally democratic India is no match against a “China-Pakistan Axis”, to cite Andrew Small’s book of that title, in the emerging Asian geopolitical order.
It would be facile to suggest, on the strength of the above, that the India-US “strategic partnership” is under any imminent threat. South Asia as a marketplace for corporate wealth interests is still a strong argument. But that too is strained. A Washington based think-tank’s recent analysis of the collapse of the J&K state government observes that although South Asia is “home to a fourth of the world’s population”, it is economically stunted by the India-Pakistan discord. The region, notes the analysis, is not all good news with only “5 percent trade integration, the lowest rate in the world”.
But for the ‘internationalization’ of the troubles in J&K state to be of benefit to its citizens we must recognize this: that it is not a localized problem nor a global non-event. It is a part of globalization, the process, which has rapidly complicated the dispute since the 1990s. Its resolution must be framed in the context of globality, the idea. If we ignore these facts, South Asia’s future will be politically, economically and environmentally disastrous.

Tailpiece

The failures of the coalition government also had a positive effect: namely, greater articulacy in the resistance. This is epitomized by the eloquent, logical and internally conciliatory treatise of the scholar-rebel, Manan Wani. First published by CNS, but taken down several times since, it is an essay that illustrates Kashmir’s place as “one of the most politically mature nations of the world”. We must believe it and act accordingly.

Arshad Ali (psychologist)

Today’s children are growing up in a radio-frequency environment that never existed in human history before. The radiation emitted by mobile phones and mobile phone masts can have adverse effects on children. In our state the total population of children’s age group 6-16 is 23 lakhs and 18 thousands. Parents don’t know how much mobile phone effect children’s physiological system as well as their psychological system. Parents must pay special attention towards their children’s and to motivate them for limited use of mobile phones. Here are some negative effects of mobile phones:

1. Health Hazard:

In the recent years, there has been a lot of speculation about the impact of cell phone radiation on our body. A study by The Journal of the American Medical Association stirred the debate when it investigated the repercussion the mobile phones could have on the brain activity. The possible health hazards of mobile phones for children are as follows:

A. Non-Malignant Tumors:

The study has shown that children who use mobile phones have a possibility of developing non-malignant tumor in the brain and ear.

B. Cancer:

The WHO has classified cell phone radiation as ‘possibly carcinogenic to humans’. Children absorb more than 60 percent of the radiation into the brain than adults. Their brain’s thinner skin, tissues, and bones allow them to absorb the radiation twice than the grown-ups. Their developing nervous system makes them more vulnerable to this ‘carcinogen’.

C. Effects on The Brain:

Scientists have discovered that just 2 minutes of the phone call can alter the electoral activity of the kid’s brain for up to an hour. The radio waves from the mobile penetrate deep into the brain, not just around the ear. The disturbed brain activity could impair children’s learning ability and other behavioural problems. It could even affect their mood and ability to learn in the classroom if they have used the phone during the break time.

2. Academics:

Children, just like the teens, are addicted to mobile phones. They play games, chat and talk to their friends on their mobile phone all the time. Along with the school supplies, many students make their daily trips to their school with their mobile phones. They talk on the phone during the free time and send messages during the classes. Thus, they miss the lesson taught and fall behind the other students.

3. Inappropriate Behavior:

Use of cell phones can lead children to engage in inappropriate behaviors. Texting and sending inappropriate pictures is a growing problem with teens. The images go in the wrong hands, giving others access to the private photos. Children can also access pornographic sites from their multimedia devices.

4. Malpractice In Exams:

Most of the students indulge in exam malpractices and cheating during the internal and external examinations. Some make use of calculator while other store information in it. Some also use it to send objective answers to those in the examination hall. It can end the student’s career if caught.

Mobile Phone Safety for Kids:

As a parent, you must take preventive measures to minimize your child’s exposure to the harmful effects of mobile phones. These include:

• Do not give cell phone if your child is under 16 years. A child’s brain is too sensitive to withstand the effects of mobile radiation.

• Do not let your child hold a mobile phone directly up to his head. Use an air-tube headset instead.

• Do not let your child make calls in buses, trains, cars, and elevators. The mobile phone works harder to get the signal out through the metal, which increases the power level.

• Do not let your child use cell phone when the signal is weak. It will increase the power to the maximum, as the phone attempts to connect to a new relay antenna.

• Limit the use of cell phone around children.

• Make sure that there is no mobile phone mast or network tower near your home or your kid’s school.

• Do not leave mobile phones in your children’s bedroom at night.

So these are the harmful effects of mobile phones on children. 

Please share this information with parents who have children’s under the age of 16 years. 

By Javeed Ali

Internet has become an important part of our lives. It has made inroads in every sphere of our daily schedule.  It has made the world a “Global Village” where everyone is connected to each other just a click away.  It is a storehouse of information on all subjects and events. It has made information access easier and user friendly. Volumes of information is imbibed in few KBs of databank and is made available to all information seekers through Internet all over the globe. Internet has made our chores comfortable and streamlined the functioning of all existing processes. Anything of everything can be found on Internet in a flash. Business and trade have also made its dependence on Internet owing to its innovative and well connected system with the customers.  

The most widely used part of Internet is Social Networking sites like Twitter, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram and so on which are used by almost every soul on this earth. In present times, Social Media have occupied the special place in all aspects of daily routine of all human beings belonging to different thoughts and ideologies. We do spend most of our time on Social Media for different purposes and requirements. Some use it in a productive way and achieve best results which help them to sustain their life in an immaculate way. On the other side, some use it in a negative way which spoils their life and future endeavours.

With all the good things comes the bad things as well and same is the case with Internet. Despite the fact it has brought many handy things in our life, it has also snatched the basic morals and ethics of our life. Netizens spend a larger part of their time on Internet thereby preventing them from performing the traditional and religious activities which are of paramount importance to attain the salvation and cheerfulness in our lives. Positive aspect of Internet cannot be ignored and in the same way negative segment cannot be sidelined.  There are two important parameters of every human soul with which life is spent i.e., Cultural values and religious beliefs. Both need time and which in most cases is lost on Internet/Social Media. Our religion along with our family needs our time which we unfortunately waste on unnecessary things on Social Media Networks and Internet. We get too much engrossed in virtual world (Internet) that we forget about our real life which craves for our attention.

In Islam, there is a concept known as “Silah Rehmi” which means to visit our nears and dears frequently and to enquire about their wellbeing. Lot of emphasis have been laid over it. Also, there is a Hadith which says  that even if it takes two years journey to visit a relative staying at far away place we should embark on that journey.  Visiting our relatives and friends makes us fresh, thrilled and we get a much needed relief from our daily anxieties. With the advent of Internet, we have confined ourselves to Smartphones, Tablets and other gadgets which have harmed our social life to a large extent. In past, people used to spend their time with elders, peers and younger ones and used to exchange pleasantries followed by useful conversations which have always proved beneficial for the betterment of the society in general and for individuals in particular. It’s a proven fact that visiting our relatives and friends have a lot of religious and natural benefits which we normally waste on digital world. Its tragic that we lose these benefits due to undue usage of Internet facility which can be avoided to optimize our life as per our religious beliefs and traditional customs. Internet is a boon but when it’s used injudiciously then it becomes a bane. It can make or mar one’s life depending upon how its utilized. We do stay online on Social Networking Sites for excessive time which also hampers the process of nurturing our talent as we don’t give a sufficient time on improving our skills.

Its said that excess to everything is bad and same applies for Internet and Social Media. The time which could have been used for fruitful purposes is wasted on useless gossips and discussions on Social Media. The time which could have been used for reading informative and religious books is wasted on rebuking and cursing our opponents on Internet. The time which could have been spent performing our religious obligations is destroyed on watching obscene and abominable videos on YouTube.

There are some Internet Service Providers (ISPs) which provide free Internet facility but we fail to understand that they snatch our precious time and solace which is more worthy and priceless. Our parents crave for our presence and words but we never bother to spent our time with them despite knowing that spending time with them is “Ibadah” (worship).

On the cultural part, we are completely lost. For instance, modern day Kashmiri girl can’t sing a Kashmiri wedding folk song “Wanwun” as she finds more comfort in Western music which is easily accessed on Smartphones via Internet. The time will come when “Wanwun” will be only in the History books of Kashmir.  

We have got too much dependent on Internet which has made us lethargic and we badly fail in our religious and cultural facets of our life. The toll of obese people are increasing day by day as they don’t spare time for exercises and outings as a result they become physically weak and lazy. Staying online for late night hours have made us insomniac which has made us unable to get a proper sleep. Staying glued to digital gadgets also damages the eyesight and leads to a disease know as Computer Vision Syndrome (CVS) which also puts strain and pain in eyes. Working adults aren’t the only ones affected. Kids who stare at tablets or use computers also face the same issues.   

At times the establishment in Kashmir snaps the internet facility which according to them is to prevent rumour mongers from spreading rumours and to keep situation under control in order to maintain law & order. We do get miffed with frequent breakdown of Internet facility and it also hobbles the economic growth as much of the business is dependent on it. Losses worth billions are incurred and people do suffer on economic front. Economic losses due to Internet blockage cannot be neglected but I want people to use this in a positive way. This should not be construed that I support the Internet breakdown by the authorities but I aspire that we should achieve positive benefits out of it. We can try to achieve back the lost cultural and religious values in times of no Internet and get back to our real life. In Quran, its mentioned that we should stay away from those things which takes us away from the creator. if disproportionate Internet usage becomes a hurdle in achieving our religious and social goals we should give it a break and Internet ban can play a vital role in that direction.

Generally students and aspirants who are preparing for various competitive exams waste their time on Internet and Social Media which shatters their preparations and they fail to excel in their respective exams. One of the toppers of Kashmir once said that she topped in her exams as she stayed aloof from Social Media and that paved the way for her brilliant success in her exams. When Internet is banned owing to security reasons by Govt, the same time period could be utilized aptly to outshine in various tests including competitive exams.   

Life is beautiful and sometimes it should be spent in nature to enjoy the real beauty of our existence away from artificial world (Internet). There is no doubt that we suffer economically due to frequent Internet blockades but at the same time it can be used in a positive note with which we can get back to our real life and generate and promote creativity in us.

Former President of India A. P. J. Abdul Kalam once said, “Sometimes, it’s better to bunk a class and enjoy with friends”. We can apply the same trend vis-à-vis Internet in which we can get off from the Internet sometimes to enjoy the real elegance and charm of nature. Momentarily Internet stoppage provides us an opportune moment to accomplish the same.

The  Writer Can Be Reached At [email protected]

 

   

A woman should be known by her skills, conduct, intellect and personality. Her physical appearance is neither anybody’s property nor an object of display.

I am a Niqabi, and contrary to popular belief, I am not oppressed. I have a thrilling social life and love to watch Ronaldo playing. However, I am always amused and sometimes irked with the looks of curiosity people direct towards me. Niqab is considered the sign of oppression on woman, or as an act of what is called Talibanism and almost everyone is suspicious of it and this is why I have been asked some awkward questions like ‘Have your father forced you to wear it’, to some hilarious questions like ‘How do you eat or drink or How do you breathe’, which I generally don’t answer as I would wish to, but then I think to myself, Do they really know what woman empowerment means?

Today when the world is celebrating ‘International Women’s Day’, being a Niqabi I was targeted for the whole day by everyone who spoke at the event, as if the woman who wears western clothes and roams around the city half-naked is the only empowered woman. Yes, that could be a sign of woman empowerment, unless she is doing it out of her own will and not being forced by anyone, not even by the society. If banning Niqab is considered as Woman Empowerment, will the revolt of women against wearing high heels as a part of corporate dress code (as done some days ago), counted as woman empowerment? Does woman empowerment only mean marginalizing power in women so that they can walk shoulder to shoulder with men? Does not woman empowerment mean to let the woman do what she wants, to let her wear what she wants to wear, even if she wants to wear a Niqab?

Everyone around me wanted me to be a high-achiever but when I started to wear Niqab all of them were guilty of complimenting it. As a result, I find myself fighting this stereotype on a daily basis. Not only do I have to fight this mindset in order to focus on what truly matters to me, I also have to deal with the consequences- I am still judged first and foremost by my Niqab instead of my ideas.  I pay the price for what matters to me. And I am fighting against a society that looks at my Niqab before it even listens to what I am saying. Even though I might not be better than them, I am not any less than them either just because I cover my face. Niqab does not warp me into a mentally incapable being, it is not a lead box designed to store radioactive elements. It does not bind my mind. I think, I process information and I also form opinions. When I wear a Niqab I feel unburdened and liberated.

I have been wearing skirt as a school uniform and I guess I was the only girl in my school to wear it at the age of 15, I then switched to Niqab when I joined my college, not because my father wanted me to or the society wanted me to but because I wanted to wear it. It has been rightly said, “A woman should be two things: who and what she wants.” And that’s what inspired me. I have studied in co-education school, I am pursuing a career, I drive a scooty and I wear Niqab, if you still think I am oppressed then I am the happiest oppressed person alive. My Niqab might be for religious purposes, but that does not mean someone is obliged to start a religion war with me. Opting for Niqab is my choice, just like not opting for it is someone else. I support the idea that a woman should wear whatever she wants to irrespective of what society wants her to wear, and that’s what ‘empowerment’ means to me. I also accept the fact that many people don’t like the Niqab and I expect them to show me a similar level of tolerance, especially when tolerance is what they are ranting about all day long. Support woman in whatever she chooses to be, and when you do so, you are working toward empowerment of woman. We are real, intelligent people just like other. Treat us as equals.

By: Tawqeer Un Nissa (Student of Social Science at Kashmir University)

Malik Asif Noor

Health sector speaks volumes about the mental evolution of the people and if in any part of the world, this sector is put on the back seat, it has direct bearing on the social development of that land. As a nation we are suffering on every front and life is miserable in this “alcove of saints” and since the fact lies that due to the frequent public uprisings and intermittent mass movements, the health sector happens to be the worst hit.

Now it seems that the State government has decided to add salt to the injury. I think so because I have my personal views for this and evidence to support my opinion. As chairman of an NGO, “WE VOLUNTEERS” I frequently have to visit different hospitals especially at Srinagar to see the people whom our organization is taking care of and look into their admission in the hospital to their medication and other related issues.

In this connection I recently had to see a patient who had been rushed to casualty due to some medical exigency at SMHS Srinagar, a hospital that gives us an insight into the broad vision the people who have established it way back in 1940, with a motive not only to cater to the needs of their times but to be ready for the challenges that would take place far ahead. The colossal structure of the hospital, the expansion of the building demands a sense of respect for the people who had such great thinking.

My ordeal began right at the main entrance that has recently been dislocated and shifted somewhat towards the KAKSARAI CHOWK. I had to wait for some odd 10 minutes to see the traffic cleared at this new entrance and again a same amount of time to find a proper place to park my car.

A thought immediately took me by shock that what would happen if there was an emergency case on my car? The thought send chill down my spine, I had goose-bumps all over my body.

We all know that every single minute counts during such constraints and wasting a score of minutes means fatal risk to the person in trauma. We may lose a precious life at the threshold of such an institution that is actually renowned for saving lives. In fact my distress grew more to see that there are no trolleys or wheelchairs available and the patients need either to be carried on back or dragged by hand to the main entrance of the casualty building of the hospital.

Furthermore, I was snapped off my feet to see that people from outside also park their vehicles in the parking lot of the hospital as it is a safe zone and there is no risk of car-lifters. I actually had a first had experience about it. I saw a luxurious sedan parked behind my car and the man driving it said that he had to attend an important call on a business proposal in some interior of the area and could not park his car at any place for different apprehensions and thus preferred to take the advantage of the “commercial parking lot” at the hospital premises.

Finally, my eyes could not bear the sight of finding the previous gate or the entrance closed off and abandoned completely. This is the gate that was thrown open just a couple of years back and the expenditure in its construction and decoration could be only guessed. An entrance which was exactly in front of the casualty entrance and was an easy and comfortable access to the emergency and was such wide that it could take care of the evermore increasing rush of patients even decades after.

Besides it was erected as a historical monument as it was carved out of the chiseled quarry stones, an age old craft, and a part of heritage and culture of this unfortunate valley. On enquiring I was told that it was called off for reasons unknown and that the architect of the news/present entrance was probably one of the highest rung officers either from the hospital or the associated medical college.

I was immediately reminded of the famous quote, “A bad works man quarrels with his tools!” No doubt the person may be the best in his profession but how come does that justify the assignment of an engineer? The two are poles apart.

The new/present gate is not even the half of the width of the previous one and stands already choked due to the parking of locomotives, scattered everywhere.

Last, but not the least, I make a humble submission to the people at the helm of affairs that if you can’t take away the pains of the sufferings souls, don’t add to them please. It would be more than a humane favour to restore the previous entrance to the casualty section in the hospital while keep the new one as well, since it may serve as an exit so that the trouble for vehicles in general and ambulances in particular is spared. I hope that this plea shall not find a trash-bin as its destiny before it is heeded to.

Author is Chairman of non- government organisation “We Volunteers” 

Dr Sameer Kaul, MD

It was a standard curse showered against each other during the legendary fights between boatwomen. But now this curse has come true in Valley

Taking a trip down memory lane leads me to three decades ago, when I was one of a motley group of medical rookies gathered around a hapless patient’s bed in one corner of Ward 16 at Srinagar’s Sri Maharaja Hari Singh Hospital, popularly called ‘Hedwoon’.

 A teaching clinic was in progress. All of us, including our instructor, wore a resigned, sympathetic attitude towards the physically-drained patient, who was suffering from disseminated large gut cancer. Once in a while, we did listen to and watch our adventurous and brave senior faculty operating stomach and colon cancers. But those occasions were few and far between. Most of the old men and women we felt sorry for, ended up going home to die anonymous deaths, quite often without a diagnosis. Those days, there was meager knowledge of early clinical features, diagnostic modalities, treatment options. In the medical and public domain, cancer was an unimportant disease. In our neighborhoods and communities, no one talked about it. The media never wrote about this ‘insignificant malady’ either. Back then, the Government Medical College and associated hospitals were, nevertheless, acknowledged to be at par in academic and clinical standards with the best institutions in the country. While the private medical sector was represented by but a few clinics, it was almost entirely the government infrastructure that delivered healthcare, albeit with a socialistic top-note. Even amidst the educated and higher echelons of society, awareness of healthcare was almost non-existent. Naivety ruled the roost.

In the latter part of the nineties and against everyone’s advice, I began to obsessively reconnect with my roots. By then, the Valley had plunged neck- deep into turmoil, public life was in disarray, skilled manpower – precious to the state – had crumbled and along with it, infrastructure. All institutions were in the throes of developmental arrest.

As my monthly weekend clinics were conducted quite often on a houseboat on the Dal, I gradually woke to the sad reality that cancer had, during my years of absence from the Valley, emerged as the leading killer of my people. It was almost as though the disease was vying with bombs and bullets for that dreadful position.

The Sher-e-Kashmir Institute of Medical Sciences (SKIMS) now had departments for Medical and Radiation Oncology. Doctors there worked tirelessly to cater to the thousands of cancer patients who had begun flocking to their OPDs. Stomach, food-pipe, large intestine, lung, breast and ovarian cancers seemed to have mushroomed over the many years I was away. Children who should have been frolicking with their friends in courtyards and alleys were wasting away from blood cancer. It was heart-wrenching. “Hattay Goye Kansar” (May cancer afflict you), was now a standard curse showered against each other during the legendary fights between boatwomen.

Decidedly, oncology had now emerged as a specialty domain. The sheer onslaught of patients deserved a response from the public and private sector. That response, as you shall conclude, was too unsubstantial and – left too late. 

SMHS hospital, private diagnostic collection centers and laboratories, a couple of small nursing homes/hospitals and – in the interim – the Jawaharlal Nehru Hospital have joined the fight against this deluge. Newly- trained professionals have stepped into haphazardly-run services.

But l hope to God that their enthusiasm to fight cancer does not run out, before we are able to empower them with clear strategies for early diagnosis, the application of technologically-superior Linear Accelerator machines for precision Radiotherapy and PET scans for immaculate staging and quick immuno-histo-chemical and molecular analysis. And last but not least, to make the latest, targeted bio-tech chemotherapy procedures affordable to every last patient.

Consider this. The vital dye 18 FDG Glucose, which is required for PET scans, is produced by a 30-crore rupee mini-nuclear reactor called Cyclotron. But its effectiveness lasts merely 2 hours after production. I fear that the use of this crucial dye will remain a dream, unless and like anywhere else in the country, the Government of J&K invests in Cyclotron to save on those crucial 2 hours of the dye’s efficacy.

Governments always get away with their incompetence, at least in this part of the world. So also in Kashmir. They have failed us in our state. There are no cancer control or screening programs, no genuine records to analyse and formulate strategy, no enhanced access to optimum care. If the government were to really decide to help, its role would lie in enhancing access, monitoring and regulating cancer care. And yet, a specialized cancer hospital continues to be a mirage, while our policy-makers seem far from interested in scrupulously insuring at least Below Poverty Line (BPL) patients. When will we understand that quality cancer care cannot be achieved by cutting corners? Accept that diagnosis and treatment of the killer disease is bound to remain expensive for a long time to come. So, for Allah’s sake, why can’t we insist that it is covered by medical insurance? 

As for now, impoverished cancer patients can at best philosophize that there are no free lunches, and that this is, indeed, the way of the world. But it is up to us, our society, to acknowledge the crucial responsibility we, ourselves bear. There must be more bodies like the Help Poor Voluntary Trust, Cancer Society of Kashmir, and others to help distressed families. There must be ‘end-of-life care’, a concept that remains yet unknown in our country.

Running down slack politicians alone is a national past-time. We seem to forget that we chose them. How long can we, as citizens and the foundation of society, escape blame for our own ineptness? We frantically approach hospitals only after our bodies have begun to show serious signs of malfunction. Unlike in the West where even ambulances are serviced routinely, preventive check-ups still remain an elite phenomenon in our country. We prefer to remain preoccupied with other, more ‘important’ things: like a daughter’s marriage, the construction of a house, a marathon, mutton-eating spree. And when that diagnosis hits us, we expostulate in disbelief and horror. Medical prescriptions and previous treatment records are hastily stuffed into plastic bags and presented at OPD, making it a trying experience for the doctor to construct an accurate history of the disease in the patient. But is it the patients’ fault? No. Because nobody has taken the time to teach them meticulousness in assembling their medical history.

Where’s the media in all this? Why are Engineer Rashid’s antics more newsworthy than stories of hope and desperation of Kashmir’s cancer patients? Do you not think that you are leaving a subject of burning urgency unaddressed? Have you bothered to drill home the message about the devastating effect that our food and lifestyle may be having upon our health, so that readers may correct course before it is too late? Have you repeatedly warned them that cancer kills? That it takes only a few more lives than road accidents but a far greater number than even militancy in the Valley?

“Hum Dekhenge, hum dekhenge, Lazim haiki hum bhidekhenge. Woh din ke jis ka waada tha…” As a cancer specialist myself, I sincerely wanted to help and so joined politics. But the human failures of our leaders can often play spoilt-sport. I quit. But I do believe that my tryst with public life was a means towards all that I desire for my beloved people. And come what may, I shall continue to put in my best efforts to combat and remove death’s shadow from our beloved land so that the sun shines through the bleak windows of the poorest of the poor. 

Courtesy: Kashmir Ink

Nazir Ganaie

Awareness and early detection is the key to fight this dreaded disease

The dawn of October 8, 2014 continues to haunt my family, for it took the colours out of our lives. I lost my father on this day. The invincible Abdul Karim Ganaie lost his two year battle to cancer. My mother lost her support, her companion, and I lost my best friend.

We all lost that day – to Cancer. It’s a catastrophe that engulfs the whole household, not only affecting the patient but also draining the families off mental and physical strength. And it puts to test the resilience of best of social ties and ruins family finances.

The last day with my dad is forever etched in my memory. I asked him how he was feeling. He said he was ‘alright’. In the last hours, though we didn’t know they were his last, there were no complaints about any pain or complication. He just wanted to talk, to reminisce, and share things. But God had something else in store for us. There was a sudden onslaught of breathlessness and we rushed him to the hospital. It is the God’s call, he said, and his last words were, “take care of your mother and prove to her that you are the most amazing son.”

Life hasn’t been the same without him. He left a great void in our lives. It wasn’t just the death that hit us but it was seeing a loved one slip a day at a time to succumb to the disease. It came as a surprise, though it shouldn’t have, for I had seen the same exact story enfold before my very eyes, as a reporter in the middle of writing a series of reports on Cancer.

Long before my father got sick, I had been a regular at the Regional Cancer Centre (RCC), SKIMS, profiling cancer patients, their histories, plight and fight with the dreaded disease. At RCC, SKIMS, I would spend my days talking to doctors and patients about the disease. I knew who the registered patients were; I knew who were undergoing chemotherapy at the Centre. From top 10 cancers to profiling the cancer hit families, I wrote about it all.

It hadn’t been easy though, for it was difficult to go there every day and see those people suffering. I tried to empathise with them and in my naiveté, I thought I did, but time told me how insufficient and useless my empathy was to them. I had the statistics, the numbers and even the verbatim on the healthcare, but I only understood the horrors when I found myself at the same institute, barely three months later, in the same queues, with my father. My Dad had started coughing blood and on testing was diagnosed with the small cell carcinoma in left lung.

When the doctors gave me the diagnosis, I was stupefied for a minute – How does one tell a man he’s dying, how does one tell his father who looks as fit as a horse on the outside, that he is on the last leg of his life. I was staring at the end, but that was just the beginning.

What ensued after my father’s biopsy test results came back positive, was a series of illness, like dominoes falling. It started with me having severe panic attacks followed by my mother and my sister. Being the lone son, the mantle of responsibility had passed on to me, and I wasn’t even equipped to console myself.

Every evening, a battle would ensue in my mind with fright trying to take over the logic, the rationale. Each night, I relived every terrifying moment of that day, every minute at the treatment centre, every word spoken by the doctor, every expression in my Dad’s eyes.

As a reporter, when you enquire someone about their issues or disease, you may get the statistics, numbers or the current figures but what one lacks is how these patients are feeling, their struggle and the quantum of trauma each one of them goes through.

The spell of struggle and suffering was far from ending. My dad had a difficult time coming to terms with the reality and would often ask me “Why are we coming to SKIMS? Why are we coming to the cancer centre?” I had the hardest time answering his questions.

Slowly and gradually, my father started accepting that it was a little more than just chest pain. Soon after he was put on chemotherapy, the transformation that followed was sudden, and shocking. His hair started falling, his face started getting deformed and this, I realised, was the most difficult phase in any cancer patient’s life. The medicines that are supposed to cure them make them hate themselves, their bodies.

In Kashmir, where good Medicare is scarce, and central healthcare system is in shambles, for cancer patients, the diagnosis is nothing short of a death sentence. While there is a lack of proper medical infrastructure, there are also no provisions to cater to mental health of the patient. There are no counselling centres or sessions in the healthcare institutions, especially in the tertiary healthcare institute SKIMS. For patients diagnosed with any type of Cancer, it is as if they are left to be living corpses, for even before their bodies fail them, it is their spirit and their will to live that dies.

After witnessing first-hand the lack of guidance and support available to patients, I along with my other journalist and doctor friends started an initiative called the ‘Cancer Free Kashmir’. We took on the task to provide counselling sessions to those in need – the cancer patients and their families.

The year 2015 is marked forever in the memory of 50-year-old Raja Abdullah of Central Kashmir’s Budgam district. Her elder daughter, Yasmeena Akhter was diagnosed with lymphoma at a time when she had just a few months left in her life. She lost her battle to cancer at SKIMS. Today, Raja Abdullah lives with her two little granddaughters and is struggling to survive. She recalls that her daughter, a teacher by profession, would often complain of weakness and had even fallen unconscious on a few occasions in her classroom. “We took her to the doctor and she was immediately referred to SKIMS, where she was diagnosed with cancer,” a teary eyed, grieving mother told me. “We sold everything valuable to try to get her the best treatment. But what we got back from the hospital was her dead body.” Abdullah is filled with fear and trauma. “Whenever I hear anybody getting cancer in my vicinity, the level of trauma and distress doubles,” she says.

Shabir Ahmad Thoker, a laborer, had his world come to a standstill when on a deceptively normal day, he found his 8-year-old boy, Uzair Ahmad, severally pale. He was diagnosed with brain tumor. It was traumatizing for Thoker and his family as they found their little boy was dying. Thoker, who struggled to make his ends meet, resorted to begging to save his son’s life. Uzair passed away within 14 months of undergoing chemotherapy sessions at SKIMS. “The death of my son has shocked me and my wife,” he says. “I blame myself for I was not able to give my son the best treatment here. I sold all my land and took him to Delhi where he underwent surgery.” He goes on, “My boy was fine, he was getting better, and then my Uzair was suddenly diagnosed with bone-marrow cancer and within a few months he died in severe pain,” says Thoker, wailing.

Rich or poor, the story of cancer patients has the same share of suffering and pain. Almost a year has passed after Sumegha Gulati, a friend, a great human being, a brilliant reporter, a fighter, a motivator and a wonderful counsellor, lost her battle to cancer. She passed away at the young age of 26 after a four year long battle with Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in Mumbai.

For Sumegha, Kashmir was her first love. She would always talk about its picturesque meadows and volatile streets and its hospitable people.  Besides a fellow journalist, Sumegha came as a God sent help to me. For years she had been a good friend and then, Sumegha, the brave heart, turned into the source of my biggest relief. She became my dad’s first counsellor in his time of need. The day when dad’s biopsy test came back positive, Sumegha rang me up and asked me to get ready for the worst days to come. “You have a cancer patient in your family now and it is going to challenge all of you mentally, physically, emotionally and most importantly economically,” she advised. She was like a brave sister who would ring my dad every evening despite her busy schedule in the office and her own fight with the disease. She counselled me and my family, knowing how difficult it is to have someone with cancer in the family. She used to advise us to stay strong and garner all the strength for the days ahead. While she was undergoing cycles of chemotherapies in Tata Hospital in Mumbai, she would always wish to spend the rest of the time in Kashmir to undo that pain. “I see many Kashmiri families coming to Bombay or Delhi with the hope that they get the cure for the disease. However most of these families are almost under the state of depression without any support from government, social and other organizations,” Gulati would tell me. The melancholic spell for Gulati ended with her death.

In other states, there are a lot of NGOs that help support people suffering from such diseases both physically and financially, while in Kashmir, the trend is quite reverse. “You have a drug mafia further ailing the system,” says noted radiologist, Dr Maqbool A Lone.

Gulati did not stop working, and produced several pieces of journalism during her illness. In her last three months of life, she worked on a story of cancer treatment in India, based on her own time as a patient. She could not finish the project, but managed to record a part of her experience.

A friend’s death is always a shock and she has left so many memories behind. Now Sumegha is free from pain and suffering. Such was her strength and courage that she used to regularly visit my dad at AIIMS and engage with him in laughter therapies. Dad would always tell her that the disease was so tiring, so depressing and so painful but it also bestowed him with a sweet daughter in her.

With cancer being a major health threat to the people across the globe, Kashmir has also witnessed a surge in the number of cases in the past few years with lung cancer topping the list. The lone Regional Cancer Centre, SKIMS, witnesses a heavy rush with nearly 40,000 cases in files, that doctors call follow-ups, visiting it for various kinds of therapies.  The rise in the number of cancer cases could be attributed to larger number of ageing population, unhealthy lifestyles, and use of various forms of tobacco and related products; unhealthy diet and, in most cases, the non-availability of better diagnostic facilities for early detection. According to experts, the top 10 cancers afflicting the Valley are Lung cancer, Esophagus (cancer of food pipe), Stomach, Colon (large intestine cancers), Breast, Brain, Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, Gastro Esophageal, Junction cancer (cancer between the stomach and food pipe), Ovary and Skin cancers.

Leading oncologist and Director, Regional Cancer Centre, SKIMS, Dr Muhammad Maqbool Lone says that the situation in Kashmir is becoming alarming every day, with the highest number of lung cancers cases in the country being found in the people of Kashmir. “The demographics of this disease have changed significantly in the valley. The disease is alarmingly on surge. There are patients hailing from every part of Kashmir including the far flung areas which are diagnosed with this terminal disease,” says Dr Lone. He said that the lung cancer, the cases for which were few and far between till just a few years, has today surpassed every other cancer to become the most common form of cancers across Kashmir valley.

According to researchers, cancer is a generic term for a large group of diseases that can affect any part of the body. Other terms used are malignant tumours and neoplasm. One defining feature of cancer is the rapid creation of abnormal cells that grow beyond their usual boundaries, invade adjoining parts of the body and spread to other organs. This process is referred to as metastasis, a major cause of cancer death.

Screening and cancer detection camps are seldom organized in far off areas. Research work is adversely affected with doctors being overworked managing the heavy load of patients, which affects the quality patient-care. What is worse is the absolute disregard of the authorities regarding the need and importance of research in combating this illness. Directorate of Health Services should also play its role in creating awareness about cancer among the people, or provide for some preliminary diagnostic facilities at various healthcare institutions.

Cancer is not a death sentence; it’s curable with awareness and early detection being the key elements in fighting this malady. What is needed is social mobilization at grassroots level to create awareness and roping in non-profit organisations to organise screenings across the valley. When the public institutions are insufficient, mass mobilization is the answer to safeguard the communities and the people from this dreaded disease.

Courtesy: Kashmir Ink (A Greater Kashmir Publication)