Meri jaan...Mera laal

After a long time I was again on the road..roaming around on the streets searching for stories and taking photographs. On a dingy lane just opposite a mosque in Old Delhi I saw this old woman who was holding the window of a dargah.

I slowly went behind her and whispered in her ear "Amma...kya chahiye khuda se?"(mother...what do you want from God?) and she replied "meri jaan...mera laal" (my life...my son).

She told she has been coming to this dargah everyday for the past 13 years to pray that her son comes back home. Her son went missing when he was just a 12 year old kid.

On an average, over 40,000 children in India are reported missing every year, of which 11,000 remain untraced. Nobody knows where they go.

There are thousands of mothers like her waiting for their children to come back home one day.

Comments

Shuja ul haqOctober 19, 2009 at 10:39 AM
Brilliant picture and a real heart throbbing story behind it...
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AbidOctober 21, 2009 at 1:31 PM
i second the first comment
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chrmyersNovember 12, 2009 at 7:37 AM
as i read the story and saw the tears, i was brought to tears myself as i thought back to the kids in the cc. i cant imagine what it is like for some of them to grow up not knowing the love of a woman like this who so diligently seeks after God to have one more moment with her child. what love, what compassion, what pain.
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safuraNovember 16, 2009 at 12:10 PM
What else to comment....This, gave me goosebumps!
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Shine KapoorDecember 29, 2009 at 4:18 PM
I am moved! The pictures in all your post speak a lot, adding to the narration of the story!
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AnonymousJanuary 9, 2010 at 4:36 PM
Heartbreaking..
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kehkashanFebruary 24, 2010 at 2:50 PM
this really brought me to tears ! extremely well-captured and narrated too.
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