When I called her up on Saturday, Maya Sharma wouldn't let me come see her. She didn't any other media person at her house asking uncomfortable questions and putting her in a spot. But then she agreed after I pleaded and assured it would only be for 10 minutes and that's all. Meeting and talking to grieving families has never been easy. In Utica, I wrote many obits and it was difficult each time I approached someone or picked up the phone and dialed a number. And it is terrible encroaching, invading their space and their dissecting the grief.
When we went to her place, Maya greeted us with a smile, then offered tea and showed us around the apartment. But then as they talked, they cried too, and it was painful going on scribbling in the notebook.
An edited version of this appeared in the Indian Express on March 1, 2009.
Mohan Chand Sharma's widow will teach in a school, says no politics for her
Chinki Sinha
Feb. 28, 2009
In the six months after Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma was killed in an encounter, life has gone on, inched forward perhaps for the family.
Maya Sharma, his widow, has taken up a job at a government school in Sector 3 in Dwarka near the family residence, and though the mother still cries at the mention of the son’s name, the family of five is coping with life and loss as best as it could.
Maya, who tries to smile often still can’t help the tears that begin to form in her eyes every now and then, choking her voice. She quickly recovers though. Yes, she was offered too many opportunities, including contesting elections in the upcoming Lok Sabha polls, but she wanted to be left alone, and be able to lead a normal life.
“No politics for me. I don’t even have any experience in politics. It is just not my thing,” she says, while she steals a glace at her husband’s picture.
As life begins to fall into routine, in some ways the residues of the past life when Mohan Chand Sharma was there are still dominant. It is impossible to break free, the family says.
The clothes – a neatly folded black shirt, a worn leather belt, and a pair of beige trousers – that Inspector Mohan Chand Sharma once used to wear still hang in his cupboard. The family hasn’t packed and tucked away the reminders. For them, those are important for them to go on. It’s never easy coming to terms with grief, particularly you’re your life centered around the man. Every morning, Maya asked him what he would like for breakfast, every once in while the mother cooked his
favorite halwa, and every night the father paced up and down in the balcony waiting for his son’s car.
“Yes, life has somewhat got back to routine. The job of a teacher is the best. That way I can take care of my ageing in-laws and children,” Maya says. “But it is not the same. When I look at the faces at the dining table, it strikes me.”
Maya had applied for the government school teacher’s job in January. Things were facilitated by Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit, who the family says has kept her promises. Maya joined the school Feb. 25.
The first day was overwhelming. Children, little ones, from the nearby slums, had brought flowers for her. They knew her and it was a consolation, and it helped her cope with the loss.
“That love was unconditional. Families are forgotten after officers die. But no, they have kept us in their hearts and we are grateful,” she says. “Even though I have lost him, his legacy is mine and it gives me the strength to go on.”
When it was called a fake encounter, Maya Sharma felt wronged. After all, a sacrifice is a sacrifice, she says.
Under the media spotlight, and the mounting pressure from politicians, many of who visited frequently and asked her to join politics, she had made a statement at the time that she might consider contesting elections when the time came.
“But that was under the pressure,” she says. “I love children. I want to do this. Opportunities are there but I don’t want to encash his sacrifice.”
Maya will have to undergo training and has been given a three-year window to clear her bachelor’s in education. She would teach Hindi, she says.
For now, she is meeting with children and getting to know the school. In her three days at the school, children have come up to her and requested her to teach them. And it is sweet of them to do that, she says. The family is still trying to get the government to grant Mohan Chand Sharma his due promotion. The files are somewhere, lost in the huge bureaucratic machinery, and that’s apathy.
“We are not greedy. But what is his, should be given to him without us asking for it,” father Narottam Sharma says.
A petrol pump too was on the list. But the family still hasn’t heard anything about it, he adds.
In his father’s room, Devyanshu is working on his laptop. He wants to become a police officer, just like his father, he says.
And the mother nor the grandmother interferes.
“It’s his choice,” they say.
Devendri Sharma, the mother, didn’t approve of it when Sharma wanted to join the police. She had been afraid. Even as a child he played with sticks and guns impersonating a police officer on duty.
“We didn’t know, we didn’t expect this,” Devendri says, and she cries openly.
At the time of his death, she had kept a brave front. She didn’t cry. But then you can’t hold the tears for too long. She has stopped cooking the halwa he loved because it brings back the memories, she says.
But memories are everywhere in the family’s flat. Sharma’s medals, and photos of him getting a gallantry award from President APJ Abdul Kalam, of him smiling in a silk kurta at a wedding ceremony, and of him hugging his daughter dot the walls of the family’s home.
And moving on hasn’t been quite easy. The family was dependent on him. As they prepare for the long road ahead, Maya Sharma is happy she got the job. It will keep her busy, she says. For parents, it is the grandchildren who are their hope.
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