'It's Tough To Be a Kashmiri Cop's Wife'

Read her heart-wrenching account here:

For the wives of policemen, the adolescent fancy of ‘being together’ through thick and thin turns out to be a distant dream. We halt for lunch. We keep waiting to dine together. We keep planning to attend family functions or funerals God forbid! together. We keep scheduling an outing. But that hardly ever happens. It’s not about solo parenting only.

We’re the biggest liars! We keep lying to our children that ‘dad is coming this Saturday’. We lie that dad is attending the parent-teacher meet this time. We lie that we’re going on a picnic this weekend. We keep lying that dad is going to join us this Eid, or that marriage. We keep lying to their old ailing parents that he is expected this or that day. We lie to our own selves. We wait and wait, and only wait. Let it be today, tomorrow or a day after, but the plan hardly ever subsides.

Even if it does, a police officer only marks his physical appearance at home. Mentally (and telephonically) he is attending to his duties without fail. The risks and dangers are increasing day by day. Every single casualty of a policeman elsewhere makes our life additionally insecure and worrisome.

Plus, the varying political ideology of the society makes it hard to explain to the people that doing a job in the police department never means disloyalty to one’s people. It’s not always a matter of choice. It’s only the state of affairs of our state that veterinarians are now working as DySps, while a degree in physical education makes you an administrator and a degree in politics lands you in business.

And specialisation in business administration makes you a government contractor. But those with expertise, in a layman’s discussion, prove you to be as outlaws. So the stress increases even when you are out of your home, because in case of any unfortunate event (a pellet injury to someone for instance), people do make us somehow feel responsible for the same.

And then, when anything untoward happens to the policemen, there is hardly anyone to even sympathise with us. I pray my children understand all this at the earliest. I wish my state comes out of these dark clouds and we see the dawn of a peaceful and prosperous Kashmir. The article first appeared on a local news website in Kashmir (PTI)