Mission Mumbai -- A date with Hrithik, and a place in the sun

Mission Mumbai -- A date with Hrithik, and a place in the sun
ARUNA CHAKRAVORTY

MUMBAI, FEBRUARY 20: "There are trains here, and lots of big buildings..'' says Razda Sadik of the Rural Mission Public School of Badgam, Srinagar. ``And then people move about for much longer hours than we do...we are behind doors after 6pm,'' pipes in her friend Shabnam Tariq.

Reaching the city at around 1.30 pm from Pune, the kids, some of them orphans with the Kashmiri Yateem Trust along with Sarhad,trooped into Filmistan at Goregaon for their appointment with their favourite hero. ``We asked them to choose their star. Last time it was Shah Rukh Khan,'' says Bharati Mamani of Sarhad. The wait was long and arduous. The kids waited expectantly as the `aa raha hai'' buzz went off without the hero showing up. In the end their heartthrob walked in.

Ironically, though, not many of the children have even watched the film. There are few cinema halls in Srinagar. And militants ensure people keep away.

In Pune, Sarhad had organised a video showing, though that too was incomplete. But cable and television apparantly filled in the blanks.

So if the kids had sweated it out earlier, it was the star's turn to sweat now. Graciously, though, the hero of the Vidhu Vinod Chopra movie spent an hour, battling beads of sweat dropping into his eyes from his forehead, and spoke to each of the 78 kids and their teachers, asking their names and giving them autographed copies of his photographs.

For these children schools with their plush computers and 24 hour power are eye-openers. Sayeed Sadiq was amazed the mess at the National Defence Academy of Pune was open all the time. He noted down in his diary how at one time, it can hold and feed upto 2000 cadets.

For him as well as for his friends, the sight of NDA was enough to make swift decisions. It will be the Army after high school.

The difference back home is not lost on them. Beginning with the sun. ` It feels so nice and warm here, but we know it will not be the same in Kashmir'', says 14-year-old Nazir Ahmed Khan who talks way beyond his age. ``The smiles on our faces are not the ones in our hearts,'' he says pointing out that there is nothing in the Valley today except unemployment, gloom, corruption.

``There are at least 80,000 orphans in Kashmir, due to the on going situation,'' says A R Hanjura of the Yateem Trust, ``15,000 of these children need immediate rehabilitation''. Around 50 of these children are with the trust. This is the second year that children from the Valley are coming to the city. ``The batch of last year were desperate to come this year as well.we had to fight to keep them away'', he adds. The idea being to give these children a feel of normalcy, of how people move about in the night without fear and how people can progress given a secure atmosphere. And some of the children are grabbing oppurtunities offered. Like Ashraf Lone. He is taking back the names and addresses of the professors in Pune he met for coming back to complete his studies.