Hate killed her husband, love helped family survive

Rashida Kotawala was 30 and a mother of two when her husband went missing in the post-Babri Masjid riots of January 1993

MUMBAI: Rashida Kotawala was 30 and a mother of two when her husband Shabbir, who repaired kitchen stoves to make a living, went missing in the post-Babri Masjid riots of January 1993. Today, her sons are doctors; and both mother and children credit each other for their survival and success. “She could have remarried, but did not do so only for us,” said her elder son, paediatric surgeon Dr Hussain Kotawala. “Could there have been a greater sacrifice?” Rashida, however, credits her children’s commitment to studies for their triumph.

Hate killed her husband, love helped family survive

The family braved tough times in the beginning, but support from across communities helped them see the light at the end of the tunnel.

Rashida had to step out of her home in Malad to work in the Hindu-dominated Vile Parle market, at a bag repair shop where her late father had worked. His Hindu seth welcomed her; and seeing the resilience and hard work of a woman bringing up her children alone, women customers - all Hindus - flocked to her stall in that market. She continued to work there till 2015, giving it up on her sons’ insistence, as the civic body’s frequent demolition drives were aggravating her diabetes and blood pressure.

Rashida barely made enough to support her family – her mother, younger brother and sister, whose husband had also gone missing, lived with her. The two men had set out to rescue their wives’ youngest sister from violence-torn Jogeshwari. But they never reached there. “They didn’t tell us before leaving; it’s just luck they didn’t take my sons along. The boys became the reason for me to go on living,” said Rashida.

For a long time, they lived on “roti and biscuit”, while the boys made imitation jewellery at home before and after school to help keep the kitchen fires burning. Rashida’s school-going brother helped her at the stall, and eventually dropped out after SSC.

While these memories still rankle, Rashida and her sons remember equally the many people who helped them. Apart from the Dawoodi Bohra establishment, both Hindus and Muslims helped provide groceries, a sewing machine, pick up the kids’ school fees and buy textbooks. Their school principal did not punish them for delays in payment of fees. The real “angel” however, said Rashida, was social worker Pappu Qureshi who ensured that she receive the ₹2 lakh compensation from the Maharashtra government, promised to families of missing persons.

Hussain recalled being the odd man out in his first year at Latur Government Medical College. “Those living in the hostel spent ₹5000-- ₹10,000 a month; my mother couldn’t even afford to send ₹2500! I had no bank account, so she would send money orders,” he recalled. Things eased from the third year onwards, with a minority scholarship given by the government. He could only afford second-hand books which were old editions, but his classmates lent him their new books. Against all odds, Hussain was the only one in his batch to get a post-graduate seat without coaching. His stipend as a resident doctor in Nair Hospital enabled him to start repaying the family’s loans.

His younger brother Yusuf, an MD from Podar Medical College, has his own practice. Like Hussain, who eats “from the same plate as my Hindu colleague”, Yusuf too has close Hindu friends. “I used to study and sleepover at my Brahmin friend’s home,” he said.

The family refuses to blame their father’s “disappearance” on Hindus, and puts it down to the fraught situation that prevailed then.

Hussain has vivid memories of his father taking them to the garden nearby for recreation, when he was seven. “It still hurts when we think we never found his body,” he said. However, the experience made all of them determined never to talk about religion, “especially these days”. “Riots have more to do with politics than religion, and it’s innocents who pay the price,” said Hussain.