After working for two years in Sharjah, Hashim T E (23) is back home for a vacation. His 'umma' P Razia feels he should build a house and get married. But Hashim has never been more unsettled.
In a month, he has to return to Sharjah but he is plotting another journey to plug the hole in his life. He wants to find his biological mother and sisters, says Razia, who found him as a six-year-old Hindi-speaking boy. "When he thinks of her, his hands start shivering and he shuts us all out," she says. "But we don't know how to help him," says the homemaker.
Seventeen years ago, on November 1, 2005, Hashim got down from a private bus at Moonam Mile near Ambalathara, 9km from Kanhangad. He had a note in Malayalam in his hand. It read: "He is an orphan. Please take him to the orphanage".
Near the stop is the Parappally Valiyullahi Memorial Orphanage, run by the Parappally Jama-ath Committee.
But Hashim got down in front of Razia's eldest son Shajeer Palat, who was then 14 years old. It was raining heavily and Shajeer brought him home. "He was wearing a black shirt and black jeans. I have not seen such a well-dressed boy around here," says Razia.
Hashim spoke only Hindi and no one in the family could get details out of him. Hashim says he cannot remember where he came from. But someone put him on a train on a day when there was a riot or social disturbance in his area. He says there was a mosque, a temple, and railway tracks near his house. "Everybody in my locality designs saree with their hands. My mother and sisters also hand-print sarees," he says.
His mother's name is Marjeena, and his sisters are Hameeda and Huda. His father Yasin Mohammed died when he was younger. "Our house was a big two-storey house with two rooms on the first floor and two on the ground floor with lots of relatives," he says.
Hashim says he told all these to the family but they could not understand because of the language barrier. So the next day, Razia's husband Abdul Karim Palat, an autorickshaw driver, and her brother Mohammed M took Hashim to Ambalathara police station. But the officer was dismissive and asked them to keep the boy in their house. "The officer said Hashim is a jungle fowl and he will fly in a few days," says Razia.
If the police had launched an investigation then, they could have helped the little boy, she says.
The two men brought Hashim home to their joint family and he became one of them. Razia says the boy could not recall his initials so they abbreviated Thekkil Ellam and renamed him Hashim T E. They took him to a studio and took a photograph of him, just in case they needed to spread the word about him.
But in two months, the neighbours started asking Razia to spare the boy for them. "They wanted to deploy him as a labourer. That's when we decided to send him to the orphanage," she said.
The orphanage put him in the Government Higher Secondary School in Ambalathara. Every afternoon, he would come home for lunch, and stay with Shajeer during vacation.
When he was in school, he ran away from home three times to search for his mother, says Razia. In Class 4, he boarded a train and reached Mangalore. A restaurant employed him to wash vessels. "We put a missing ad in newspapers with his photo, and someone who he befriended on the train got him back home," says Razia. "That was the last time he ran away," she says.
After his schooling, Hashim started staying in Razia's house and was also helping the Jama-ath committee.
A couple of years ago, Razia's brother Mohammed, a PRO for a real estate company in Sharjah, took Hashim along. He found him a job as a janitor in his company's subsidiary, where Shajeer also works.
"When he joined, I was surprised to hear him speak fluent Hindi. All these years, he was speaking Malayalam in our house. But he did not forget his mother tongue," says Mohammed, who is also home for vacation. They will return together in the first week of August.
But Hashim says he wants to meet his biological mother and sisters. "Whenever I lie down to sleep, I think of my mother. When I go to any dargah, I pray to God to help me meet my mother," he says. "I won't stay there. I just want to see them," he says. Razia knows he is lying.