“Mr. Jameel, go into hiding at once, get underground, just go absconding! With the baby”, ordered my advocate, Mrs. Hamsa, over the phone.
In my distress and panic, I took a few minutes to grasp the situation. “NOW”, she shouted, in capitals, before she cut off the connection.
I swung into action. I packed my backpack, and took all the money there was at home, for I knew I might not be able to use my cards until, until God knows when. I stuffed the baby’s kitbag with her feeding bottles, diapers, and milk powder. Disturbed by the furore, Munni, my three year old, began to sob, then cried, and then screamed, like a drizzle developing into a rain, and a storm. Having no time to soothe her, I just grabbed her, and rushed out.
The days, nay the weeks that followed, were
agonizing, to say the least, and were spent holed up in a hide-out. Where I
hid, what I did, how I remained incognito, I prefer to keep to myself, you know
why-
Apprising me of the proceedings of that fateful day, my lawyer later informed me of the order passed by the learned judge, that I should hand over the baby to its mother, by that evening, failing which an advocate commissioner would be appointed, to find and produce the baby in court! What! After all the evidence that I had produced?" Yes, I dismiss all your evidence as fake. The Master should not have admitted them. The welfare of the child lies with its mother." Even if the mother abandoned her baby of two months, eloped, and went to live with another man? Yes! Even then! Even if the father has been taking care of the baby like a mother, singlehandedly? " Yes, yes, yes! Even then. I will not commit the sin of separating a child from its mother."
My only hope lay in going for an appeal. Preparing
and filing the memorandum of grounds of appeal, quoting the points where the
lower court had erred, getting it listed, hearing of arguments from both sides,
all these took an eternity, driving me to the verge of despair.
I was pining to get back home, and to what had become my routine. I did not want my estranged wife and her lawyers, and now, this advocate commissioner, to plunder what peace was left in my life.
What if the bench of two judges, dismisses my appeal? I would rather die than give up my child; she was my life, she was my world, she was all that I had as mine. But, to others, the mother was supreme, who was licensed to do any amount of atrocities; a few drops of tears in her eyes were sufficient to melt your heart, and to declare her an innocent victim!
The day of the judgement, I clung to my God, praying frantically. What if, what if…
After a torturous wait, my lawyer called.
I thought my heart would burst before I could hear her words, which could be my life or death!:‘You can go home, with the baby’ was all I heard, and all that I wanted to hear. The words fell sweet on my ears like manna to the Israelites. The two- judge bench had set aside the judgement of the single judge and granted me the custody of the child.
Tears of joy and gratitude to God, and to their lordships, drenched my overgrown beard. I returned home, my baby clinging to my neck, and we both slept that night.
