Bhatkal, May 25:When Muhammed Nooh is a little older, his septuagenarian grandparents will perhaps tell him he is God’s blessed child. In a little over six months, the two-and-a-half-year-old has now escaped death twice mishaps that could not touch him, but snatched both his parents, his two sisters and a brother.
Over the last 48 hours, as four coffins and an enormous crowd arrived at the home of Nooh’s grandparents Jaffer Damudi and Abida in this town 145 km north of Mangalore, the little boy showed signs of some irritation. He didn’t understand what the fuss was about, and he was wondering where his father and siblings were.
“Nooh kept asking about his Pappa, his brother and his sisters,” said Jaffer Damudi.
Muhammed Nasir Damudi, 43, a real estate dealer in Dubai, was returning home to Bhatkal by the Air India Express flight that crashed in Mangalore on Saturday morning. With him were his daughters, Bibi Sara, 11, and Nabeeha, 6, and his son Suhaib, 9. All four bodies were too horribly charred to be shown to the family.
In November 2009, Nooh’s mother Shariqa died in a major road accident while travelling to Bhatkal from Mangalore. Ten others died along with Shariqa, including all her brothers and sisters. Nooh survived only because he had not been taken on that trip.
Shariqa’s husband Nasir was devastated. He worried for his four children, and when their schools shut for summer vacation in the first week of April, he had a close relative fly the three elder ones to be with him in Dubai. Nooh was left behind even though he has a passport, Nasir thought he should stay back with his grandparents in Bhatkal so that the elderly couple were not left entirely without company.
With school reopening for Sara, Suhaib and Nabeeha next week, Nasir boarded the flight for Mangalore from Dubai late Friday night, along with his children. Just before he left, he spoke to Nooh over the phone, and told him he was bringing him lots of colourful toys.
“God is responsible for everything. I am pleading for his help. Nasir was my only son. I have no other children to whom I can hand over this boy,” said Jaffer Damudi, 71. “The road accident had taken away all the siblings of his mother Shariqa. Now there is no one left even on her side to take care of Nooh.”
“When we heard that eight people had survived the crash, I told my wife that one of them would be from our home,” Damudi said. “My wife still hadn’t come to terms with her daughter in-law’s death. And now this has happened.”
The senior Damudi had worked in Dubai for many years from the early 70s, and Nasir was brought up there. After Damudi retired and returned to Bhatkal, Nasir sent Shariqa and the children back to live with them.
“After his wife died, Nasir would call all the children, one after another, three or four times a day. He wanted to know if they had had their bath and eaten. He wanted to give them the impression that their father was always near them,” said Muhammed Saad, a relative of the Damudis.
Besides Nasir and his children, Bhatkal lost three other lives in the tragedy. One of them was that of 11-year-old Abdul Bar, a son of Nasir’s business partner Gafoor Damudi. Nasir had had the boy flown to Dubai for a visit.
-Agencies