From rubbles to crown : Proud father now declares, "Mera nechu (son) India Khelke aaega

Ghulam, an ardent fan of ‘Tendulkar Sir’ and ‘Cool Ganguly’, was determined not to let his son play cricket. “I was against him playing cricket,” he says.

Ghulam Nabi teaches in a government school in Shiri, a few kilometres down the slope from Baramulla. When his son, Aquib was uprooting Karun Nair, K L Rahul and Devdutt Patnaik on day 3, the proud father was busy, teaching his students at the school. The man hadn’t taken leave from his duty, rather decided to watch video of his son’s bowling later. “I really wanted all my children to pursue medical studies,” he remembers.

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In Jammu and Kashmir, cricket never comes before politics, security concerns, religious and regional agonies. Like most of the families, in Aquib’s family also, being middle-class, primary focus would always on sustenance and livelihood, and the passion of the family’s sons never get preference.

“When Auquib would vanish for whole days and evenings, and we didn’t know his whereabouts, we felt very scared, ek darr sa rehta kahin beta kharaab nah ho jaaye. That’s why I was against his playing cricket, aur bhi darr laagta jab humse chupata tha, ki woh cricket khelne gaye the,” Ghulam recalls.

Auquib, always remained shy and somewhat introvert also but he was determined not to leave cricket in any situation. “Uska jo junoon tha woh dekhke maine haar maan li, when he was in 8th, he topped the zone at studies. From 9th to 12th, I always kept on saying to study medical, put him in special classes also.” Ghulam recalls, “I would rebuke him, lock him up in room, but he never answered me back. The ground where cricketers from Baramulla used to play cricket, cannot actually be called as a ground. It was full of pebbles and an unmarked land. People could mostly stroll on it but play, that also cricket, was totally not feasible…

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“It was not that I didn’t love cricket. How can it be when I also played the game. But in J&K, you can’t take the game as a career option.”

In Auquib’s first year of college, Ghulam for the first time in life, could realise why his son believed in himself and remained totally defiant almost with no word at all. “He was too shy to reply to any of my words or scoldings.”