Highlighting Azaadi 1981 and the project's importance

Let me take you through the vision of Azaadi 1981; a memory, a story that I wrote to inspire this project. Can you imagine?...
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​Approaching a whistling field of barley, a distressed and estranged farmer runs in for safety and shelter miles away from his home in what is presently known to us as Gujarat, India. To his surprise he finds an infant; a hungry, wailing girl at the end of a river bank surrounded by broken pieces of a wooden boat. He picked her up with one glance and began to walk away frantically, hushing her, singing to her to keep them safe. What the farmer hadn’t realized is that attached to the soaked kameez (shirt) of the infant was a wet set of handwritten letters in the talisman around her tiny waist - letters from a mother, mentioning the names of her two daughters. The one in his arms was Laila and the other who grew up to be Sahreen.
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A few hours later a frightened and hungry four year old girl finds her way back through fields to the dismantled kashti (wooden boat) that had been their refuge after having escaped a civil war over a week ago. Her heart began to race as she couldn’t find her precious baby sister. During sunset, the little girl built the courage to raise one wooden plank and place the heads of barley to create a nest for her tired head to lay on. She believed that the stars would protect her that night and prayed to find her sister again.

After reading a small part of the script, you’re probably thinking how could a mother let go of her two young children?  Why did this estranged farmer take the infant? What will happen to the isolated four-year old girl?
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​" When I look into my well-being through a holistic lens, 

​Only then am I able to curate my life in the direction of Allah.."

Art Therapy.
Ramadan art reflections 2021.
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