SOON after Sameer Ali's father went missing, he was sent to an orphanage. When Ghulam Ahmad Dar could not be found even after 10 years, Sameer's mother Raja Begum decided to remarry. Sameer is still at Bait-u-Hilal with 80 other children.

Back home in Pattan, his grandfather and uncle take care of his two elder brothers. Occasionally, Sameer, now 13 gets visitors at Bait-u-Hilal. His mother has visited the orphanage once and his uncle comes once in a while.

Life at Bait-ul-Hilal has matured Sameer and the others beyond their age. They have learnt to live with whatever they have and make friends among themselves.

Sameer lives with four of his friends in a small room at the orphanage and is a student of class 9 in Srinagar's Public High School. He says his close friend and classmate Adil Nazir is like his brother. "He is there whenever I need help and I am there whenever he needs me," says Sameer.

But what is beyond Sameer's comprehension is the fact that he doesn't know where his father is. The only question he has for his uncle and relatives is "where is my father".

"Whenever I asked my mother or grandmother about Papa, they told me to keep quite," he says. "Some of my relatives told me that one day my father left home for the fields to harvest the paddy but did not return," says Sameer. For the last seven years now, he nurses only one dream. He wants to grow old and serve his villagers at Sonium, Pattan.

... contd.