By Gowher Bhat
In a world moving away from compassion, there still exist souls who refuse to turn away from human suffering. Farhana Javid is one of them.
Farhana is a psychologist and humanitarian aid worker working for an organisation she prefers to leave unnamed. She has been working in conflict areas around the world since 2011. Her work has taken her to places such as Syria and Ukraine, where she supports families searching for missing loved ones, children who have stopped speaking, and survivors trying to rebuild psychological stability after loss.
People describe her in many ways: a psychologist, a humanitarian, a deeply spiritual woman shaped by faith and compassion, a person of rare intelligence. Yet none of these titles fully capture her. To the broken she becomes hope, to the lonely, warmth, to the wounded, a source of healing. And to those who know her closely, she is remembered for her quiet strength, steady presence, and generosity that never asks to be seen. She never seeks attention. Goodness, she believes, should move quietly like a prayer whispered in the depth of night when only God is listening. Her faith does not make her fragile. It anchors her. It lives in presence, in listening without interruption, in staying when others withdraw, in silence that holds rather than escapes.
She does not arrive with answers. She arrives with presence, clarity, and trained emotional steadiness. She listens without absorbing. She understands without collapsing. Her strength is not distance from suffering, but the ability to remain grounded within it.
Some places do not leave easily.
Syria stays with her in sharp, unsoftened memory. Ukraine stays with her in a quieter way, not as shock, but as a lingering awareness that reshapes how she understands human endurance.
In Ukraine, she remembers underground shelters where children draw homes on paper, as if imagination can protect them from collapse. One child once asked her whether the sky could break. She did not soften the question. She told him that even when things feel broken, people learn how to live beneath what remains.
In Syria, she remembers a mother repeating her son’s name again and again, as if naming alone can resist disappearance. Farhana sat beside her without interruption, allowing grief to exist without distortion, without forcing it toward closure.
These moments remain within her not as wounds, but as disciplined memory held with clarity.
Her former husband once struggled to understand her calling. He belonged to a quieter life, one rooted in continuity, shared presence, and the belief that love is built through constant togetherness. For him love meant closeness that does not leave. For her, love also meant responsibility toward suffering that cannot be ignored. Over time, this difference did not break loudly. It stretched slowly into silence that neither of them could hold forever. Eventually, they parted with mutual respect and quiet dignity.
And still she remains a mother. Her children, Soha and Zaidan, live with their grandmother in Srinagar, in a house that breathes differently under her care. Their grandmother, Farhana’s mother, holds the home with quiet discipline and deep tenderness. Though she has household helpers, she often chooses to cook herself, finding quiet joy in serving warm meals to Soha and Zaidan. The children grow within this rhythm. Absence does not weaken their bond with their mother; instead, it shapes it into curiosity and a quiet, growing pride.
Soha often asks, “Mama, when you are there, do people trust you easily?”
Zaidan once asks, “Do children speak to you immediately, or do they stay silent at first?”
Farhana answers with calm honesty. “Trust takes time,” she says. “Safety is not immediate. It is rebuilt slowly.”
And to Zaidan she adds, “Some children speak. Some remain silent for a long time. Silence is also protection.”
They listen not with fear, but with growing understanding.
And pride quietly forms within them.
“My mama helps people in war places,” Zaidan says once.
Soha adds softly, “She sits with children who cannot speak after what they saw.”
It is admiration shaped by understanding, not imagination.
When Farhana returns this time from Syria, she is composed and steady. Not distant, not overwhelmed, but quietly adjusting from the intensity of field awareness back into the slower rhythm of home. There is no visible break in her, only a subtle shift, as if her mind is still moving at a different altitude and gradually settling into familiar ground again. She speaks less in the beginning, listens more than usual, and carries a kind of alert stillness that comes from having lived too long where everything required attention. Yet nothing in her feels lost. It is not absence she brings back with her, but experience that is still finding its place within silence.
For the first days she remains quiet. She works on her laptop. She sits by the window for long hours. Time around her feels unclaimed, as if she is still moving between two worlds of experience.
Her mother does not interrupt her silence. She places food beside her, adjusts her cotton stole when it slips, and allows space for return without demand.
Her grandmother watches with understanding, knowing this is not emotional collapse but professional reintegration.
Soha and Zaidan stay close, not only seeking her presence but trying to understand her inner world.
One evening their grandmother says, “Let’s go to Dal Lake.” Her tasbeeh[1] moves slowly between her fingers. She adds softly, “The lake brings clarity when the mind has carried too much.”
Soha steps forward immediately. “Mama, come with us.”
Zaidan adds, “Even I am going. You cannot refuse now.”
Farhana looks at them for a moment, then nods. “Alright.”
They leave as evening settles over Srinagar.
The city is alive with its familiar summer movement, people heading toward Dal Lake, voices blending into warm air, the energy of evening gathering near water. It is not chaos, but rhythm, a collective turning toward stillness.
At Dal Lake, wooden shikaras wait along the shore, rocking gently against the water. They step into one together. The boat shifts, then steadies as it moves away from land.
The shore recedes slowly, not like disappearance, but like release.
Soha’s voice breaks the silence gently.
“Mama… does it stay with you when you come back?”
Farhana looks at the water before answering.
“Yes,” she says. “But not as pain. As understanding. It becomes part of how I see human beings.”
Zaidan asks, “Like what?”
“Like knowing how much people can survive and still remain human,” she replies.
Soha looks at her with quiet admiration.
“You really help them.”
Farhana shakes her head slightly.
“I help them remember what already exists within them.”
A silence follows, calm and full.
Then Soha asks softly, “What do you actually do there?”
“I sit with people in distress,” Farhana says. “I help stabilise emotional trauma. I make sure they are not alone while they are trying to hold themselves together.”
Zaidan murmurs, “That sounds important.”
“It is,” she says simply.
From behind them, her mother speaks, her voice steady with faith and lived wisdom.
“She has always been like this. Clear in thought. Steady even in difficult places.” The grandmother adds with quiet pride, “Even as a child she never turned away from pain, but she never lost her balance either.”
Her mother continues with calm conviction.
“Farhana was never meant for a small life. God gave her a heart that sees beyond comfort, beyond fear, beyond borders. And I am proud of her. Proud that she is my daughter. Proud of the way she carries light into places where others hesitate to go.”
She adjusts her tasbeeh slowly.
“But even those who carry light across the world must return to rest. Life does not place weight without wisdom. God places ease within burden. And home is part of that mercy.”
Farhana listens, grounded and steady.
After a pause she says quietly, “I am here. I am present. That is enough for now.”
The boat continues across Dal Lake as evening deepens into gold.
Soha leans into her. Zaidan sits close. Her grandmother closes her eyes in prayer.
Soha’s hand stays in hers. Zaidan sits close. Her mother continues her remembrance.
Together they drift forward, not as a family untouched by distance, but as one held together by something deeper than absence, something quieter than separation, something that still knows how to get back together.
[1] Prayer beads
Gowher Bhat is a columnist, freelance journalist, beta reader, book reviewer, avid reader, and educator from Kashmir, and a published author of both fiction and nonfiction. He serves as a senior columnist for several local newspapers across the Kashmir Valley.
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