Wife of Abdus Samad Bhat

When Sara passed away, we buried her in our family's graveyard in the foothills of the "Suleman Teng" or "Shankaracharya Hill" in Srinagar, Kashmir. We marked the grave with white marble. At the head, below the bismillah, the caligraphy reads "Wafaate Ahleya Abdus Samad Bhat"; It marks the death of the "Wife of Abdus Samad Bhat". She was my grandmother, had been a proud and loving wife to the wonderful Abdus Samad Bhat, and her name was Sara.

Quite likely the omission of her given name was a manifestation of what-was-done and what-was-proper in the collective psyche. When i looked at it this September the marking struck me as a symbol of our, for want of a better word, male chauvinism.

This "our" identity seems to be defined by our nationality and culture and religion and history and the list can be longer. The "we" it constitutes puts women on a pedestal that seeks to grant respect but comes with a denial and suppression of feminine individuality. Apparently, it did not want to acknowledge Sara directly.