Renewed breaths of freedom

I heard and read about ‘Hindustan’ (India) in the ‘Madrasa’ back in Myanmar. But never in my dreams did I think that I would land here one day and that this would become home.

I was 17 when I fled Burma (Myanmar), due to the oppression on the Rakhine State andthe Rohingya muslim community by the military. We’ve had several crackdowns before, starting from the late 70s, but it became unbearable by 2010 and 2011. We were denied citizenship, restricted from everything including civil service jobs and education. It was a slow and lethal ethnic cleansing and I couldn’t stand it anymore. Women were being raped in front of their husbands and fathers. But, I couldn’t fight back. I had a family…a future to look forward to. The only option I had was to run away from my homeland to escape the brutality.

I too crossed the border into Bangladesh like the others. But the journey wasn’t easy...I had to shell out anything between `5,000 to `1,00,000 (in kyat) to an agent. From Bangladesh, I reached Kolkata by road, and that opened a new chapter in my life.

I didn’t have money, food or water. The phase tested my resilience, but all I wanted to do was to escape the violence. After travelling by train for several months to different cities including New Delhi and Mumbai, I went to Jammu and stayed in a Rohingya refugee camp there for four years.

While home was where my heart was, I met the person I was going to spend my future with, in the camp. We got married two years back and moved to the Kelambakkam camp here in 2016. Not many people know that this camp or we refugees exist...right here in their backyard.

Now, I have a two-year-old son and it makes me happy to see him smile and take breaths of freedom. But my mother, my two brothers, and my sister are still in Burma. Every day I think of them. We talk over the phone once in two to three months, but it’s a struggle for them to call me from a conflict zone. If mobiles and telephones are found in their possession, the government will imprison them for three years and will also levy fine or seize it. I don’t have the money or the resources to bring them here.

I earlier worked as a waiter in a nearby restaurant but I quit to become a teacher. I teach the Quran to children in the camp and earn about `5,000 a month. That’s my only source of income to run the family. Though I have been in the city for two years now, I only know the UNHCR office in Besant Nagar and a few local places. The UNHCR helped us in getting our refugee cards, and also in resettling here. We hardly go out...where to go and what to do with the meager sum we have? I don’t even know Tamil, but all our kids speak the language fluently.

We live in a decrepit building, in a room which is about 150 sq ft, our children play amid swarms of flies in ramshackled sheds and we have saris acting as makeshift walls. But, we are happy and content being in the camp along with other families with similar stories and in a city that has given us free electricity, water supply, shelter and freedom.

Back in Burma, to travel from one place to another or even to visit the mosque, we had to inform the government and get permission. Freedom was a far-fetched dream back then. But here, we celebrate festivals and the 40-odd children belonging to the 22 families in the camp have access to education. We feel secure here. India and Chennai have showed me what humanity and care is. But someday, I wish to go back to my country...only if it’s peaceful.