A year after his death, SAR Geelani’s children remember him, his life and his lessons

SAR Geelani playing with his son, Atif Geelani, in JNU in 2003. When Atif was seven years old and his sister, Nusrat, was nine, Geelani was in jail facing trial in the Parliament attack case and had expressed his desire that his children grow up to become lawyers. Both of them are now advocates practising in the Delhi High Court.
Satheeshan Karicheri / Free press Archive
SAR Geelani playing with his son, Atif Geelani, in JNU in 2003. When Atif was seven years old and his sister, Nusrat, was nine, Geelani was in jail facing trial in the Parliament attack case and had expressed his desire that his children grow up to become lawyers. Both of them are now advocates practising in the Delhi High Court.
Satheeshan Karicheri / Free press Archive

It has been one full year since a mound of earth situated a few hundred metres away from our ancestral house in Kashmir became the most important site of our lives. We run to it the first thing in happiness and sorrow, in victory and defeat, for peace and strength. The mound of earth marks the grave of Sayed Abdul Rahman Geelani. Lovingly known as SAR among his friends, to us he was Abbu, our beloved father.

Abbu left us at the age of 50, suddenly and much too soon, on 24 October 2019. The shock of his untimely demise is still fresh. It was unimaginable for us because we had always known him as an invincible hero who triumphed death repeatedly in the short span of his adult life. The sentiment, as we in the family came to know later, was shared equally by many of his friends and colleagues whom he had worked with and inspired over the years.

He lived his life as a teacher, an educator and a tireless defender of human rights who cared and spoke fearlessly for the rights of the most oppressed. In particular, it was his awareness of the situation in Kashmir, and his concern for justice and the right to self-determination of his people, that made him the person he was and live the life he did. Even when he moved out of Kashmir to study in the 1990s, a tumultuous period of militancy, he dreamt of returning home, to serve and teach. But the prevailing political situation in Kashmir was not conducive for his return, so he took up a teaching post as a professor of Arabic at the University of Delhi. In the later part of the decade, the family joined him in the city. We were five and nine years old at the time, son and daughter respectively.

Sayed Nusrat Geelani is a practicing advocate in the Delhi High Court.

Sayed Atif Geelani is a practicing advocate in the Delhi High Court.

Keywords: Kashmir 2001 Parliament Attack Afzal Guru human rights
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