Feroza Bi and her 70 goats
Feroza Bi at home in Jammu’s Degwar village, located between LoC and border fence. (Express photo) Feroza Bi at home in Jammu’s Degwar village, located between LoC and border fence. (Express photo)
The Line of Control (LoC) is 100 metres in front, the border fence about 900 metres behind. Somewhere in the middle are Feroza Bi and her 70 goats. Every time the guns boom from across the border, like they had in recent weeks, Feroza Bi follows a drill: “I have no fear. What use is fear? When the firing starts, I just round up all the goats and stay put in my house with them. What else can I do?” she says.
Feroza Bi lives alone in her house in Jammu’s Degwar village that sits right at the edge of the LoC. In this village of about 3,000 people, it’s her house that is closest to what’s considered one of the most dangerous borders in the world.
The LoC cuts right through her field on which she grows maize and paddy. Here, there is nothing to mark the LoC since Degwar village is located well ahead of the border fence that has been set up to prevent infiltration from across the Pakistan border.
The hills bordering Feroza Bi’s fields fall in Pakistan (Express photo) The hills bordering Feroza Bi’s fields fall in Pakistan (Express photo)
Feroza Bi isn’t sure of her age. “60-70… maybe more. I do not know. I have been staying in this village for about 50 years,” she says, her wrinkled face breaking into a smile.
Her husband passed away four years ago and since then, she has been on her own. She has four sons, two of whom are with the Jammu and Kashmir Police and posted in Poonch, and one in Saudi Arabia. Her eldest son lives with his family in nearby Poonch town. She says her sons keep asking her to leave the village and move in with them, but she has always said no.
“I have 400 kanals of land here in the village and I have my 70 goats. Who will look after all this if I leave? I am going to stay here till the end of my life,” she says.
Her daily routine stretches to fill in the hours. “I have a lot of work. I clean my house, tend to my animals and my fields. I hire boys from the village to work on my fields, but I do everything else myself. Sometimes I go out of the village to attend family functions,” she says, sitting in the courtyard of her mud house, that’s called a dhok in these parts.
Her eldest son, Rasheed, says he often drops in to help his mother. “My mother is attached to the land, after all this is the land of our forefathers. So I don’t force her to leave. I help my mother in whatever way I can,” says Rasheed, giving only his first name.
She says neighbours drop in to keep her company. (Express photo) She says neighbours drop in to keep her company. (Express photo)
Feroza Bi says that besides neighbours, who drop in to keep her company, the Army personnel help too. Seeing the Commanding Officer of the local battalion in the village, she exchanges greetings. “Pakistan Army post hamare sar ke upar hai (Pakistan Army post is right here, at an elevation). But the Colonel sahib and Major sahib (Commanding Officer and Company Commander) make sure I am safe and provide us all the help they can — they hold medical camps for the villagers and let us leave the village when we have to.”
What if the government insists on moving her to a safer place? “How can they? Who will pay for my land, my house and my goats? Iski keemat koi nahin de sakta (No one can put a price on them),” she says.
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