Mehran Ahmad, 17, has not been able to recover from the trauma that he lost all his books in the September floods. The year has been a struggle for him to concentrate on his studies and to remember what happened at his home on September 7, 2014.
On the morning of September 7, 2014, the loudspeakers made an announcement in Raj Bagh that the water in Jhelum is above the danger mark, but like other families they didn’t believe that the flood will hit their home.
“I was sitting with my parents in my home when we heard cries from the backside of our house and before we could do anything we found ourselves in a sea of water,” says Mehran, a resident of Rajbagh, who passed his Class X this year.
Like other students of his class, Mehran had worked hard on his handwritten notes and his books but he could not save them while running for survival.
“I had worked hard because it was Class X, but everything changed after the floods. When I along with my family was being rescued, my mother picked up my bag but it fell in the waters while we were being taken to a safer place in a boat,” he remembered.
Hundreds of students like Mehran are struggling to forget the memories of floods, for them the wounds are refusing to heal.
“Everything will be rebuild, the buildings, the houses, everything, but the trauma it has given us is unforgettable. Academics suffer sometimes due to political uncertainties and this time due to the floods. We are not able to concentrate while our dreams are very big,” says Mehran who is not satisfied with the marks he got in Class X.
“I had high expectations till September but after that I felt that I have forgotten everything that I had studied. I even felt like it was impossible for me to pass. All students whose houses were damaged in the floods are struggling with the same trauma,” he said.
This year the academic calendar of the students suffered in Kashmir as the exams were delayed by three months and were held in March-April.
The education sector faced a setback in the Valley with preliminary losses estimated as Rs 165 crore to this sector alone.Rebuilding the education career is definitely going to be a long walk for thousands of students like Mehran who have big dreams.
