From the Embattled Lanes of Srinagar, Two Young Men Have Taught Themselves How to Build Robots

The story first appeared in TheWire's LiveWire.in on November 12, 2018.

By Sheikh Saqib

Srinagar: In the midst of the all the strife and chaos in the Valley, two young Kashmiris have been quietly pursuing their passion for robotics – trying, then failing and finally succeeding at inventing robots, drones and much more.

Now, they’re gearing up to compete against others in India to get a chance to represent the country internationally. This is a peek into their lives up till this point.

Deep inside one of the narrow allies of Srinagar’s Karanagar area, 22-year-old Sheikh Najeeb Shafi lives in a two-story house full of electronic devices. The house, which retains an old-timey charm thanks to its architecture has witnessed all of Najeeb’s projects come to life, everything from minor machinery to his attempts to make a robot.

He is presently busy testing a two-wheeler balancing bot, which is exactly what it sounds like – a machine that balances itself on two wheels. Just as Najeeb’s invention starts running around the room on its wooden wheels, his co-inventor, 16-year-old Mir Faizan, returns from a day at school.

Najeeb and Faizan have spent most of their short lives experimenting with any electronic equipment they could lay their hands on. From destroying gadgets to repairing them – they’ve done it all.

“Once an electrician came to my house and fixed a bulb. When he turned the switch, the light shined and made things distinguishable. This fascinated me,” says Najeeb, explaining how he started on this path.

“After that,” he continues, “I started to take an interest in electronic stuff. I would destroy things and then repair them. I failed most of the time, but kept at it, trying different tactics. This, I should say, inspired me to try more.”

As a kid of barely ten, Najeeb remembers receiving a book about electronics from a senior at school. That book is still with him, occupying prime space on the desk where he spends his day experimenting. At first, he says, he couldn’t understand the book. “I would skim through pages and enjoy the pictures in it. But as soon as I realised what it was really about, I started reading it with concentration. It helped me connect myself to the confusing world of electronics,” he recalls.

After failing his 12th board exams three times in a row, Najeeb started spending his time making projects for final-year B-Tech students.

“I went on doing their assignments until I passed my 12th class examination last year,” says Najeeb, “now I am myself a B-Tech student and am busy doing mycollege projects.”

His parents weren’t exactly happy during that period, though. “My parents often forced me to focus on my regular studies because they thought my interest in robots would lead me to become a grease-covered local mechanic in the future,” says Najeeb.

However, he doesn’t blame them for being worried. He says, “My parents are not at fault here. The Valley has produced many people with different skills but they end up suffering because there’s a lack of platforms and facilities. Even my teachers could not understand me. They would call my parents and complain every time I took one of my robots to school.”

Najeeb’s interest in electronics eventually led him to an India Skills competition last year, where he met Faizan for the first time. Both of them had gone there to compete as individuals but ended up as a team, which turned out to be a great decision as they won regional runner-up at the event.

“We participated in the competition as a wildcard team,” says Faizan. “I was self-trained in software and I was interested in robotics as well,” he says, explaining why he wanted to work with Najeeb.

The competition basically involved participants racing robots to see which one could pick up and dump balls inside a net the fastest. Najeeb and Faizan’s invention outperformed most, surprising the audience and judges.

Although he’s just 16, Faizan is not new to these competitions. Just a couple years ago, he won a bronze medal as a ninth grader competing against college students at IIT Delhi’s annual competition.

Most recently, Faizan was occupied with making a jetpack but had to abandon it mid-way when costs exceeded Rs 40 lakhs. After doing all he could, including collecting trash to fashion parts out of, Faizan approached the government for financial assistance but was denied.

He remains optimistic though, saying, "I still hope to get it done someday.”

After abandoning the jetpack project, Faizan ended up directing his limited resources to making a drone, which he did complete and that he now counts as his biggest achievement.

This self-taught duo is all set to compete in India Skills this year, hoping they get a chance to represent the country internationally and make the Valley proud

Martyr's Graveyard and it's Custodian in Kashmir.

This piece was originally written in 2016 and later edited on July 20, 2018.

By Sheikh Saqib

Note - The custodian and caretaker of more than 1500 martyrs in India-administered Kashmir died at the age of 78 on Thursday, July 19, 2018.

“Lestyo forget, we have given our today for your tomorrow”, reads the inscription on the gate of Martyrs’ Graveyard in old Srinagar, India-administered Kashmir.

I went to this celebrated graveyard to pay tribute to the countless martyrs whose blood still smells fresh in the air. 

Epitaphs of hundreds of martyr’s stand like sentinels over the graves of people killed since the 1990s.

After I travelled for the interview in this chaotic city, this graveyard stood out as a relative calm with neatly laid out graves in rows.

Habibullah Khan, 75, is a gravedigger and a caretaker of this blooming garden of graves. He has been digging graves for the last 26 years. The accidental gravedigger was a businessman until he learnt the skill of digging graves.

Popularly known as Mazar-e-Shahuda, the graveyard where Khan works have the buried bodies of more than 1500 martyrs. Khan who may look physically old and weak carries strong and vivid memories of the fallen.

The Journey of Khan as a Gravedigger

“Since the 90s till now, I have been in the habit of keeping a grave ready, you never know who will be killed today and brought to this precious graveyard,” says Khan.

For Khan, digging graves of martyrs is more than a job to earn money but to contribute towards the shared sentiment among Kashmiris for freedom struggle.

“When I saw people picking up arms to fight the Indian state, I found digging graves for these martyrs as my way of resistance against the Indian State,” says Khan.

In the late 1990s, Khan went through a major surgery on his head but his determination towards his work kept him going even when doctors Kept him on medicines and advised him to take rest.

“If I take rest, who will take care of my people who are buried here,” Khan said while tears rolled down his cheeks.

The journey of Khan as a gravedigger is all about trauma, violence and bloodshed.

As Khan says, the violence since the 1990s has generated a sea of memories in his brain.

“During the turbulence of 90’s I used to bury not less than 10–13 martyrs’ per day, even the children were not spared,” says Khan.

The Birth of Martyrs’ Graveyard in Srinagar

“This piece of land was not always a martyrs’ graveyard, it was just another field of Srinagar,” remembers Khan.

“At one corner of the cemetery was a big and old tree on which, during the turbulence of 1990’s, the flags of Al- Umar, Hizbul-ul-Mujahideen and Kashmir Liberation Front (KLF) were waved by some of the residents of the locality. They shouted to gather other residents and were told to dig some graves, for there were some martyrs who were later buried here,” says Khan, adding that when they started the job, they found it unsuitable to bury the martyrs’ bodies in it.

“The level of the water came up and the perception existed that no graveyard could be established. People started preparing to go home but a sudden influx of thoughts rushed through my brain and I stopped people present there and shouted, ‘Nothing can stop us from putting these blood riddled bodies in this land’,” says Khan, “I returned home to take some rest and to my surprise when I came back after a few minutes, people had started bringing mud from their houses to make the place fit for a graveyard. I felt like angels were also helping us”, says Khan.

“The sacrifice of young people with high spirits, ready to do anything for the freedom movement, enticed me to do the job”, says Khan.

As he recalls, one day, in the mid-1990’s he was told to dig a grave for an unknown person whose body was not even recognizable due to burnt scars.

“When I finished burying the person, about five strangers entered the cemetery and called me. With angry faces, they told me to disinter the grave. I did so immediately. They looked at the body and left. Then after a gap of 3–4 hours, they came back and told me to dig up the grave once again. They came back at least 3–4 more times. This afflicted me. Every time I disinterred the grave I would feel a pang in my heart on seeing the beautiful face of the body. These kinds of cases have happened to me a number of times, I used to offer prayer in the cemetery itself and ask God for forgiveness for disturbing a dead person”, says Khan.

“The 1990s were the worst,” Khan says when I asked whether the violence of 2008–2010 and 2016 was the worst he had seen. In those days bodies were not even recognizable due to the mutilation. Every day people were killed by Indian security forces.

“One day in Srinagar, Indian Army fired bullets on a large procession of people which resulted in mass killing. Some died on spot, some were fidgeting with open stomach, and some even jumped in Jhelum. This was the height of oppression in the valley. Fumbling, I tried to stitch the wide open stomach of some people but you know what… it didn’t work and they died,” says Khan.

According to Khan, in the 90s, the Armed Forces used to treat people like animals.

“Every day there was a threat of getting killed at the hands of the Indian forces. They destroyed everything, from humans to buildings. Even the people who used to attend the funeral processions were not spared. In some cases, people were also targeted in the cemetery itself,” remembers Khan.

During the turmoil of the 90s, Khan recalls burying 4–5 corpses in a single grave due to the increasing number of dead bodies and also his fear of being attacked inside the cemetery.

Khan Takes a Walkthrough rows of Graves

Khan treats these martyrs as his family. Every day he visits the graveyard and offers his respect to the deceased.

Khan manages to spend almost an hour daily to recite prayers for the departed in the cemetery; “Aaa Aashi matya toi kyazi rooshiv, Thavnyav myani rouban janti kyan bagan manz”. (Oh my people, may God keep you in the gardens of heaven)

Khan says that most of the victims of the conflict, especially from old city Srinagar, are buried here. The oldest person laid to rest here is 105 years old while the youngest is a two-year-old, Saqib Bashir.

“The story of Saqib Bashir is the most heart wrenching,” he says when I ask him about the most memorable funeral. “Her mother was breastfeeding him, suddenly a bullet fired by Indian forces stroked the mother’s breast and straight in the mouth of her son. He died while the mother survived.”

“When slaves are martyred they are relieved of their pain” reads one tombstone, that of 22-year-old Ashiq Hussain, who was killed on August 20, 1996.

Tufail Mattoo, a young boy was killed after a tear gas shell hit his head in 2010. He is now buried in this graveyard. The killing of Tufail Mattoo, says Khan, triggered the 2010 unrest in the valley.

Close to Tufail’s grave is that of Wamiq Farooq, a class 7 student who too was hit on the head by a tear gas shell during the unrest of 2010.

Thirty-five-year-old mother and 12-year-old son were killed while travelling in a boat by Indian forces and were later buried in this graveyard in a single grave.

A photojournalist Mushtaq Ali is also buried in the martyr’s graveyard. He was killed by a parcel bomb on September 10, 1995, in Srinagar’s Press Colony.

Pro-freedom leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq’s father Moulvi Farooq is also buried in the same graveyard. He was assassinated by unidentified gunmen in 1990.

Another tombstone inscribes Father, Ghulam Mohammed Malla, 45, and Son
 Mehraj Din Malla, 15, Martyred in 90's.

Besides, there are also the graves of Kashmiri militants who were killed by the security forces since the conflict in Kashmir began in 1989.

Qaisar Sofi, a 16-year-old resident of Shalimar, who was buried in the graveyard in November 2016. Sofi was found in an unconscious state a day after he went missing on October 27, 2016. He breathed his last in hospital. Sofi was allegedly poisoned and tortured by the police.

Khan says that a man was killed in the cemetery itself.

On asking on how it feels to be a gravedigger, Khan says, “Whether people call me a gravedigger or see me among the most coveted ones, I will never give up being a gravedigger.”

Khan is survived by two daughters and a son.