Mohan — The First Light

 Mohan — The First Light

Mohan’s birth came like a quiet blessing into a household already shaped by discipline and hope.

Born in the crisp air of Baramulla, he was Soma’s firstborn—a child of radiance and promise (“spun from sunlight”. Fair, robust, and full of restless energy, he seemed to carry movement within him. The compound of their home became his kingdom, and he its laughing, tireless ruler.

Soma watched him often from the window, her heart swelling with pride so intense it bordered on fear. He ran faster than the other children, led their games, and invented their mischief.

The mohalla knew him well.

“Soma-ji, your Mohan is the ringleader again!” the aunties would call.

“He has them all climbing trees!”

She would apologise, but never quite hide her smile.

These were no complaints. They were confirmations of life.

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Mohan’s birth? "Soma's Shock."

To her, their complaints were just another verse in the song of her son’s vibrant, healthy life.

Then, the music stopped.

It began not with a crash, but with a whisper. A slight fever, an unusual lethargy that dimmed his bright energy. Soma tucked him into bed, murmuring assurances, blaming the changing season. But the fever did not break. It clung to him, a malevolent fog, and when it finally receded, it stole something essential in its retreat.

The first time he tried to get out of bed and his legs buckled beneath him, a cold knot tightened in Soma’s stomach. The second time, a silent scream began to build in her throat. The vibrant little boy who ran was gone, replaced by a child who could only drag himself across the floor, his legs trailing behind him like forgotten things. His small face, once creased with laughter, was now etched with a confusion so profound it shattered Soma’s world.

“What happened?” The question became a desperate mantra, echoing off the walls of their suddenly silent home. It was asked of local hakims, of travelling doctors, of elders who came with remedies and prayers. The answers were shrugs, shaken heads, and fearful glances. Nobody knew. It was a curse, some whispered. A twist of fate said others. A great, suffocating shock settled over the family, a pall of grief for a loss they could not name or understand. The house compound, once filled with the echoes of his play, was now a vast, aching emptiness.

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Soma’s Shock

Then, without warning, the music stopped.

It began quietly—a fever, a strange stillness in a child who had never known how to be still. Soma dismissed it at first, as mothers often do, blaming the season, the air, the change.

But the fever lingered.

And when it finally left, it took something with it.

The first time Mohan tried to stand and fell, a cold unease gripped him. The second time, fear took form. The third time, truth arrived.

The boy who had run now dragged himself across the floor, his legs trailing behind him. His laughter faded into confusion—an expression no mother is prepared to meet.

“What has happened?” became the question that filled the house.

Hakims were called. Doctors consulted. Elders offered remedies and prayers. But answers did not come—only silence, speculation, and dread.

Then came the word.

Polio.

It arrived not as an explanation, but as judgment. A disease barely understood in their world, cruel in its randomness, final in its effect.

For Soma, the shock did not pass—it settled. The memory of Mohan running became a ghost she carried daily.

Her son would not walk again.

And in that realization, something in her broke—and something else hardened.