As Modi begins fast, Gulbergs last man says why hes still there ADAMHALLIDAY Sep 17 2011 Ahmedabad

: On the eve of Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modis fast, the spotlig ht is back on Gulberg Society. However, 68-year-old Kasam Allahnoor Mansoori is used to these passing nudges when the world remembers a massacre. What he is mor e acquainted with are the dark, quiet shadows that fall in later that have never left the society since that day of February 28, 2002, and where he remains now the only resident. As he wades through grass and hops across puddles, and walks up the two short st eps into the front room of his home, Mansoori gestures towards a spot in the wal l Ehsanbhai (Ehsan Jafri) had his armchair here. He would sit in it and read book s, watch TV, look out the window at the grounds there. The frame of the window is now sooty, the metal of its grills corroded. Sunlight struggles to break through the untrimmed trees, overgrown grass and the moss th at covers the walls of the compound, which once housed families in 29 bungalows and 10 apartment buildings. A heavy stench covers the street outside this poor n eighbourhood, waste overflowing from three large waste containers. From the outs ide, the now infamous address is easy to miss. As a lone armed sentry sits on a plastic chair, keeping an eye on visitors, a co w strolls in. Mansoori smiles, It comes to eat the grass. He lives in a corner house just next to the main gate, alone after his two survi ving sons moved out not long ago to houses of their own. I remain, he says without emotion, because my father lived here and brought us all up here. Besides, their spirits wont allow me to leave. He is talking of his wife, a son, a daughter, three daughters-in-law and six gra ndchildren who were among the 69 killed here. Mansoori talks without stopping for a while. No one comes here. On Fridays, neigh bourhood Muslims come to offer namaaz, he says, pointing to a small mosque just i nside the gate. Jab tak Ehsaanbhai the, yeh Society mein har koi khush tha (Till Ehsanbhai was al ive, everyone was happy in this Society). Even today when we make bajra rotis an d mutton at home, we miss him. He loved the mutton and bajra rotis my mother mad e for him on the chulha). Mansooris mother lived next door to Jafri. Each Friday, Mansoori lights an incens e stick in both houses, which remain the same as the day of the riots. I remember I was at home when Pandesaheb (P C Pande, Police Commissioner during t he riots) came to call him, but he said no. Ehsanbhai told my father, How can I g o with them? I am worried for my wife and children. I was hardly gone half an hou r to donate blood to a relative, when news came that a mob had burnt down Gulber g Society, he remembers. Mansoori laments the fact that people have since moved away and cut off all link s to a place belonging to their ancestors. I dont feel alone here, he adds. My wife Jebunissah is still here. When they come to visit, he tells his grandchildren to go and play in the houses . I dont want them to remain scared, Mansoori says. They tell me that at dusk, she h

olds their hands and brings them back to the house. http://www.indianexpress.com/story-print/847837/