Nearly 50 years have passed since Chakki died, but Shanavas remembers that day like it was yesterday. His mother Subaida handed baby Jafer to his grandmother and left the house in a hurry with tears in her eyes, hoping for one last glance of Chakki, more of a friend to her than a house help. Subaida returned home as a mother to three more children — Chakki’s youngest, baby Sreedharan, in her arms, and two young girls Ramani and Leela. That day, at the age of seven, Shanavas welcomed three new siblings into his life.
Thennadan Subaida and Abdul Aziz Haji, a pious Muslim couple from Nilambur’s Kalikavu village in Kerala’s Malappuram district, had gone on to foster the three children of their former domestic worker as their own for all their lives, all the while refusing to bring them into the fold of Islam. Subaida passed away due to a kidney ailment in July 2019, and her husband Aziz Haji followed two years later. The family’s heartwarming tale has now been adapted to screen by acclaimed filmmaker Siddik Paravoor. The film, Ennu Swantham Sreedharan ('With Love, Sreedharan'), titled after the youngest of Chakki’s children, premiered at the Vanitha Theatre in Edappally on January 9.
It was through a Facebook post by Sreedharan, sharing the tragic news of the passing away of his umma (Islamic term for mother in Malayalam) in July 2019, that the world beyond Kalikavu first came to know of Subaida. “How does ‘Sreedharan’ have an ‘umma’? Whom are you misleading? Is this a fake ID?” his Facebook friends had prodded. For Sreedharan, his heartbreak amplified by his inability to return home from Oman to see his mother, the doubts and aspersions cast on his life’s experiences had seemed to border on harassment.
A day later, he had decided that he would not allow society’s dogmas to deem him as anything less than Subaida’s son — a Hindu child of a Muslim mother. “Umma and uppa (father) had three biological children of their own, including Joshina, who was born a few years after we came to the house. But we have never felt like outsiders there. That is the only home I have known. I have heard that umma used to breastfeed me and Jafer together,” Sreedharan tells TNM. And hence he had taken to Facebook, relating his life’s story, letting the world in on a gratifying lesson in love and coexistence.
Thenadan Subaida
“This post is to clear your doubts about who I am,” he wrote. “When I shared the news of my umma’s passing, some of you had doubts. Even when I posted a picture of me wearing a taqiyah, there were doubts if a Muslim man could be named Sreedharan. My mother died when I was about a year old. I have two sisters. I had a father too. The very day my mother died, this umma and uppa brought us to their house. They gave us an education, just like they did for their own children. When my sisters reached a marriageable age, it was uppa and umma who married them off. Having kids of their own did not stop them from taking us in. They had three kids. Even though they adopted us at a young age, they did not try to convert us into their religion. People say that an adoptive mother can never match up to one’s biological mother. But she was never an ‘adoptive mother’ to us, she was truly our mother,” the post said.
Sreedharan and his uppa Abdul Aziz Haji
Everybody who read his post was surprised, says Sreedharan. “Suddenly we were getting calls from activists and media persons to ordinary people, all of them wanting to know more about the story behind that post,” he says. “In today’s political climate, where religions are constantly pitched against each other, the fact that this family took us in and raised us to believe in god, believe in our own faith, seemed almost unbelievable for some.”
In fact, the siblings were surprised by the world’s reaction to the story. “We grew up as brothers and sisters. We had never thought of our family as different from the others,” says Shanavas, the eldest of Subaida’s biological children. “Of course, when umma first brought Ramani, Leela, and Sreedharan into our home, I had asked her what she was planning to do. She then told me that these children will now grow up in our house, and that was it. We never questioned it. Our father, who was in the Gulf at the time, was also equally supportive of umma’s decision,” he says.
Sreedharan recalls the day he asked his adoptive parents why they didn’t bring him into the fold of Islam. “Their first response was concern. They asked me if someone had said something bad to me. After I reassured them, they explained to me that we should not let religion define anyone. They said that all religions were essentially preaching the same thing — to love and help people, and that it was human beings who were interpreting these teachings wrongly.”
“They also taught us to have faith, no matter what the religion. My sisters and I used to go to the temple, walk around with sandal marks on our foreheads and more. They actively encouraged us. All they expected from us was to ensure we don’t lie, steal, or hurt others. And we also took care to never do something that would hurt their reputation,” he says.
Sreedharan is also cognisant of the fact that if he and his sisters had not been adopted by Subaida, his life would have panned out very differently, especially considering his biological family’s caste background. “We are of a lower caste. When we were growing up, people would have expected us to be silent and subservient, standing in the margins. That was the culture back then. But uppa and umma taught us not to do that. They told us that we should never bow before anyone unnecessarily,” he says.
It was only after he had a son of his own that he realised the true depth of his parents’ love, says Sreedharan. “Now I know the effort that goes into bringing up a child. So I can only imagine how big of a task bringing up six children would have been. As a matter of fact, after my biological father died, they had also taken the daughter he had from a second marriage under their wings. That’s not something many people know,” he adds.
Director Siddik Paravoor, whose previous film Thahira had featured in the Indian Panorama Feature Film section of the 51st International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa, first heard of Subaida through Kondotty-based social worker and orator AP Ahamed. “Presumably after Sreedharan’s Facebook post went viral, I read a note Ahamed master had written about Subaida and her life, which deeply affected me. I wanted to bring her story to more people’s attention. I wanted to let them know that there are people who live like this. People who put love and kindness over religion and prejudices,” he says.
Nirmala Kannan as Subaida and Suresh Nellikode as Abdul Aziz Haji in a still from 'Ennu Swantham Sreedharan'
Siddik recalls hearing more heartwarming stories about Subaida after he arrived at her village. “Everyone in Kalikavu knew her and loved her. For all her life, she has spent her ancestral money not on herself, but to help the underprivileged. She bought clothes and jewellery for them annually. She had some 12 acres of land, all of which she donated to people in need over the years. In a later stage of her life, she had even resorted to seeking loans to help other people. By the time she died, she was in a debt of about Rs 28 lakh — and none of it was for herself. Eventually, it was Shanavas who paid it all off with his own money,” he says. While in Kalikavu, he had also heard that after Subaida passed away, the vicar at a nearby church rang the church bell, usually reserved only for the faithful, and even held a prayer meeting for her.
After Ahamed put Siddik in touch with the family, it didn’t take much time for the project to go on the floor. While dancer Nirmala Kannan donned the role of Subaida, journalist and writer Suresh Nellikode – who has also produced the movie – became Aziz Haji. Actor Nilambur Ayisha and writer Shihabuddin Poythumkadavu also appeared in prominent roles, alongside Sachin Roy, Vaibhav Amarnath, Harsha Arun, and Rajitha Santhosh.
Actor Nilambur Ayisha with child actors in a still from 'Ennu Swantham Sreedharan'
“It was Aziz Haji himself who turned on the camera for the first shot. They were all glad that more people would now come to know about their Subaida and the benevolent woman that she was. Unfortunately, Aziz Haji passed away a year later during the COVID-19 pandemic,” the director says. “People are inherently good. But sometimes we need stories like these to remind them of that goodness. Subaida deserves to be remembered, and her story repeatedly told.”