Meet Tia

I first Met Tia in 2010 when I was doing research. A young girl told me about an English lady living at Hotel Akbar and that I should go and meet her; so I did. Tia knows everyone and she was more than a huge help to me when I needed contacts, ideas or just on the ground knowledge on Kashmir. Even though Tia is a wonderful, generous and kind lady she unfortunately has been through hell the past 7 years. For the past 4 years she has been here in Srinagar, unable to leave because she has court cases pending. I guess I am telling her story because it  is an all to familure case of a women who fell in love and trusted, only to be mislead, abused and taken for every penny she had. So maybe this is warning to some as well.

Blame the Kashmiris conflict, blame his greed and deception, or blame her naivety, it is a sad story that many western women experience  because hey fall for a handsome foreign guy in a foreign land.
The conflict here in the late 90's and 2000's saw a huge drop in tourism and industry which led many Kashmir men to work outside of Kashmir. All you visitors to Dharamsala and Goa will know this. So with little industry and no jobs the black market trade rose and because police  and the CRPF were busy finding and fighting armed militants, less important issues such as black market trade, corruption and money laundering (also the abuse of women) increased. In this lawless environment it  became easy for some to turn criminal.
Anyway Tia and her husband use to visit Goa alot after her divorce from a marriage that lasted 27 years, a Kashmir guy she had know for a long time befriended her. In her own words " It was stupid but I succumbed to his charms because I was vulnerable." Their relationship went well for over 1 1/2  years, they went into business together in Goa and on a visit to Kashmir to meet his family they decided to buy a home in Kashmir. Foreigners cannot buy land in India or Kashmir so the house and land was in his name but it was her money. Over the next few months the guy managed to wrangle more money out of her, stole money from her account an well as cash she was planning to use to buy a home in Goa. In total he took 68 lak rupees which is about $124,000( and that was in 2007 so add inflation and it is a lot more). Now if that was not terrible enough; the guy had gotten himself engaged to a Kashmiri girl and married her shortly after he clean out Tia.
Now since Tia has been fighting the courts to retrieve her money she had discovered that she is not the only one this had happened to. Other women, even one transvestite have been taken for cash and dumped only to find their ex-partner married to or in the process of using the cash to get married to a local girl. Even western men who are doing business in Kashmir have been done out of cash.
Presently Tia is awaiting another court hearing this month and hopefully she will be that much closer to receiving justice and hopefully some money too. When she wins, and she has such faith that she will she  hopes to found a shelter for women, foreigners and Kashmris who have been financially taken or abandoned by their partners or husbands. She hope to be the case that can change laws in so that "this never happens to another woman."
Two year ago when we first met Tia was fighting hard and worn out by the slow justice system, the threats against her life if she did not drop the case and just being in a male dominate, foreign culture in general. However since then she decided to take this process as a spiritual practice, trusting in God that she had to learn from this awful experience, accepting her karma without anger and developing patience in every breath. When I see her picture of 10 year ago and look at her now she has aged fast. But looking deeper that her already deep wrinkles, there is a light in her heart and she still cares for and is generous to others. She freely giver her attention and time along using accompanied by a cup of tea and a hug.
He may have taken her cash but he dam well never got her soul. Tia will not only survive this but  I know she will keep on growing  and become a pillar of strength for others