Emirati flies in mum she found after 37 years
ras al khaimah — Emotions ran high as Mariam Abdulrahman Saleh Al Shehi hugged her mother at the Dubai international airport. She had flown her in after having travelled to India in October last year to meet her for the first time in almost four decades. Meeting in Dubai was like a second reunion for them.
Mariam, now 37, got separated from her Indian mother because of her parents’ divorce in 1983 when she was a little over a year old.
During her growing up years, Mariam, who stays in Shaam area, always wondered what happened to her mother and how she was. “I used to ask my father about my mother,” she said reflectively. After a long pause, she added: “I tried all possible ways to reach her but in vain.”
A young Mariam had to accept the fact that her parents’ less than two-year marriage ended in divorce. Her mother, who was then pregnant with her second daughter
Fatima, left Mariam with a shattered heart and went back to her hometown in Hyderabad in India.
As time passed, the growing void that Mariam felt prompted her to frantically search for her mother.
“It was not an easy job,” she said. “My father and I kept searching for years.”
Mariam even took the search to social media, posting her mother’s photo.
Her post read: “This is my mother from Hyderabad. Please, help me find her.”
Moved by her mission, Emirati national Ahmed Al Muhairi helped her out.
He voluntarily put out an advertisement in one of the Indian newspapers and it miraculously worked out.
Within a few hours of the ad’s posting, Ahmed received a call from Fatima, who approached him with all the documents to prove their relationship.
When Mariam heard about it, she could not believe that her dream could soon come true.
“My heart was longing to kiss and embrace my mother after all these years of separation,” Mariam said, trying to hold back her tears.
She travelled to Hyderabad in October last year and met her mother and sister for the first time after 37 years.
“We met at a hotel at Hyderabad airport,” she said.
“My mother is from Salala area in Hyderabad where many people speak Arabic fluently. So I have composed many Nabati local poems about my love for my mother,” she added.
After having met her mother and sister in Hyderabad, Mariam flew them into the UAE.