INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
HYDERABAD: The Hyderabad woman, Syeda Lulu Minhaj Zaidi, who went to the US to pursue a master's degree and was found dishevelled, homeless
and starving on the streets of Chicago has briefly taken shelter at a neighbourhood family, who hail from Hyderabad, after critical injuries
to her leg and shoulders and acute menstrual bleeding.Between intermittent spells of incoherence and amnesia, she displays flashes of
rationale and clarity in thought, but refuses to allow anyone to venture close as she wallows on the streets and picks food offered to her
"She was pleading for 'dahi' and 'palak' and has moved to the home of a Hyderabadi woman in Chicago, Sajida Begum, after her condition
She has till now refused to move permanently to a shelter home or the embassy," a social activist in Chicago, Syed Mukaram, told TOI on
phone.Nobody, however, could confirm if she met with an accident that caused severe injuries even as she wobbles on a walker provided by an
onlooker and is mostly spotted near the Weston Grand Avenue police station, St Francis Evanston Hospital or in the proximity of a church.Her
mother Syeda Wahaj Fatima, 65, is inconsolable
In an exclusive chat with TOI, Fatima said, "She rose from the debris of a harsh night after she was divorced within six months of her
She was barely 26 years of age then
The tumult in her marriage left deep scars and she refused to tie the knot again and delved into academics
She wanted to leave behind traumatic memories of Hyderabad and build a new life in the US
But my little girl is in so much agony and I cannot fathom how she's surviving alone on the dark, dangerous streets
She wouldn't even sleep alone at our own home in Moula Ali and would slip into my room at night
When she was unreachable for two long months, I would frequent the US consulate in Nanakramguda and plead with officials to help find her,
The nightmare was agonising till MBT spokesperson Amjad Ullah Khan chanced upon a stray video from a Hyderabadi in Chicago and tweeted
officials in Delhi and the US
Khan sahab has been our guardian angel, the prime mover and our support
I want to bring my daughter home and appeal to the US consulate to expedite my visa." With her husband bed-ridden and her home in Moula Ali
usurped by land sharks, she's staying with her sister, Mubashra Fatima, in Old City's Noor Khan Bazaar
"I want Mubashra to accompany me to the US
My health too is sinking since the tragic turn of events," she says
But what triggered the emotional relapse? Was it just the mugging incident on Chicago streets when she was robbed of her bag containing
certificates of her degrees along with her cellphone? Or did she suffer an agonising assault? Her mother says "Lulu was scheduled to
complete her master's programme from Trine University, Detroit, in September
She was returning from the campus after paying her exam fees, when she was mugged on April 26
I think her American dream crashed and she thought she lost everything she worked for all these years
She suffers from a guilt that gnaws at her heart
When I first spoke to her on a video call, she couldn't recognise me briefly and then she wept inconsolably."While Hyderabadi Good
Samaritans in Chicago are sponsoring Syeda Wahaj Fatima's to-and-fro flight tickets, visa processing fee and her stay in the US, how will
her daughter be brought home on a long flight? No wonder, there's always a long pause and an incoherent turn of phrase, every time Lulu
Minhaj Zaidi is asked if she wants to return to Hyderabad.
