T he last words Afsana Khan heard from her son, Usaid, were the lines of a nursery rhyme — “ Anaar ka meetha daana (The sweet seed of the pomegranate).” A drowsy and weak Usaid had tried to recite the rhyme as he lay in a hospital bed at New Health City Hospital in Nagpur, Maharashtra.

“I was trying to cheer him up. He had started going to nursery school just two months ago, so I asked him to recite the rhyme. He fell unconscious after saying these lines and never woke up,” says Khan, sitting in her two-room house in Parasia town in Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh (M.P.), about 150 km away.

On September 13, 2025, Usaid died due to kidney failure, after three sessions of dialysis. He would have turned four on October 10, 2025.

Khan’s younger son, 2-year-old Yamaan, is too young

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