Many a time, when I look back, I feel that there was a mystical aura around everything in my part of the city. I don’t know if our minds had got conditioned to believe that or the part of city I was born in was really wrapped up in mysticism. But, I have very strong impressions that the mornings I woke up in childhood were not the same as in my later life. 
In childhood everything around looked cloaked in supernaturalism- the mud roofed houses with lots of white, blue and magenta irises in sync with the vast tracts eternal home of most of the people living in our part of city rash with fleurs-de-lis  perpetually reminded us of the world hereafter. The morning breeze cascaded   spiritual freshness that recharged us on way to the mount Koh-Maran had something inexplicable in it.
 True, gloom of poverty, deprivation, injustice that this tiny nation had suffered during hundreds years of alien rule was writ large on every house constructed in small baked bricks wrongly called “maharaja seeri” and unbaked mud bricks.  The exteriors of these houses did tell stories of pain and agony but inside every house was bubbling with spiritualism.  Sometime back in this column I wrote how just before the beginning of the month of Rabi al-Awwal our mothers started cleaning and daubing their house. In our house this exercise was carried on many other occasions- mostly before the annual festivals of various saints whose shrines were most important part of the landscape of our locality.
 My grandmother knew names of all months of our traditional calendar – as most of these months indicated not only different seasons of our land but also shades of its weathers but I don’t know if she remembered the names of Islamic calendar with same ease but she never forgot some important dates in calendar.   Third, sixth, eleventh, twelfth and thirteenth of every month of Muslim calendar she remembered without fail. She was not alone in remembering these days but these days were remembered by most of the families in our locality. These dates were observed by many families by distributing tehari or tea in the mohalla.    In my childhood it was tradition in our family to carry a “samovar of Khawa” and some loaves of bread to the shrine of Naqashband Sahib in our neighborhood. On important occasion such as passing of children in examinations or promotion to higher position the family would take “majama of halwa” (mega plate), there were families that brought ‘pulawa’, Tosha and machama ( different varieties of rice some cooked in ghee and sugar)
 The shrines on these days would be haunted by lots of mendicants and friars. The children were taught to respect not only   mendicants but even ‘shodas’ (hashish smokers) that visited the shrine- it was belief with  most of us  that the  mendicants visiting the shrine were no ordinary beggars but people of greater spiritual attainments. Some mendicants had made the shrine their permanent abode- I still remember  names of some of the mendicants and even shodas- some of the mendicants with  impaired vision also visited the shrine.
 My uncle would often invite the mendicants for tea or food at our home- I remember one of the mendicants that   often accompanied from the shrine for having food at our place was a blind.  He was not fair complexioned. He had very deep pox marks on his not that rotund face. This stick tottering blind would inspire fear in children but    for the tufts of long curly   hair that gave him some spiritual aura to his person. He had an elephantine memory and melodious voice. He not only remembered Kashmiri mankabats and naits of most important poets but also remembered lots of Persian hymns of great maestros including that of Hazarat Baha-ud-Din Naqashband Bukhari. My father and uncle were great devotees of this great fourteenth century Central Asian saint. I remember, he had got some verses from his poetry got beautifully written in silver color on the light green walls of the main ‘bathakh’ of our house- and often explained these verses to us – these verses spoke of his  extreme love for the saint. He would often ask the blind mendicant to recite the verses from the poetry of this great Sufi Saint.
 He was not the only blind who sang na'ts and mankbats but there were couple of others who would stand up before or after prayers to recite na'ts   in shrines and mosques and collected alms. Some of them were very popular faces in these shrines but mostly they remembered a few Kashmiri na'ts. The tradition  to an extent lives even today.
 I am reminded to two other blinds, who in my childhood in their own right had become public personalities in our locality. They visited no shrines or mosques for collecting alms but believed in dignity of labor. One of them was fair-complexioned, lean and tall almost about six feet. He started his journey early in the morning perhaps somewhere between third and fourth bridge with a bag filled to capacity slinging from his shoulder. He sold tobacco and sometimes matchboxes. He carried no stick but carried “Tamakepori” (Cone shaped tobacco packs) in his hands. He would cry louder “Blind is selling Tobacco- By Tobacco from Blind”. Unlike most of the blinds that thronged the shrines he was known as devote Salafi. Mostly it was children who would help him in crossing the roads. Children knowing his belief, sometimes while helping him in crossing the road played pranks with him by invoking some saints to help him in crossing the road- this would annoy him and even if in the middle of road he would not cross the road but stayed back till some other person helped him out. I remember later on he also worked at a knife grinders shop and also led prayers in a mosque in our locality.
 Muhammad Sultan- perhaps hailing from some village in Islamabad was most popular blind man in our locality. I do not know when he had arrived in our mohalla but since my first primary days I had seen him working with a senior knife grinder of our locality. He pulled the grinding wheel tirelessly from morning to evening and earned his living. He recognized most of the children through their voice and remembered most of them by their names.
 It seemed a sort of contradiction but no one objected to it- he on occasion gave Azan from our mosque but equally sang at night at marriage functions. Those days there were many  families in our locality that were averse to eunuchs singing amongst women and abhorred use of musical instrument in marriage parties.  The blind singer was popular with these families as he used no musical instruments but played with dexterity on traditional tumaknari-  and sang mostly devotional songs at marriage functions.

 (Feedback at zahidgm@greaterkashmir.com)

Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Jun 2010 21:30:00 Mecca time
Lastupdate on : Sat, 19 Jun 2010 18:30:00 GMT
Lastupdate on : Sun, 20 Jun 2010 00:00:00 IST