The little boy walked
past the unswept stiarcases, the sleepy houses
past the smells of the night, the cigarette butts,
and the heap of leftover food collected on the sides of the streets, rotting and unclaimed by the street dogs
the slum was begining to wake up to the sounds of the megacity
the buses honked, the cars screeched
and the muezzin called from five different mosques
then the doors creaked, someone looked out of a window
but Wasim continued walking
outside the boundary of the graveyard
Wasim stopped, looked over his shoulder
nobody was around
he gently pushed open the gate
then he tiptoed to Aesha's grave
and sat down
For two weeks he had been coming here
after his sister died in a school stampede
for her, he carried incense sticks, and even brought roses
every morning he decked up the grave, sticking flowers around it
gently touching it, and lighting the incense
He always got up when Aesha prepared to leave for school
and he would turn his back and try to sleep again
because his school didn't start until noon
in the evenings they played together
his sister with her reddish hair and light eyes, a beauty
and he, dark, with a large nose envied her
she had delicate features and she stood first
Aesha had everything going for her
On the fateful day
when the stampede killed the girls
Aesha had crawled out
she was to live, and play with him, and marry into a nice house
but a voice called out to her, a friend who needed help
and Wasim had watched helplessly from the other side of the gate
he had gesticulated wildly, and screamed till the police shooed him away
On the other side of the gate, Aesha turned back
and disappeared into the dark staircase
Wasim ran home, and then saw his sister's body when they brought her home
So every morning he walks to her little grave
and talks to her
tells her about homework, about their mother, the news and everything else
for hours he sits there
sometimes, he carries a little of Aesha with him
and sprinkles the mud on the side of the bed where he sleeps
Monday, September 28, 2009
Revisiting Khajuri Khas
I went back to the slums across the road from Khajuri Khas school two weeks after of the incident that killed five girls and injured 34 others.
An edited version of this appeared in the Indian Express on September 28, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, September 27, 2009
Shamsiran quietly put the green sequinned dress material that her daughter Afroz bought in the coffin. Afroz had bought it for Eid on the Sunday before she died in the stampede at a Khajuri Khas school. Then, she stood in the doorway, wailing, and bid farewell to Afroz.
from the next alley, another coffin emerged, of Aesha’s and one mother’s cries mingled with the wail of the other.
On September 11, through the numerous alleys in the cramped Shri Ram Colony, people poured out, hundreds of them, solemn and angry, crowding around the graveyard where three of the area’s girls werelaid to rest a day after they died.
More than two weeks have passed since the tragedy. Some of the anger has died, giving way to dejection and hopelessness. Tears still flow, but voices are hushed and subdued. But grief, fear and anger that the culprits are still at large and not one government official ever knocked on their doors to ask how they were coping has united the many families in the colony that now say their daughters will never go back to the school.
Parveen said her daughter sits up through the nights and cries. The road to recovery is long, the process painful.
“She says she can still hear the screams of the girls,” she said. “I will not send her to the school. She is my only daughter. What if I had lost her on the day? I’d be lost, too.”
As she spoke, the women who had gathered around her on Sunday afternoon, taking a break from their housework, said the government should set up a school in Shri Ram Colony.
“No girls from this area will ever attend the school. We wanted to educate them so they could have better lives, not be like us, but not at this cost,” Asraf Jahan said. “What is the government doing for us?
What is it doing about the incident? Only announcements. That doesn’t help.”
Sajida, a student of Class 7 at the school where the tragedy struck, breaks down often. On the day when rains had filled the school compound and they were going up the stairs, the boys came, and they were trapped. Someone pushed her, too. Sajida somehow managed to get out but she saw other girls clambering out of the narrow staircase, their kurtas torn, blood on their faces and arms and the screams and
the sights have stayed with her, she said.
“They pushed me, they pushed the other girls,” Sajida said. “I will not go back. They died there. The walls must be resounding with their cries. I hear them, too.”
In another section of the colony, Nazreen, another student, is recuperating from her injuries. For days after the tragedy, Nazreen remained in the house, and talked only about the deaths. Her classmate Aesha was among the dead.
Jakri Begum, the mother, said much remains shrouded in mystery.
Stories of harassment were not unusual and girls often said the boys stood outside the gates and teased them. But nobody knew it would come to this, she said.
“For us, our honour is the only thing we have. If it means we have to keep them home, we will. We have no other choice,” she said. “The government, if it wants to do something for us, they should build a school here and then our daughters won’t sit home.”
The school was slated to open September 15 but the reopening was deferred until September 29 because the situation was not “normal”, according to officials.
On the day the tragedy struck, no meals were cooked in the neighborhood. On Eid, families stayed inside shunning new clothes, and didn’t prepare sewai. They were in mourning, they said.
“It was a black day for us,” Jakri Begum said.
The stampede at the school had occurred at around 9 am on September 10 when students were trying to make their way up and down a narrow staircase when school officials asked them to shift classrooms. While there were conflicting reports about the reasons that led to the tragedy, ranging from rumours about a short circuit and current subsequently passing through the flooded classrooms on the ground floor, and boys misbehaving with girls, the locals say the latter led to the stampede and then the deaths.
Post mortem reports suggested there were no electrocution injuries and most girls had injuries in chest and hands, and the abdomen region.
But Zaeeda who washed the dead body of her niece Afroz as part of the ritualistic burial, said she saw the marks all over, on the arms, on the chest as if someone had bit her.
The Delhi government had announced an ex gratia of Rs.1 lakh to the families of each of the deceased and Rs.50,000 to each injured, but the families are yet to receive the money or any notification from the government. Five girls were killed and 34 other students injured in the stampede.
“It was sad. I lost two nieces – Aesha and Afroz. The chief minister says the government will give compensation but we don’t want the money. Money won’t bring them back. We want justice,” she said.
Rukhsana, Aesha’s mother, wiped her tears. Her elder daughter Nisha stood beside her, and her son Wasim sat brooding in a corner.
Nisha had been getting ready for school when the news came. She attended the same school as Aesha but that fateful day, her exam was in the second shift.
Each morning at 6 a.m., Wasim walks to the graveyard, and lights incense sticks at his sister’s grave. Sometimes, he sticks a few incense sticks in the fresh mud of the other two graves, too.
“When she got angry she sat in a corner. It still feels she is sitting there,” he said, standing near the boundary of the graveyard. “I miss her. That’s why I come to her grave every morning.”
Across the road, past the school building that’s locked, in one of the gullis, up a flight of stairs, in yet another house, another family is grieving.
Monika, a Class 11 student, died in the stampede, and now her mother Jagesh Choudhary said she is unwilling to send her youngest daughter Sonika back to school.
“What’s the point? If they couldn’t manage this time with the police station just a stone throw away, what is the guarantee such incidents won’t happen again,” she said, her voice ringing, the anger unnoticeable. “Two weeks have passed. None of the boys have been booked. No government official ever came to us. When a poor man’s
child dies, it is just another number. The poor have nothing but their anger and hurt.”
After the Deputy Commissioner of North-East Delhi T C Nakh was asked by the government to submit a magisterial report on the incident, process to terminate the principal and suspend the other three, including the two vice-principals and RP Yadav, the zonal deputy director of education as recommended by the magisterial probe has already begun.
But while the families mourn their dead, and stay away from festivities, the tragedy has been hijacked, and being made into a political issue already.
Across the school, a dharna had been organized Sunday. Gurvindar Singh, the national president of Suryavanshi Khatik Samaj, who led the dharna said they would pitch their own candidate in the municipal elections and cut into the Congress votes because a lot of voters belonged to the Khatik Samaj if the government didn’t build a memorial for the deceased girls and double the compensation amount.
The group has submitted a memo to the Chief Minister, too.
“We will boycott the elections,” Singh said.
But inside a room, Afroz’s father Mohd. Ishaq was once again looking at his daughter’s pictures before he left for the graveyard to spend a few minutes with the departed.
An edited version of this appeared in the Indian Express on September 28, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, September 27, 2009
Shamsiran quietly put the green sequinned dress material that her daughter Afroz bought in the coffin. Afroz had bought it for Eid on the Sunday before she died in the stampede at a Khajuri Khas school. Then, she stood in the doorway, wailing, and bid farewell to Afroz.
from the next alley, another coffin emerged, of Aesha’s and one mother’s cries mingled with the wail of the other.
On September 11, through the numerous alleys in the cramped Shri Ram Colony, people poured out, hundreds of them, solemn and angry, crowding around the graveyard where three of the area’s girls werelaid to rest a day after they died.
More than two weeks have passed since the tragedy. Some of the anger has died, giving way to dejection and hopelessness. Tears still flow, but voices are hushed and subdued. But grief, fear and anger that the culprits are still at large and not one government official ever knocked on their doors to ask how they were coping has united the many families in the colony that now say their daughters will never go back to the school.
Parveen said her daughter sits up through the nights and cries. The road to recovery is long, the process painful.
“She says she can still hear the screams of the girls,” she said. “I will not send her to the school. She is my only daughter. What if I had lost her on the day? I’d be lost, too.”
As she spoke, the women who had gathered around her on Sunday afternoon, taking a break from their housework, said the government should set up a school in Shri Ram Colony.
“No girls from this area will ever attend the school. We wanted to educate them so they could have better lives, not be like us, but not at this cost,” Asraf Jahan said. “What is the government doing for us?
What is it doing about the incident? Only announcements. That doesn’t help.”
Sajida, a student of Class 7 at the school where the tragedy struck, breaks down often. On the day when rains had filled the school compound and they were going up the stairs, the boys came, and they were trapped. Someone pushed her, too. Sajida somehow managed to get out but she saw other girls clambering out of the narrow staircase, their kurtas torn, blood on their faces and arms and the screams and
the sights have stayed with her, she said.
“They pushed me, they pushed the other girls,” Sajida said. “I will not go back. They died there. The walls must be resounding with their cries. I hear them, too.”
In another section of the colony, Nazreen, another student, is recuperating from her injuries. For days after the tragedy, Nazreen remained in the house, and talked only about the deaths. Her classmate Aesha was among the dead.
Jakri Begum, the mother, said much remains shrouded in mystery.
Stories of harassment were not unusual and girls often said the boys stood outside the gates and teased them. But nobody knew it would come to this, she said.
“For us, our honour is the only thing we have. If it means we have to keep them home, we will. We have no other choice,” she said. “The government, if it wants to do something for us, they should build a school here and then our daughters won’t sit home.”
The school was slated to open September 15 but the reopening was deferred until September 29 because the situation was not “normal”, according to officials.
On the day the tragedy struck, no meals were cooked in the neighborhood. On Eid, families stayed inside shunning new clothes, and didn’t prepare sewai. They were in mourning, they said.
“It was a black day for us,” Jakri Begum said.
The stampede at the school had occurred at around 9 am on September 10 when students were trying to make their way up and down a narrow staircase when school officials asked them to shift classrooms. While there were conflicting reports about the reasons that led to the tragedy, ranging from rumours about a short circuit and current subsequently passing through the flooded classrooms on the ground floor, and boys misbehaving with girls, the locals say the latter led to the stampede and then the deaths.
Post mortem reports suggested there were no electrocution injuries and most girls had injuries in chest and hands, and the abdomen region.
But Zaeeda who washed the dead body of her niece Afroz as part of the ritualistic burial, said she saw the marks all over, on the arms, on the chest as if someone had bit her.
The Delhi government had announced an ex gratia of Rs.1 lakh to the families of each of the deceased and Rs.50,000 to each injured, but the families are yet to receive the money or any notification from the government. Five girls were killed and 34 other students injured in the stampede.
“It was sad. I lost two nieces – Aesha and Afroz. The chief minister says the government will give compensation but we don’t want the money. Money won’t bring them back. We want justice,” she said.
Rukhsana, Aesha’s mother, wiped her tears. Her elder daughter Nisha stood beside her, and her son Wasim sat brooding in a corner.
Nisha had been getting ready for school when the news came. She attended the same school as Aesha but that fateful day, her exam was in the second shift.
Each morning at 6 a.m., Wasim walks to the graveyard, and lights incense sticks at his sister’s grave. Sometimes, he sticks a few incense sticks in the fresh mud of the other two graves, too.
“When she got angry she sat in a corner. It still feels she is sitting there,” he said, standing near the boundary of the graveyard. “I miss her. That’s why I come to her grave every morning.”
Across the road, past the school building that’s locked, in one of the gullis, up a flight of stairs, in yet another house, another family is grieving.
Monika, a Class 11 student, died in the stampede, and now her mother Jagesh Choudhary said she is unwilling to send her youngest daughter Sonika back to school.
“What’s the point? If they couldn’t manage this time with the police station just a stone throw away, what is the guarantee such incidents won’t happen again,” she said, her voice ringing, the anger unnoticeable. “Two weeks have passed. None of the boys have been booked. No government official ever came to us. When a poor man’s
child dies, it is just another number. The poor have nothing but their anger and hurt.”
After the Deputy Commissioner of North-East Delhi T C Nakh was asked by the government to submit a magisterial report on the incident, process to terminate the principal and suspend the other three, including the two vice-principals and RP Yadav, the zonal deputy director of education as recommended by the magisterial probe has already begun.
But while the families mourn their dead, and stay away from festivities, the tragedy has been hijacked, and being made into a political issue already.
Across the school, a dharna had been organized Sunday. Gurvindar Singh, the national president of Suryavanshi Khatik Samaj, who led the dharna said they would pitch their own candidate in the municipal elections and cut into the Congress votes because a lot of voters belonged to the Khatik Samaj if the government didn’t build a memorial for the deceased girls and double the compensation amount.
The group has submitted a memo to the Chief Minister, too.
“We will boycott the elections,” Singh said.
But inside a room, Afroz’s father Mohd. Ishaq was once again looking at his daughter’s pictures before he left for the graveyard to spend a few minutes with the departed.
Sunday, September 27, 2009
The loss of words
You want me to cut short a mother's wail,
stop her while she tells me how she buried her daughter
how she put the green kurta in the coffin
and the clips, and the purse and her hopes and her despair
and her loss too
You want for your inches' sake, for the column width
to cut her tale in half
of how she saw Afroz skip the poodles of water, the muddy corners of the alley
of how she never looked back, and how she tightly held her umbrella
and then she had disappeared at the corner of the alley
and never turned back
and then an hour later, people came rushing to her house
shouting, and screaming
there was a stampede and girls had died at the school
Afroz, the robust, tall and beautiful girl was one of them
You want me to shrink it, edit it, cut it, delete the emotion, erase the pain, take everything out, tighten the graphs, strangle everything, mutilate it all, because there's no space tonight
but it is emptiness in her eyes that makes me write
and her voice is heavy with the narration of a lifetime
On that day, Afroz woke up early for the Sehri, said her prayers
Then sat and crammed her notes
And then she left for school
And you want to keep it tight, keep it short
And I don't know how to
I can't not let her cry, and I can't not write about how beautifully she cried
She had waited outside the hospital for hours
and they would not let her see her
those hours, the wait, the lag, the despair, the helplessness
and you want me to condense it in one line
because there are the inches, the column width, the advertisments, and crime spots
So the tale of the poor mother's dead daughter needs to be cut
No I can't contain the agony in 500 words
I can't betray the mother, and her daughter
Because the poor have nothing but their anger and hurt
and their loss
they let her in and there Afroz lay there in the corner
after the other four who had died
when the boys chased them up and down the narow staircase at school
and they had shouted, screamed, tried to run
but they gave up
They didn't let her near the body
she saw the hand upturned
she asked the policeman to place it at her side
she had lurched forward
but they held her back
she saw the marks, too
then they gave them the body
and they brought it home
I know the space is tight tonight, but the story hangs heavy on me
I can't rid of it except here
Because the pain of the poor, the tales of loss must be written
I can't justify why you should run it
I can't pitch it
except that when a young boy walks to the grave of his sister,
and kneels down near the freshly-dug grave and lights incense sticks
the image sticks to me, and I can't shake it off
So I need to write
And you tell me it is getting too long
But Wasim walked everyday to the grave at 6 a.m.
and each day he carried the incense sticks
and he spends hours at the grave still
because back at home, Aesha is not there to play carrom with him
And all this, you want me to fit in a sentence
It is hard
It is like cutting his walk short, like asking him to stop because I have a quote
and I am done
And so I linger, I let him talk
And then I am back on the page
chopping a bit off here and there
mostly the conjunctions, the extra ones
But I can't lose more of this loss
because it makes me angry, sad, and whole lot of other things
So, I didn't chop much tonight
Because I couldn't
And the loss was too much for me to press it in a mere 500-word piece
Because the poor have nothing but their loss
and I have nothing but the words
So I let the tale flow
Maybe you can cut it
I went into the homes, and sat beside the wailing mothers
who felt alone because nobody ever came to ask them about the loss
the ministers made announcements, they expressed shock and regret and ordered probes
but nobody came knocking to ask them how they were coping
because loss is a heavy burden to carry and it spreads
Its emptiness fills you, and it overflows and spreads again
So the loss needs to be cut, the tales need to be edited
So you do it.
How can I?
I had looked at the pictures, and I became part of the loss
I carried those with me, in my head, and my notes
And you want me to lose it all
because nobody writes that long
But I refuse
Because loss is all that they have
stop her while she tells me how she buried her daughter
how she put the green kurta in the coffin
and the clips, and the purse and her hopes and her despair
and her loss too
You want for your inches' sake, for the column width
to cut her tale in half
of how she saw Afroz skip the poodles of water, the muddy corners of the alley
of how she never looked back, and how she tightly held her umbrella
and then she had disappeared at the corner of the alley
and never turned back
and then an hour later, people came rushing to her house
shouting, and screaming
there was a stampede and girls had died at the school
Afroz, the robust, tall and beautiful girl was one of them
You want me to shrink it, edit it, cut it, delete the emotion, erase the pain, take everything out, tighten the graphs, strangle everything, mutilate it all, because there's no space tonight
but it is emptiness in her eyes that makes me write
and her voice is heavy with the narration of a lifetime
On that day, Afroz woke up early for the Sehri, said her prayers
Then sat and crammed her notes
And then she left for school
And you want to keep it tight, keep it short
And I don't know how to
I can't not let her cry, and I can't not write about how beautifully she cried
She had waited outside the hospital for hours
and they would not let her see her
those hours, the wait, the lag, the despair, the helplessness
and you want me to condense it in one line
because there are the inches, the column width, the advertisments, and crime spots
So the tale of the poor mother's dead daughter needs to be cut
No I can't contain the agony in 500 words
I can't betray the mother, and her daughter
Because the poor have nothing but their anger and hurt
and their loss
they let her in and there Afroz lay there in the corner
after the other four who had died
when the boys chased them up and down the narow staircase at school
and they had shouted, screamed, tried to run
but they gave up
They didn't let her near the body
she saw the hand upturned
she asked the policeman to place it at her side
she had lurched forward
but they held her back
she saw the marks, too
then they gave them the body
and they brought it home
I know the space is tight tonight, but the story hangs heavy on me
I can't rid of it except here
Because the pain of the poor, the tales of loss must be written
I can't justify why you should run it
I can't pitch it
except that when a young boy walks to the grave of his sister,
and kneels down near the freshly-dug grave and lights incense sticks
the image sticks to me, and I can't shake it off
So I need to write
And you tell me it is getting too long
But Wasim walked everyday to the grave at 6 a.m.
and each day he carried the incense sticks
and he spends hours at the grave still
because back at home, Aesha is not there to play carrom with him
And all this, you want me to fit in a sentence
It is hard
It is like cutting his walk short, like asking him to stop because I have a quote
and I am done
And so I linger, I let him talk
And then I am back on the page
chopping a bit off here and there
mostly the conjunctions, the extra ones
But I can't lose more of this loss
because it makes me angry, sad, and whole lot of other things
So, I didn't chop much tonight
Because I couldn't
And the loss was too much for me to press it in a mere 500-word piece
Because the poor have nothing but their loss
and I have nothing but the words
So I let the tale flow
Maybe you can cut it
I went into the homes, and sat beside the wailing mothers
who felt alone because nobody ever came to ask them about the loss
the ministers made announcements, they expressed shock and regret and ordered probes
but nobody came knocking to ask them how they were coping
because loss is a heavy burden to carry and it spreads
Its emptiness fills you, and it overflows and spreads again
So the loss needs to be cut, the tales need to be edited
So you do it.
How can I?
I had looked at the pictures, and I became part of the loss
I carried those with me, in my head, and my notes
And you want me to lose it all
because nobody writes that long
But I refuse
Because loss is all that they have
Friday, September 25, 2009
NRI Cell formed under NCW to provide legal help to abandoned wives in case of overseas marriage
An edited version of the article appeared in the Indian Express on September 25, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, September 24, 2009
She doesn’t watch travel channels anymore. And if she stumbles upon those, she switches off the television, shuts her mind to the memories of a life that Hardeep Kaur (name changed because the case is sub judice) lived for a mere 14 months.
Two-and-a-half years ago when Kaur created a profile on the matrimonial website www.shaadi.com, she was 35 years old, a professional, who wanted to settle down with a man who was equally qualified and preferably living abroad.
She found her man, and then started a chain of long telephone conversations stretching into the nights. He was a corporate honcho, shuttling between countries, and living a life she always wanted. They decided to meet. Two months later he flew down from United Kingdom, and the couple decided to get married.
And then the nightmares began. Kaur flew to United Kingdom, and was abused and harassed and later abandoned, she said. She left for India 14 months later, and had to start from scratch again.
“It is a double blow. All of a sudden you pack your bags and leave for a life that you have dreamt of, with a man you trust. Then you come back and you resurrect your life yet again,” she said. “Everything has traces of memory of a different life, things that you did together, places that you travelled together.”
A few months ago she stumbled upon the NRI Cell under the National Commission of Women that has been nominated as the coordinating agency at the national level for dealing with issues that relate to NRI marriages by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. While the cell was launched in August, it was formally inaugurated Thursday by Girija Vyas, the chairperson of NCW, who said the newly-formed cell is already working on 6-7 cases where women have approached them with their complaints.
Now, Kaur is hopeful. The anger, the bitterness and the sense of loss can be now be channelized to bring the man to books.
Kaur’s case in one of the thousands of cases of such marriages gone wrong and tales of harassment and abandonment are not unusual. As a NCW member, she will not fight her case and also offer counselling to others who went through the same trauma.
In Punjab alone, the number of active cases is more than 30,000, according to NCW officials.
Various state governments, including Gujarat, where incidence of such cases is high have begun public awareness campaigns to educate families and women on Supreme Court judgments on matrimonial laws and their rights. In Gujarat, in 2008 out of the 20,000 matrimonial cases registered across 57 wards, almost five percent of those are of overseas marriage where the NRI grooms have duped the women.
Other than Gujarat and Punjab, where locals say many houses that have a family member abroad display miniature ships or aeroplanes on the roof as a show of status and even offer toy aircrafts at the Talhan G urudwara near Jalandhar because it is widely believed that chances of going abroad increase with it, Kerela and Andhra Pradesh are the other two states that have seen an upsurge in the number of such cases.
Ajay Kumar, a coordinator for the NRI Cell and a lawyer, said in such communities, the aspirations run high.
“They feel if the girl goes abroad, then the brother will follow, and the family too can migrate. It is the social-economic climate there. For the NRIs it is like honeymoon tourism, they know the law can’t do anything to them,” he said. “As a Cell, we are still in the formative stages. We have to work out the modalities. The legal options we can tell them are domestic violence and dowry, both criminal offences. Education will be the way. Maybe we are helpless now but we have made a humble start.”
As a recommending body, the NCW can only function in an advisory capacity, she said. However, the NRI Cell will render assistance to women, provide legal counselling to them, try for reconciliation and network with NGOs and is even trying to form bilateral and multilateral consensus with the four countries – United States, which has the highest incidence of such cases, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia - so that foreign courts do not issue a divorce decree without the presence of the wife as happened with Amarjit, who was married last year to man who said he had a Belgian passport through a Punjabi matrimonial website.
Everything had seemed perfect last year in February when she found the match on the website. He was Sikh and lived in Europe. She couldn’t have asked fro more, she said.
The family agreed. Delhi’s Tilak Nagar resident Amarjit would marry, they would apply for her visa, and she would fly to a country she only saw on television, or read about it in magazines, and upgrade her life. She was 25 when she married. When her husband prepared to leave India after three months, she asked him about her visa. He dodged the questions, she said.
When she filed an FIR in Ludhiana where she was living with her aunt after she got suspicious, her husband left the country. She called his home in England, and he hung up on her, she said.
Months later, she found him on the matrimonial website courting women. His status said “separated”, Amarjit said.
“I don’t know why he left me. I will never know,” she said. “Perhaps he wanted me to serve his parents in Chandigarh, be like a maid. Everything came crashing.”
Amarjit’s case is among the several cases that are now with the NCW.
The NCW is also partnering with United Nations Development Fund for Women that will help by providing technical support and help the cell raise funds. Through its huge network with NGOs worldwide, it can help the cell coordinate and build data banks, Anne Stenhammer, its representative said.
“The cell can support the government in its efforts. These women, particularly if they are in a different country, are vulnerable. This can be the safety net,” she said.
According to the NCW officials, the NRI units will be formed at embassies in foreign countries as the first point of contact for such women. The NRI cell at the ICCW in Delhi will then look into the complaints and take suo moto notice in accordance with Section 10 (1) (f) of the NCW Act of 1990.
It has already started the first overseas office at Indian embassy in Britain.
The cell will also use the media extensively to dissipate information about the NRI Cell in rural areas too, officials said.
For Amarjit, it offers some hope.
"I have gone to the police. Nothing was done. Maybe I will find help here," she said. "I want him to be punished. He says he is in UK, and not under Indian law. I want him to suffer for what he has done."
How to register complaints
The concept of the NRI Cell is based on the recommendation of the Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Woman (14th Lok Sabha) on the subject “ Plight of Indian Woman deserted by NRI husbands”.
Women can register their complaints on the NCW website http://ncw.nic.in/frmNRICell.aspx.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, September 24, 2009
She doesn’t watch travel channels anymore. And if she stumbles upon those, she switches off the television, shuts her mind to the memories of a life that Hardeep Kaur (name changed because the case is sub judice) lived for a mere 14 months.
Two-and-a-half years ago when Kaur created a profile on the matrimonial website www.shaadi.com, she was 35 years old, a professional, who wanted to settle down with a man who was equally qualified and preferably living abroad.
She found her man, and then started a chain of long telephone conversations stretching into the nights. He was a corporate honcho, shuttling between countries, and living a life she always wanted. They decided to meet. Two months later he flew down from United Kingdom, and the couple decided to get married.
And then the nightmares began. Kaur flew to United Kingdom, and was abused and harassed and later abandoned, she said. She left for India 14 months later, and had to start from scratch again.
“It is a double blow. All of a sudden you pack your bags and leave for a life that you have dreamt of, with a man you trust. Then you come back and you resurrect your life yet again,” she said. “Everything has traces of memory of a different life, things that you did together, places that you travelled together.”
A few months ago she stumbled upon the NRI Cell under the National Commission of Women that has been nominated as the coordinating agency at the national level for dealing with issues that relate to NRI marriages by the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs. While the cell was launched in August, it was formally inaugurated Thursday by Girija Vyas, the chairperson of NCW, who said the newly-formed cell is already working on 6-7 cases where women have approached them with their complaints.
Now, Kaur is hopeful. The anger, the bitterness and the sense of loss can be now be channelized to bring the man to books.
Kaur’s case in one of the thousands of cases of such marriages gone wrong and tales of harassment and abandonment are not unusual. As a NCW member, she will not fight her case and also offer counselling to others who went through the same trauma.
In Punjab alone, the number of active cases is more than 30,000, according to NCW officials.
Various state governments, including Gujarat, where incidence of such cases is high have begun public awareness campaigns to educate families and women on Supreme Court judgments on matrimonial laws and their rights. In Gujarat, in 2008 out of the 20,000 matrimonial cases registered across 57 wards, almost five percent of those are of overseas marriage where the NRI grooms have duped the women.
Other than Gujarat and Punjab, where locals say many houses that have a family member abroad display miniature ships or aeroplanes on the roof as a show of status and even offer toy aircrafts at the Talhan G urudwara near Jalandhar because it is widely believed that chances of going abroad increase with it, Kerela and Andhra Pradesh are the other two states that have seen an upsurge in the number of such cases.
Ajay Kumar, a coordinator for the NRI Cell and a lawyer, said in such communities, the aspirations run high.
“They feel if the girl goes abroad, then the brother will follow, and the family too can migrate. It is the social-economic climate there. For the NRIs it is like honeymoon tourism, they know the law can’t do anything to them,” he said. “As a Cell, we are still in the formative stages. We have to work out the modalities. The legal options we can tell them are domestic violence and dowry, both criminal offences. Education will be the way. Maybe we are helpless now but we have made a humble start.”
As a recommending body, the NCW can only function in an advisory capacity, she said. However, the NRI Cell will render assistance to women, provide legal counselling to them, try for reconciliation and network with NGOs and is even trying to form bilateral and multilateral consensus with the four countries – United States, which has the highest incidence of such cases, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia - so that foreign courts do not issue a divorce decree without the presence of the wife as happened with Amarjit, who was married last year to man who said he had a Belgian passport through a Punjabi matrimonial website.
Everything had seemed perfect last year in February when she found the match on the website. He was Sikh and lived in Europe. She couldn’t have asked fro more, she said.
The family agreed. Delhi’s Tilak Nagar resident Amarjit would marry, they would apply for her visa, and she would fly to a country she only saw on television, or read about it in magazines, and upgrade her life. She was 25 when she married. When her husband prepared to leave India after three months, she asked him about her visa. He dodged the questions, she said.
When she filed an FIR in Ludhiana where she was living with her aunt after she got suspicious, her husband left the country. She called his home in England, and he hung up on her, she said.
Months later, she found him on the matrimonial website courting women. His status said “separated”, Amarjit said.
“I don’t know why he left me. I will never know,” she said. “Perhaps he wanted me to serve his parents in Chandigarh, be like a maid. Everything came crashing.”
Amarjit’s case is among the several cases that are now with the NCW.
The NCW is also partnering with United Nations Development Fund for Women that will help by providing technical support and help the cell raise funds. Through its huge network with NGOs worldwide, it can help the cell coordinate and build data banks, Anne Stenhammer, its representative said.
“The cell can support the government in its efforts. These women, particularly if they are in a different country, are vulnerable. This can be the safety net,” she said.
According to the NCW officials, the NRI units will be formed at embassies in foreign countries as the first point of contact for such women. The NRI cell at the ICCW in Delhi will then look into the complaints and take suo moto notice in accordance with Section 10 (1) (f) of the NCW Act of 1990.
It has already started the first overseas office at Indian embassy in Britain.
The cell will also use the media extensively to dissipate information about the NRI Cell in rural areas too, officials said.
For Amarjit, it offers some hope.
"I have gone to the police. Nothing was done. Maybe I will find help here," she said. "I want him to be punished. He says he is in UK, and not under Indian law. I want him to suffer for what he has done."
How to register complaints
The concept of the NRI Cell is based on the recommendation of the Parliamentary Committee on Empowerment of Woman (14th Lok Sabha) on the subject “ Plight of Indian Woman deserted by NRI husbands”.
Women can register their complaints on the NCW website http://ncw.nic.in/frmNRICell.aspx.
Thursday, September 03, 2009
Journeys of faith ...
The Markaz is just down the road from where I live in Nizamuddin. It always intrigued me because the area remained festive at all times. It is also perhaps the most cosmopolitan in nature with men and women of different nationalities sipping tea at the chai stalls or bargaining for cheap deals for their preparation for chillah.
Access was never easy and being a woman, I could not enter the men's section. So I kept asking around, trying to find someone who could get me inside the women's section. And finally I found Nida who took me there one morning and I managed to talk to some women before I was asked to leave by a woman who told me Tablighis are not allowed to talk to anyone during the jamaat period. We left.
The photographer, a young intern called mikma Lpcha, wasn't so lucky. While shooting the pictures of the Markaz from outside, he was called inside and they asked him to destroy all the pictures.
An edited version appeared in the Indian Express on August 23, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, August 21, 2009
For 40 days of the Chillah, the four Sri Lankan women will travel in the interiors of India, crisscrossing villages, staying for a couple of days each at a Tablighi’s house and preaching to the rural Muslim women the correct ways of Islam. They will hold sessions, recite the Suras and bring back the women to faithful adherence to Islamic teachings. And if language becomes a barrier, they will have a translator travel with them, too.
“This is for Allah, for our religious improvement,” Mohd. Refai, who hails from a tiny hamlet in Sri Lanka, said. “We will spread his message. We will tell them about the virtues, discuss how to rear children in an Islamic way and tell them why they should wear the purdah.”
Refai, who came Friday morning, tugged at the scarf on her head frequently, trying to hide any loose strands of hair that might just show, as she nervously glanced around the large hall that was bare except for a bed. Women walked in and out of the hall, nodding, smiling and inquiring about the prayer sessions throughout the day.
They came from different countries – Africa, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The Tablighi Jamaat, a missionary revivalist Islamic movement founded in 1926 in India, and originally centred at men, has now spread to more than 80 countries. The movement has also recruited women who travel with their husbands, brothers, sons and fathers, and stay at a follower’s house while the men stay at the local mosque and
visit people’s homes helping them to interpret the meaning of Islam.
The women’s jamaat is called Masturat.
It was in the 1920s that Maulana Mohammad Ilyas Kandhalawi founded the Tablighi Jamaat in the Mewat province of India with the slogan ‘Aye Musalmano! Musalman bano’ (Come O Muslims! Become Muslims). Tabligh means “to convey” in Arabic and followers try to imitate the companions of the Prophet by going out and spreading the teachings of Islam as they did in the past.
Over the years, the movement spread, crossing over to other continents and bringing within its fold men and women from far-flung countries like the UK and the USA. From the Markaz in Nizamuddin, jamaats travel to different parts of India and abroad. Besides 40-day chillahs, there are four-month-long tours too. Recently, the thrust has been on rural India and jamaats have been assigned remote villages, a participant
said.
In Nizamuddin West, where the famous Sufi shrine of Nizamuddin Aulia exists, the people that crowd its narrow lanes, filtering in and out of cyber cafes tucked away in alleys behind the Markaz that towers over everything else, are as cosmopolitan as it can get. They step out of the Markaz gates, and chat in loud, animated tones with each other, as they flock to the biryani vendor in the mornings or in the evenings
after the Maghrib prayers, they crowd at Nasir Iqbal’s little store for firni and kheer.
But women never come out. They stay indoors. Often local women come to meet them. Before they leave for their destinations that are decided by the maulanas, they stay at the Markaz for three days preparing for the journey.
Maulana Ilyas is said to have been keen on women’s participation in the movement. The first women’s jamaat went to Mewat where the movement was born. At first women would confine themselves to meetings locally but then it spread. Ilyas had sought ulema’s opinion at involving women because he thought that the movement needed to enlist women. But ulemas recoiled at the idea and Ilyas kept at it.
The Biswa Ijtema, the annual Tablighi congregation in Bangladesh, attracts over three million devotees from around the world.
At least 500 people leave for various destinations in India as part of jamaats every day, according to a vendor.
“I see them coming and going. So many of them come, and so many leave,” he said.
In 40 days, the jamaat consisting of 8-12 people will visit 20 villages.
“No, it is not tough. It will be a pleasure. The worldly life is short and the afterlife is eternal. Our aim is to get to paradise. Through this, we will. Allah has chosen us for this. It is through his grace that we will go and tell people about him.”
Inside the women’s section, the floors were covered with mats, and the curtains kept out most of the outside light. This is where the women would gather and read out from the Koran, and wait for the Markaz to issue them instructions on where they would go. But Refai, 53, isn’t bothered. As long it is for the faith, she is prepared to bear any inconvenience. When she returns, she will write a report on her work like all other women and submit it at the Markaz, and go back to Puttalam, her village that is 80 miles north of Colombo, and tell others what she learned here.
“This is where they can learn the correct things,” Ahmed said.
Refai was 40 when she first went for a jamaat in Sri Lanka. That was for three days, she recalled.
“At the time, I didn’t know much. I saw others and imitated what they did,” she said.
Coming to India was a big decision. This is her first 40-day Chillah in a country that’s unfamiliar.
She applied to the markaz in Colombo and when her turn came, she packed her bags and accompanied her husband here. Only married women are allowed to participate in jamaats.
In Sri Lanka, women only started going for jamaats in the 1970s when a jamaat from India visited the island nation, she said.
Men and women of the Tablighi Jamaat remain aloof from discussions on political life and devote time to discussing the Koran and the teachings. Tours that are self-funded are the central feature of the movement and during the tour the participants break away from all familial and work hierarchies and that allows them to focus.
It is the journey that’s most important, Nida Ahmed, who is an alima or a Muslim woman scholar, said.
“Women were always part of the movement but in the last ten years more and more women have joined it. Recently, we see women from other countries coming often. I guess they want to learn more about Islam, their faith,” she said.
Access was never easy and being a woman, I could not enter the men's section. So I kept asking around, trying to find someone who could get me inside the women's section. And finally I found Nida who took me there one morning and I managed to talk to some women before I was asked to leave by a woman who told me Tablighis are not allowed to talk to anyone during the jamaat period. We left.
The photographer, a young intern called mikma Lpcha, wasn't so lucky. While shooting the pictures of the Markaz from outside, he was called inside and they asked him to destroy all the pictures.
An edited version appeared in the Indian Express on August 23, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, August 21, 2009
For 40 days of the Chillah, the four Sri Lankan women will travel in the interiors of India, crisscrossing villages, staying for a couple of days each at a Tablighi’s house and preaching to the rural Muslim women the correct ways of Islam. They will hold sessions, recite the Suras and bring back the women to faithful adherence to Islamic teachings. And if language becomes a barrier, they will have a translator travel with them, too.
“This is for Allah, for our religious improvement,” Mohd. Refai, who hails from a tiny hamlet in Sri Lanka, said. “We will spread his message. We will tell them about the virtues, discuss how to rear children in an Islamic way and tell them why they should wear the purdah.”
Refai, who came Friday morning, tugged at the scarf on her head frequently, trying to hide any loose strands of hair that might just show, as she nervously glanced around the large hall that was bare except for a bed. Women walked in and out of the hall, nodding, smiling and inquiring about the prayer sessions throughout the day.
They came from different countries – Africa, Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and Sri Lanka. The Tablighi Jamaat, a missionary revivalist Islamic movement founded in 1926 in India, and originally centred at men, has now spread to more than 80 countries. The movement has also recruited women who travel with their husbands, brothers, sons and fathers, and stay at a follower’s house while the men stay at the local mosque and
visit people’s homes helping them to interpret the meaning of Islam.
The women’s jamaat is called Masturat.
It was in the 1920s that Maulana Mohammad Ilyas Kandhalawi founded the Tablighi Jamaat in the Mewat province of India with the slogan ‘Aye Musalmano! Musalman bano’ (Come O Muslims! Become Muslims). Tabligh means “to convey” in Arabic and followers try to imitate the companions of the Prophet by going out and spreading the teachings of Islam as they did in the past.
Over the years, the movement spread, crossing over to other continents and bringing within its fold men and women from far-flung countries like the UK and the USA. From the Markaz in Nizamuddin, jamaats travel to different parts of India and abroad. Besides 40-day chillahs, there are four-month-long tours too. Recently, the thrust has been on rural India and jamaats have been assigned remote villages, a participant
said.
In Nizamuddin West, where the famous Sufi shrine of Nizamuddin Aulia exists, the people that crowd its narrow lanes, filtering in and out of cyber cafes tucked away in alleys behind the Markaz that towers over everything else, are as cosmopolitan as it can get. They step out of the Markaz gates, and chat in loud, animated tones with each other, as they flock to the biryani vendor in the mornings or in the evenings
after the Maghrib prayers, they crowd at Nasir Iqbal’s little store for firni and kheer.
But women never come out. They stay indoors. Often local women come to meet them. Before they leave for their destinations that are decided by the maulanas, they stay at the Markaz for three days preparing for the journey.
Maulana Ilyas is said to have been keen on women’s participation in the movement. The first women’s jamaat went to Mewat where the movement was born. At first women would confine themselves to meetings locally but then it spread. Ilyas had sought ulema’s opinion at involving women because he thought that the movement needed to enlist women. But ulemas recoiled at the idea and Ilyas kept at it.
The Biswa Ijtema, the annual Tablighi congregation in Bangladesh, attracts over three million devotees from around the world.
At least 500 people leave for various destinations in India as part of jamaats every day, according to a vendor.
“I see them coming and going. So many of them come, and so many leave,” he said.
In 40 days, the jamaat consisting of 8-12 people will visit 20 villages.
“No, it is not tough. It will be a pleasure. The worldly life is short and the afterlife is eternal. Our aim is to get to paradise. Through this, we will. Allah has chosen us for this. It is through his grace that we will go and tell people about him.”
Inside the women’s section, the floors were covered with mats, and the curtains kept out most of the outside light. This is where the women would gather and read out from the Koran, and wait for the Markaz to issue them instructions on where they would go. But Refai, 53, isn’t bothered. As long it is for the faith, she is prepared to bear any inconvenience. When she returns, she will write a report on her work like all other women and submit it at the Markaz, and go back to Puttalam, her village that is 80 miles north of Colombo, and tell others what she learned here.
“This is where they can learn the correct things,” Ahmed said.
Refai was 40 when she first went for a jamaat in Sri Lanka. That was for three days, she recalled.
“At the time, I didn’t know much. I saw others and imitated what they did,” she said.
Coming to India was a big decision. This is her first 40-day Chillah in a country that’s unfamiliar.
She applied to the markaz in Colombo and when her turn came, she packed her bags and accompanied her husband here. Only married women are allowed to participate in jamaats.
In Sri Lanka, women only started going for jamaats in the 1970s when a jamaat from India visited the island nation, she said.
Men and women of the Tablighi Jamaat remain aloof from discussions on political life and devote time to discussing the Koran and the teachings. Tours that are self-funded are the central feature of the movement and during the tour the participants break away from all familial and work hierarchies and that allows them to focus.
It is the journey that’s most important, Nida Ahmed, who is an alima or a Muslim woman scholar, said.
“Women were always part of the movement but in the last ten years more and more women have joined it. Recently, we see women from other countries coming often. I guess they want to learn more about Islam, their faith,” she said.
Cannon fire at Jama Masjid - the continuation of a tradition
It was during one of those evenings when I was passing by the grand old mosque, the Jama Masjid in the Walled City, and heard the "boom". I asked around and stumbled upon stories of the old cannon in the days when the Mughal kings lodged in the Red Fort across the road. Shah Jahan had introduced the cannon on the lawns of the mosque and long after the kings were gone, dethroned and buried, the tradition has been preserved.
The story was published in the Indian Express on August 30, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, August 28, 2009
Before he set on to his task, the little urchins that had crowded around him as they did every evening during Ramadan, had to be shooed away. They grinned, and clapped and teased Akram Nabi, who ran after them, forever glancing at his watch and at the minarets of the Jama Masjid in the Walled City for the signal. That’s when he’d light the two 50 grams explosives stationed on the ground. He couldn’t be late.
Thousand waited for him, in the large courtyard of the grand mosque with food in front of them, on the steps, and in their balconies, with their backs arched, and their ears strained to catch the sound of the boom.
Finally, at 6:55 p.m. the flag was waved, and Nabi looked at the children, nine of them, one last time. They had retreated into the farthest corners of the green field where the two little bombs waited their fate on the ground. Nabi grinned, daring them to come closer and he struck the match. With the agility of a much younger man, the 65-year-old leaped to the other “gola”, lit it, and covered his ears, still grinning and impressed with his own precision, and ran towards the foliage.
The earth shook, the ramparts blurred through the smoke, and the little light bulbs on the minarets came on. The muezzin called out to the faithful to break their daylong fast. The hour had struck, the moon had shifted, and the gola had burst.
From the smoke, the little urchins emerged, coughing, dancing, and laughing. The spectacle hadn’t disappointed. From the foliage, Nabi emerged too, and walked tall, impressed with the noise that shook the rusty iron gates, and sent ripples in the little poodles of water that formed from the rains earlier in the day.
If the noise didn’t shock, then they would tell him all his precision was no good. For 25 years, the electrician and the chowkidar of the Jama Masjid has been been lighting the cannons, a job that has earned him respect in his neighbourhood where they identify him with “gola wale”.
“I am old. I don’t remember since when I started doing it. But this is a tradition and thousands wait for the sound of the cannons to break their fast. They rely on me,” he said. “I get sabab for it. Everyone knows me. Not everyone can do it, too.”
His son offered to do it once. But after one attempt, he gave up. Nabi himself suffered injuries three times while lighting the cannons. Ten years ago, his left eye ruptured. The shard from the bomb hit it and blood started oozing. He was rushed to the hospital. Then, he hurt his back and then his right leg. Because when you light it, you need to get away, as soon as you can, in seconds. Not even.
“Actually, in a wink,” Nabi said.
The tradition of cannon fire during the Ramadan month just before the iftar started during the reign of Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor. In those days, a cannon was stationed on the grounds surrounding the Masjid and the noise when they fired it rang through miles. But during the British rule, when the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar reigned in Delhi, the tradition underwent a change. The cannon was
removed. They continued the tradition with the explosives, but with the years, the size of the bombs got smaller. Now, it is only 50 grams explosives. Nabi lights those twice, once before sunrise when Muslims observing the fast can have their last meal called Saher, and at sundown before the iftar meal. When the cannon tradition was discontinued, another tradition started. In the 1940s, the masjid committee started lighting bulbs at the prescribed moment on the tall minarets so people could these from a distance and break their fast.
When population increased, and the city spread, the noise was pushed, limited and now, only during the mornings when the din of the traffic isn’t much, the sound of the explosives can pierce through the cramped lanes on Ballimaran and adjoining areas.
Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari used to visit the mosque as a kid, and a servant took him to the lawns to watch the explosives.
“He held our hands, not letting us near the place,” he said. “We wanted to watch it. It is a famous tradition of its kind. We covered our ears. Sometimes, we got scared and jumped. Those days were fun.”
For so long, almost 150 years, the tradition has been followed. Even when it rained, Nabi would cover the explosives in polythene bags and light them.
“This is a responsibility. People rely on me,” he said. “Besides, it is nostalgia. It is about the good old times. This is something that has been passed down, and we have preserved it.”
That evening, when the gola burst, the shopkeepers turned their heads, then hurriedly packed up and rushed to the tables where the meal had been laid out. On the steps, the beggars opened their little packets and bit into morsels of food. Nabi walked towards the masjid. The noise had been loud and clear and his job was done.
The story was published in the Indian Express on August 30, 2009.
Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, August 28, 2009
Before he set on to his task, the little urchins that had crowded around him as they did every evening during Ramadan, had to be shooed away. They grinned, and clapped and teased Akram Nabi, who ran after them, forever glancing at his watch and at the minarets of the Jama Masjid in the Walled City for the signal. That’s when he’d light the two 50 grams explosives stationed on the ground. He couldn’t be late.
Thousand waited for him, in the large courtyard of the grand mosque with food in front of them, on the steps, and in their balconies, with their backs arched, and their ears strained to catch the sound of the boom.
Finally, at 6:55 p.m. the flag was waved, and Nabi looked at the children, nine of them, one last time. They had retreated into the farthest corners of the green field where the two little bombs waited their fate on the ground. Nabi grinned, daring them to come closer and he struck the match. With the agility of a much younger man, the 65-year-old leaped to the other “gola”, lit it, and covered his ears, still grinning and impressed with his own precision, and ran towards the foliage.
The earth shook, the ramparts blurred through the smoke, and the little light bulbs on the minarets came on. The muezzin called out to the faithful to break their daylong fast. The hour had struck, the moon had shifted, and the gola had burst.
From the smoke, the little urchins emerged, coughing, dancing, and laughing. The spectacle hadn’t disappointed. From the foliage, Nabi emerged too, and walked tall, impressed with the noise that shook the rusty iron gates, and sent ripples in the little poodles of water that formed from the rains earlier in the day.
If the noise didn’t shock, then they would tell him all his precision was no good. For 25 years, the electrician and the chowkidar of the Jama Masjid has been been lighting the cannons, a job that has earned him respect in his neighbourhood where they identify him with “gola wale”.
“I am old. I don’t remember since when I started doing it. But this is a tradition and thousands wait for the sound of the cannons to break their fast. They rely on me,” he said. “I get sabab for it. Everyone knows me. Not everyone can do it, too.”
His son offered to do it once. But after one attempt, he gave up. Nabi himself suffered injuries three times while lighting the cannons. Ten years ago, his left eye ruptured. The shard from the bomb hit it and blood started oozing. He was rushed to the hospital. Then, he hurt his back and then his right leg. Because when you light it, you need to get away, as soon as you can, in seconds. Not even.
“Actually, in a wink,” Nabi said.
The tradition of cannon fire during the Ramadan month just before the iftar started during the reign of Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor. In those days, a cannon was stationed on the grounds surrounding the Masjid and the noise when they fired it rang through miles. But during the British rule, when the last Mughal Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar reigned in Delhi, the tradition underwent a change. The cannon was
removed. They continued the tradition with the explosives, but with the years, the size of the bombs got smaller. Now, it is only 50 grams explosives. Nabi lights those twice, once before sunrise when Muslims observing the fast can have their last meal called Saher, and at sundown before the iftar meal. When the cannon tradition was discontinued, another tradition started. In the 1940s, the masjid committee started lighting bulbs at the prescribed moment on the tall minarets so people could these from a distance and break their fast.
When population increased, and the city spread, the noise was pushed, limited and now, only during the mornings when the din of the traffic isn’t much, the sound of the explosives can pierce through the cramped lanes on Ballimaran and adjoining areas.
Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari used to visit the mosque as a kid, and a servant took him to the lawns to watch the explosives.
“He held our hands, not letting us near the place,” he said. “We wanted to watch it. It is a famous tradition of its kind. We covered our ears. Sometimes, we got scared and jumped. Those days were fun.”
For so long, almost 150 years, the tradition has been followed. Even when it rained, Nabi would cover the explosives in polythene bags and light them.
“This is a responsibility. People rely on me,” he said. “Besides, it is nostalgia. It is about the good old times. This is something that has been passed down, and we have preserved it.”
That evening, when the gola burst, the shopkeepers turned their heads, then hurriedly packed up and rushed to the tables where the meal had been laid out. On the steps, the beggars opened their little packets and bit into morsels of food. Nabi walked towards the masjid. The noise had been loud and clear and his job was done.
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