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.