The bondage of tradition

I had seen the dargah on my visits to the Jama Masjid but had never gone inside. On an assignment to chronicle the life of a bhishti, I finally went inside and found a water carrier. The story is about how he won't let his sons do the job that was passed down to him by his forefathers because there is no future.

An edited version of the story appeared in The Indian Express on May 8, 2011.


Chinki Sinha
New Delhi, May 6, 2011

He won't hold his sons to the promise his father elicited from him. Don't do what is not unto you, he had said.
He didn't have the heart to say no. He hadn't known better then. His forefathers lived a simple life, they never exercised choice, never unleashed that force that propels you out of the familiar - the role of a water carrier handed down to them by their ancestors.
For thirty years, Shakeel Ahmed has carried the weight of the dying tradition on his worn off shoulders. A few more years and he would be spent. His body defeated, and his bones creaking he would return to his village and rest like his father Bashir in a few years. Carrying more than 20 litters of water in a hide sack is no easy feat. During the hot months of the summer, he goes up and down offering water to the pious who came to offer prayers at the grand old mosque of India, the Jama Masjid.
But he would let his children play with destiny, and choose what they'd like to do.
A tradition, a trade intertwined with his identity was handed down to him by his father, who urged him to not relinquish what they had been fated to do as Bhishtis or the water carriers.
His work earns him a lot of blessings, but hardly any money. For years, ever since he was a 12-year-old boy, he has carried the weight of this tradition, living away from his family in a dargah on the steps of the mosque. Faith sustained him. It still does. It is his service to the two saints. Within the complex with its green and red tombs, he has spent thirty years getting up at the crack of dawn, filling water in the goat hide sacks from the well, and returning in the evenings to sleep in the corridors of the shrine, under the watchful eye of the saints. He never let desire, ambition or aspiration corrupt him. He also knew his limitations. He never went to school, didn't know any other trade.
He has collected more blessings than money over the three decades. That would do for him. There's heaven beyond the world. That's where he will get his dues.
"I am the last man to do this. My children don't want to do this and I won't let them. Times have changed. Our role is no longer what it used to be," he says, crouching next to the well.
He won't shackle his children with the role assigned to them ages ago that continues to define them, or constrict them within the confines of what they are supposed to do – quench thirst of hundreds of men who come to offer their prayers at the mosque.
Shakeel, 42, lives in the little complex with his three brothers and his nephew Rashid, who took on the water carrier's role recently. Rashid, 16, was a wayward child who dropped out of school, got into wrong company. So they got him here and now the young boy, who has a disdain for this work, goes about doing it silently. His eyes have a rebellious glint, and he challenges his uncles. But when Shakeel says he would box his ears, he retreats.
"He brought it upon himself. Had he continued in school, he would not end up here," his uncle says.
At the time, living in Gajraula in Moradabad district of UP where he hails from, he didn't know better. This was something his great grandfathers had done, and his father Bashir didn't question it. Shakeel followed into his footsteps.
When his father's health started deteriorating, Shakeel told him to go to their native village and rest. His shoulders were ready to take on the baggage of tradition from his ailing father. In time, they would bear the brunt of the tough task.
Thirty years ago, he came to Jama Masjid and sewed the goat hide he purchased from Ghaziabad and he was ready to begin a lifelong vocation of being a water carrier.
"I pray to the saints for health and vigor. Let's see for how long I can do it," he says.
He earns around Rs. 100 on a regular day. Sometimes, his earnings double. But still the money is less. He sends almost all of it home to his wife and four children keeping only a small allowance for himself. His wife Zareen Khatoon's family gave up on water carrying long ago. Now, they work on farms for little money.
In the mornings, after he has delivered the water to the few hotels and chai kiosks in the mosque complex, he sits at the little bench just outside the dargah sipping tea. The breakfast consists of two matthas and a cup of sugary, milky tea with cardamoms. That done, he carries the water from the well to anyone that call for him. A glass costs Rs. 1 now. When he had had started, it was 10 paise. After the prayers have been offered in the evening, the crowd begins to thin. Yet, he paces up and down. Around 9 pm, he walks into the dargah, hangs the hide sack on the wall, goes out again to eat dinner at one of the little shops selling kebabs and roots. They all know him by name. When the bottled water arrived on the scene and the MCD's water tankers rolled in, the bhishtis started to lose work. Many have taken on other vocations. A few like Shakeel have survived.
They call them the pride of the mosque. From the days when the kings ruled from the Red Fort, they have been there. A lot has changed but they are the reminders of an age gone by. In their hide sacks, they also carry the baggage of nostalgia for the old timers, and are a relic of the history for the young who find them a museum piece.
On Fridays, he doesn't ask for money till the time the evening prayers are over. His wages are the duas that escape from the parched lips and he is content with those. The promise of heaven is bigger than the prospect of earning on the day when more than the usual numbers crowd at the mosque.
"Sabab jitna mile, thoda hai. Blessings are never enough," he says, his fine wrinkles accentuated with a small smile that forms on his lips.
There is that solace at least.
"It is a lost tradition. We are dragging it somehow. The reason I kept at it because I didn't dare to dream big. But my sons have dreams. They talk about running big businesses. Why should I cut their dreams short," he says. "My wife is against the idea of her children taking this up. I understand."
Often the brothers take turns in returning to the village to do the batai during the harvest time on others' farms. That ensures some meagre earning. For the landless peasants, life has become tougher. Prices have increased. The old barter system that was an integral part of the village economy has been replaced.
In the old days, in the village where his ancestors supplied water to the households in exchange for grain, the residents clung to their roles. They hardly ever stepped out of the confines of their defined roles Their caste was tied to what what they did. Bhishti is a word derived from the Persian word Bhisht, which means paradise. Because of what they did, providing water to thirsty soldiers who were protecting Islam, they were given the title.
Shakeel doesn't know whether he would get to heaven. But he knows many times over, people have whispered blessings in his ears as he bent down to pour them the sweet water from the well that they say is more than 350 years old.
That well lies in the dargah complex of one Hare Bhare Baba. There are two tombs – a red one, and a green one. It is here where the five bhishtis sleep. Their possessions are tucked away in the enclosures in the walls. Faith provides them sustenance. Every nit during the scorching summer months, he spreads his sheet in the passage, under the sky, and sleeps. In the winters, he moves to the inner sanctum and sleeps flanked on either side by the two tombs.
"We date from the times of the Prophet. This is a pious endeavor which defines our lineage. Alas, we fell prey to the demands of modern times," he says, as he offers water to a couple from Andhra Pradesh who have come to pay obeisance to the saints, one who of was a martyr, slain by Aurangzeb, the Mughal king. "I have lived here all my life, at their feet, and served them."
His forefathers came to the mosque long ago and since those days when the mosque built by Shahzahan was still new, they have been living at the dargah. Centuries have passed and all sorts of changes have filtered in but the bhishtis have remained. When there was no MCD water supply in the now crumbling havelis and cramped quarters of the old city, the bhishtis supplied the water to the households as they did in every city - Kolkata, Mumbai.
"We belong to where a dargah is. We serve," Shakeel says.
Sweat runs down his back as he pulls out bucket after bucket of water from the well. He has lost count of the refills. The bhishtis have their patrons. A few followers feel the water from the well will enforce their faith. He staggers out with the load of 20 litres of water slung on his back.
Outside the twin dargah of Sarmad Shahid and Hare Bhare Shah, his elder brother Jameel sits, lost in thought. A frail man, he is resting. There is not enough work for five bhishtis. But the promise bound them. So they have resigned themselves to be the pall bearers of the prescribed role in the society.
Sarmad was a naked fakir who was madly in love with a Hindu boy who sang his poems, as the legend goes. He was later executed by Aurangzeb and the tomb, red in color, symbolizes the passion and the violence in his life, which finally dissolved in the love of God as Sufis believe.
And that love is infectious. As a member of the Abbasi community, named after their patron Saint Hazrat Abbas Alamdar, who fetched water in a skin-bag and quenched the thirst of the followers of Imam Husain on their way to Damascus, he is a Sunni Muslim but he believes the saints are the caretakers of his life and wellbeing.
The saint Hazrat Sarmad Shaheed is believed to have come to India from Iran. Belonging to a Jewish family, as the legend goes, his search for the truth of Allah led him to accept Islam. He denounced clothes as a means to break free from the world.
On lonely nights, Shakeel says he has conversations with God. There is no television, no radio. From a kiosk outside selling CDs of qawalis, music flows into the compound.
"My conversations are about everything," he says. "We are Allah's people."