Braving the heat and desert, am heading towards the Gharib Nawaz shrine in Ajmer, where Sufis pray to find their way in this life and the path to the next.
Hot and thirsty, I halt at a roadside dhaba and call out for some water and lemonade. A succession of a few cars appears over the horizon, winding their way through the dusty scrub of the highway amidst large swathes of the desert.
In my quest for inner peace, I resume my pilgrimage.
The only colours that respite the drooping eyes are that of the gigantic turbans of the Rajasthani men along the highway, for who the desert seems to be air-conditioned. For me, it is level and featureless.
The radio in my car starts catching intermittent FM radio frequency. Ajmer is nearing; the desert is giving way to concrete roads and habitation. Each hook and nook of Rajasthan has million tales to tell… stories of honour and pride, tales of bravery… romantic sagas of love and sacrifice… all with epic dimensions.
My car is now pulling into the Ajmer town. It’s my first visit here in 18-years. Much has changed over this seemingly short span of time. Both within and outside.
My driver parks (or should I say, is forced to park) his car in a shop-converted-into-parking. Like they do in Delhi, parking men have leapt on my car, each forcibly inviting us to park in their shops-converted-into-car-parking. Competition and stakes are high everywhere here. It’s Ajmer.
I step out. My pilgrimage on foot starts.
Slowly, but keeping my patience on the edge, I am walking towards the destination to which the crowds of other pilgrims are heading. A labyrinth of alleys and bazaars is leading toward the shrine of India's most revered Sufi saint, Sultan-ul-Hind, Hazrat Shaikh Khwaja Syed Muhammad Mu'inuddin Chishti.
Also known as Gharib Nawaz or 'Benefactor of the Poor’, Khwaja Mu'inuddin Chishti was a 13th century Muslim mystic who withdrew from the world and preached a message of prayer, love and the unity of all things. He promised his followers that if they loosened their ties with the world, they could purge their souls of worries and directly experience God. Rituals and fasting were for the pious, said the saint, but love was everywhere and was much the surest route to the divine.
As I pace up, the gate of the shrine complex starts appearing grander and broader, symbolizing how it embraces people of all hues and shades.
As the shrine is nearing, the crowd is thickening. It is said that a journey of thousand miles start with a single step. Today am realizing how a journey of miles ends with a step too. I have reached the entrance of the shrine complex. What I have seen so far in photos, is right in front of my eyes now. The dove white dome with golden embellishment. Like Moses standing before the Burning Bush, I remove my shoes and step ahead. The makrana marble is hot... my feet are burning.
The small provincial town of Ajmer has shrine as jewel in the crown. And today being nauchandi jummerat (the first Thursday of a lunar month), the shrine compound has transformed into a heaving, mystic metropolis.
The entire complex is alive with the intoxicating smell of roses, which the devotees are carrying in sweet-smelling punnets to pour great fountains of petals onto the saint's sanctum sanctorum. Its difficult to believe how this symbol of communal harmony, became the target of a terrorist bomb attack in October 2007.
From the very beginning of Sufism, music, dance, poetry and meditation have been seen as crucial spiritual strides on the path of love, an invaluable aid toward attaining unity with God—true paradise. Music, in particular, enables devotees to focus their whole being on the divine so intensely that the soul is both destroyed and resurrected. At Sufi shrines, devotees are lifted by the music into a state of spiritual ecstasy.
Yet these heterodox methods of worship have divided Sufis from many of their Muslim brethren. Throughout Islamic history, more puritanical Muslims have claimed that Sufi practices were infections from Christianity and Hinduism, quite alien to the original principles of Islam.
I reach the main mazaar or tomb of Gharib Nawaz. The crowd is thick and jostling for space. Am unable to walk as there is no space... Suddenly there is a gush and am pushed inside the tomb area.
I am with Khwaja Gharib Nawaz now. What a relief!!
I am lucky to have found a tiny secluded space amidst the heavy crowd to stand and pray. I offer my respect to Khwaja Sahab.
Just as am about to raise my hands in supplication, a wild and hostile looking man starts yelling at me, for money to reach to Gharib Nawaz. What a conflict of ideologies!!
The saint must be feeling uneasy because of his behaviour. He is one of the traditional caretakers of the shrine and thus has the privilege to stand and rob pilgrims from inside the barricaded area of the main mausoleum.
“How can one be so rude and aggressive at such a pious place?” I wonder. But suddenly I notice his black cap, which quells my provocation. These kaali topis are a sect and were accused in the infamous Ajmer sex scandal that rocked the city in 1993. So this hostility is nothing.
Ignoring him and telling myself “I care two hoots”, I continue with my prayers. I raise my hands in supplication and pray for next 30-minutes. The kaali topi has vanished from my mind and thought as I close my eyes and connect with Gharib Nawaz.
I open my eyes and find the kaali topi robbing poor, who have come to the saint famous as ‘Benefactor of the Poor.’ I walk up to him and retort, “Who are you to come between me and my God and Khwaja Sahab?” Had it not been at the shrine, I would have comfortably showed him the proverbial middle finger. Over the last one year I have learnt never to let anyone have an emotional and physical control over me.
Before walking out, I get another chance and space to stand and pray. I step out and look back, promising to come again.
Outside, it is a Thursday evening. Am frequent to shrines, so I know during the singing of the qawwalis, the mesmerizing love songs of the Indian Sufis, the spiritual life of the shrine is to reach its climax. Yet the feeling here is different... It’s magical... mystical.
Huge crowds of pilgrims are already sitting cross-legged in the forecourt in front of the tomb, and the first qawwali singers are beginning to strike up their music. Around them is a press of excited onlookers. Most pilgrims have come with their families—groups of little boys with eyes wonderfully darkened with kohl, little girls who perhaps have been ill and have been brought for healing. At the shrine itself there are young women trying to tie small threads through the lattices of its screens, each one of them with some prayer or petition, usually a plea for marriage or children.
To one side is a huge cauldron of biryani that has just been carried in to feed the poor. There are Muslim grandmothers in black chadors from Bengal, Punjabi Sikhs in their blue turbans, Hindu women from South India with the large red bindis on their foreheads, all coming to pray to the saint, all coming to use Gharib Nawaz as their intermediary to God.
The crowd thickens.
Dholak beats.
The tempo of the music quickens.
And some of the pilgrims begin to sink into a trance.
Old men are swaying now, arms extended, hands cupped in supplication, lost to the world; women are tossing their hair from side to side; and the first of a succession of dervishes rise to their feet to dance.
The atmosphere, already heavy with the rich scent of rose petals, grows heavier still, filled with the softly mouthed and murmured prayers, and with the passionate incantations and expectations of 5000 pilgrims.
I leave them there, with their prayers and petitions, seeking paradise in that most elusive of all destinations, the human heart.
