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As one grows old one tends to look back into the past.
Any event or festival or ceremony takes the mind years back and associated
memories come flooding back before the mind’s eyes in the shape of lifelike
moving images, almost like the present-day videos. As one views them one gets
enthralled, losing all sense of time in watching something that actually takes
place only in the cerebrum.
Something like that happened to me the other day. It
was Muharram, the day of mourning for Muslims for the martyrdom of Husain ibn
Ali, who is revered by all Shia for fighting tyranny. My mind effortlessly
travelled back in time and started retrieving images from early 1940s of
Muharram of my childhood in Gwalior, a princely Indian State in Central India,
ruled by the then young, barely-in-his-twenties, Jiwajirao Scindia, grandfather
of Jyotiraditya Scindia, currently a Minister in the Government of India.
Truly secular, Gwalior State, now at this distance of
time, seems to have been the epitome of the famed Indian “composite culture”.
Life mostly revolved around the Maharaja, a benign feudal, who used to actively
participate in most of the religious festivals. A major festival, whether of
Hindus, Muslims or any other community, was nothing unless he was a part of it.
Every year on the occasion of Muharram he would come out in procession to the
local Karbala. Perched on a black and white horse dressed in his ceremonial
richly worked-on angarkha, laden with assorted jewels and with his
trademark Maratha pagri placed on his head with just a hint of
a tilt to its left he would ride down the city roads. His numerous ministers
(locally known as sardars) and important officials dressed likewise
would be in tow on horses more or less of similar kind.
Like on Dussehra, it was carnival time of sorts – of
those innocent days. Roads would be blocked for hours – more for ensuring a
clear passage than for security – as the Maharaja would come out among his
people. None would mind the inconvenience. Those were unhurried times. People
would go about their businesses through the mass of humanity consisting of
rural folk assembled on the pavements. Villagers in large numbers from the hinterland
visiting for the occasion would camp overnight on the footpaths. For them
witnessing the procession was incidental; they would mostly come to see their
loved and revered Maharaja during one of his rare public appearances.
Gwalior, seemingly, bursting at its seams, would see
frenetic activity. I remember my siblings and I would thread our way with my
parents through the milling crowds to reach the house of an acquaintance of my
father in the Kampoo area that had a veranda that offered a ringside view of
the proceedings.
As the hour of the procession approached the villagers
would change into their best in honour of the Maharaja. Generally, the fresh
whites of their dresses would be topped by huge colourful turbans with flowing
tails. Their women, veiling their faces with their flamboyant saris, would
remain in their men’s shadows. As soon as the Maharaja came into view the crowd
would burst into a huge roar and the people on the pavements would jostle to
get a better view of him. Some would be up on their legs, others would crane
their necks from behind, holding their children high above them on their
shoulders or climb on trees or any vantage point just to see the Maharaja. As
their revered one passed by, they would shout in unison “Maharaja
Jiwajirao Scindia ki jai ” .
The crowds used to be thickest near Kampoo, which once
used to be the camp of the Scindias and where the Imambara was located. It was
also the point of origin of the procession. The Imambara, now much more than a
century old, was truly impressive. Of Islamic architectural design, its
what seemed to be frightfully high ceiling and mammoth dimensions accommodated
the several-storied tazia of the Scindias as it was assembled inside it bit by
bit. A decade or so later, I recall, the Imambara became the venue of the
national badminton championships in 1952. It had enough space for stands on all
sides of the courts for spectators. It was in this Imambara that Nandu Natekar
dethroned TN Seth, the then reigning national badminton champion.
I still remember the huge shiny golden
multi-storied tazia made on behalf of the Maharaja (the like
of which I am yet to see again) leading numerous other smaller shiny and
richly-coloured ones of lesser dignitaries, Muslim organisations and
individuals along with several tall bright and colourful alams in
a seemingly unending stream. They would slowly wend their way down the streets
followed by hundreds of mourners, a few with blood on their backs from the iron
chains that they lashed themselves with uttering the anguished “ya Husain,
hum na hue”.
In Bhopal, too, Muharram is observed with ritualised
fervour. It is, however, gradually acquiring a celebratory character. Living as
I do, close to Bhopal’s Karbala, I find the place lit up and illuminated with
myriad lamps. A Ferris wheel is installed near it and numerous temporary food
stalls are erected selling mouth-watering meat preparations and sweets,
including the inevitable jalebies. Though loud-speakers broadcast
wailing music there is, generally, an air of festivity around the place, giving
it the ambience of an amusement park. Processions with numerous tazias and alams come
from various parts of the city and converge around Karbala in a huge mass
blocking all traffic. One cannot negotiate even the recently constructed VIP
Road, the main artery between the north and the south of the town.
But for me, somehow, it is not the same thing. There
is a general air of disorder and boisterousness with ear-splitting noise;
the tazias are far smaller and the alams pale
and pedestrian. Besides, the gilt, the pomp and pageantry seem to be missing.
Or is it that I am deluded by my nostalgia for those
good old bygone days?
*This is a revised version of the one published in 2011
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