Can Modi Strike
A Bargain Of Decency On Varanasi?
Saeed
Naqvi
Ofcourse
there will be some sophistry by which the current scramble for Varanasi will be
justified, but there are finer reasons for which the city should be more
frequently remembered.
My
earliest memories of Benaras go back to the 60s when my architect friend Satish
Grover, a passionate student of history and an inveterate traveler, found us
cheap accommodation on the ghats from where we watched the cycle of life and
death as an early lesson in metaphysics.
On
one side of the Ganga, young men grappled and exercised in “akharas” or mud
pits, and on the other, funeral pyres burnt, starkly bringing about a closure
on life’s narrative.
Rows
of widows draped in white, shaven and austere, gazed vacantly, at the slow
moving river. The contrast was provided by children jumping into it.
A
priceless footage of musical history Doordarshan had once acquired shows
Siddeshwari Devi and Rasoolan Bai on a barge, talking of “thumries”, the
musical style famous in Varanasi. The understated words of the “thumrie”, its
sensuous lyric, makes it sublime poetry. Take this example.
“Hiraye
aanyeen kangana
Nadiya
naarey.”
The
meaning is straightforward: she lost her gold bangle near the river. The fact
that the “kangana” was lost in a moment of orgasmic ecstasy is communicated,
not in words, but by inflection of voice and tone.
We
could hear the “thun-thun” of the tabla from the street at Kabir Chaura. Was it
Shamta Prasad practicing? He was a genius, not so much for his mathematics as
his ability to coax melody by sliding his left hand on the tabla.
Just
as the old cities of Delhi and Lucknow have a decaying Urdu ambience to them,
Gudaulia in Varanasi is primarily hindi with a purabia lilt. Men in white,
starched kurtas and dhotis, amble towards their favourite paan shop, the city’s
informal rendezvous.
All
of this, minus the population density, must have enchanted Shaikh Ali Hazin,
when he arrived here from Isfahan in 1750. He died here in 1766.
He
recorded his “helplessness” in not being able to separate himself from Varanasi.
“Az
Banaras na rawam
Maabad
aam ast iinja
Har
Barahman pisare
Lachmam
o Ram ast iinja.”
(How
can I ever leave Banaras. It is the Kaaba for all. Every Barahman here looks
like the very son of Lakshman and Ram.)
Benaras
cast a similar spell on Ghalib when he arrived here in 1828 on his way to
Calcutta. It was here that he wrote his longest poem “Chiragh e Dair”, or Lamp
of the Temple.
Banaras,
he says, is like a beautiful woman
Who
sees the changing phases of her face in the mirror
Of
the Ganga.
“Ibaadat
khanae naqoosian ast
hama
na kaabae Hindustan ast”
(Here
people make sacred music from conch shells.
This
truly is the Kaaba of Hindustan.)
Varanasi
had become an organic part of Persian and Urdu aesthetics much earlier. During
this period Arabic remained the language of religious reform. This sometimes
irritated poets like Yaas Yagana Changezi.
“Samajh
mein kuch naheen aata,
Parhey
jaaney se kya haasil?
Namazon
mein hain kuch maani
To
pardesi zuban kyon ho!”
(What
is the point in saying your prayers five times a day? If your namaz is to have
some meaning, why should it be in a foreign language?)
The
ground for cultural commerce had been prepared by the great sufis. The ambience
they left behind mingled in the regions with influences of Bhakti, the
wandering mendicants and Faqirs. The great Nadaswaram player, Sheikh Chinna
Maulana Sahib, or the Kathkali genius, Kalamandalm Hyderali in Tamil Nadu and
Kerala and Qazi Nazrul Islam in Bengal have trodden the same spiritual path. In
this journey they did not necessarily surrender their faith, only moderated it.
With Ghalib, faith declined into agnosticism. Josh Malihabadi, Majaz, Faiz
Ahmad Faiz were rank atheists.
Waris
Shah of Dewa Sharif, Sufi shrine outside Lucknow had an exquisite reason for
not saying his “namaz” or prayer. “Where is the space for me to go down in
supplication?” In other words, “He is in me”. It reminds me of the title of
Ramchandra Gandhi’s book, “I am Thou.”
Varanasi
had also been woven into devotional Qawwalis. Mohsin Kakorvi, famous writer of
naats or poetry dedicated to Prophet Mohammad, accentuated his devotion by
retaining centers of Hindu pilgrimage as the backdrop. His description of the
elements on receiving the news of the Prophet’s birth, is of breathtaking beauty:
“Samte
Kashi se chala, jaanibe
Mathura
Badal,
Taerta
hai kabhi Ganga kabhi
Jamuna
Badal…….”
(Clouds
are travelling ecstatically from Kashi to Mathura. Sometimes they float above
the Ganga, sometimes Jamuna.)
It
is probably unfair to expect a hardened politician like Narendra Modi to see
his constituency in this framework. But it would still be nice of Modi if he
visited Bismillah Khan’s house at Chatta Tala in Beniabagh. Never was the
Shehnai played with notes of such devotion at the Viswanath Temple; nor on
Moharram when he walked bare feet, playing a dirge all the way to the river for
the burial of the tazias.
On
this note, may I offer Modi a grand bargain:
During
the February 2002 Gujarat pogrom, rioters flattened a tomb not far from
Ahmadabad’s main police station. It was the grave of Wali Dakhini (Gujarati).
The candidate for Kashi should be astounded if he has a heart.
“Kooch
ae yaar ain Kashi hai
Jogia
dil wahan ka vaasi hai.”
(The
lane where my beloved lives is like the holy city of Kashi. The Yogi of my
heart has taken up residence there.)
If
the goons desecrated Wali’s shrine in total ignorance, there is plenty of time
before election day for Modi to restore the grave of this remarkable poet whose
adoration for Indian civilization and Gujarat remains unmatched. But if it was
done deliberately, in full knowledge, well, what can I say?
#
#
# #
No comments:
Post a Comment