ADVENTURES IN SUFISM

19 september 2006
ADVENTURES IN SUFISM


this weekend we had an adventure that was actually two adventures: one was the Urs, and the other was getting to the Urs. after all, in Sufism, it's all about the journey.

an Urs is the anniversary of the death of a Sufi saint, celebrated by several days of devotional congregating and all-night qawwall at the place of the tomb. this one was for Hazrat Khwaja Sufi Sabir Mohammed Zakaria Shah Hasni; it's also known as the "poor people's Urs," known for distributing eyeglasses, medicine and clothing. his shrine is a place called Mausandi, outside of a village called Purwa in Unnao district not far away from Lucknow and so we decided to make the trek.

no one quite knew exactly where the place was; it wasn’t on any maps. we had only a few notes copied on a piece of notebook paper as to the vague particulars. we weren’t sure which one it was closer to. but we were willing to see how far we could get. so our intrepid band set off in the evening on the Lucknow-to-Kanpur bus. we hadn’t gone more than a few kilometers before the whole bus knew what we were doing, and quite a few of the passengers had advice. the driver thought we were being foolish, that we’d never find transportation by this time of night, that it would be dangerous, and that we should come all the way to Kanpur, spend the night there and return in the morning.

another guy, let’s call him Dipesh, was on his way home to Unnao; Dipesh suggested that we take cycle rickshaws into the town center from the Unnao bypass, and from there he had a friend with a car who could take us to the Urs.

so the bus deposited us at the bypass, which was pitchdark and very sketchy; there was literally nothing there but rickshaws clustered around a spot on the highway waiting for fares, truckdrivers stopping to rest. we were quickly surrounded as we stood conferring in a clump. after some debate we got 4 rickshaws to Unnao. thing is, there was a miscommunication: we thought they knew the spot and would stop when we got there, they thought we were going to signal them when to stop. we figured this out after going a considerable way out of the way, then backtracked to the spot Dipesh had suggested.

the driver was waiting. he was also under the influence of either some powerful ganja or some refreshment from the Deshi Sharaab shop across the street. within minutes he was passed out cold on the roof of his car. we stood around and conferred some more. it was maybe about 10 or 11 pm by this point.

Dipesh was back to check on us: it wasn’t safe for us to be standing around out here, he said; we should come into his house while everything was getting worked out. Dipesh’s house turned out to be a bachelor pad where it was plain, despite the thick camouflage of incense, that 3 other guys had been getting majorly stoned. but they were hospitable nevertheless. one of them proudly explained that their family had been here since 1942, and that his father had been the first doctor in Unnao [meaning the village or the district, i’m not sure.]

Dipesh’s contact eventually turned up with the car. he was initially suspicious: what reason could a group of videshis have for going out into the countryside, other than to make trouble? we had indeed been rather cagey about our movements, up to this point. so now we said we were going to a mela. “a mela? oh, you mean the Urs? ah! that’s all right then.” after some bargaining we agreed that for about 2000 rupees plus gas, he would take 9 people to the Urs and then back to Lucknow afterward; half now, half on arrival home. i think it was now close to midnight.

so there we were, zooming along in the pitchblack rural north Indian night while-- adding yet another layer of surreality-- a really creepy Christopher Walken movie dubbed into Hindi played on the fold-down video screen. just after a guy in the movie had a gruesome encounter with a scissors, we came to an abrupt halt: a tire was flat, punctured by a wicked-looking 6-inch curved spike. while the driver lay under the car changing the tire, we milled about in the single-lane road through fields and sprawling trees, joking about daku ambushes under a gorgeous starry sky with no other lights in sight except for what we thought were some amber airport flares on the horizon and a couple flashes we figured were UFOs. twice trucks approached, and we skulked into the shadow of the car, worried that they would stop and make trouble for us. but they both just crawled carefully around the car and continued.

spare successfully attached: chalo!
we stopped in a village, headlights [sorry, sorry] rousing sleepy residents from where they lay outdoors on charpois or on the backs of wagons. plainly nothing was happening here. we parked across from the local Banduk ki Dukan [gun shop] while the driver conferred with a helpful old guy, who directed us to another village. at least now we knew that the place did exist and that the Urs was indeed happening; the guy knew exactly what we were talking about. the next village too was dark and sleepy. But this time the driver had a brother living there, with whom he stepped out to confer, and then, triumphant, zoomed away.

up until now, we’d been on single lane country roads; from here on in it was dirt tracks through the fields. I was dozing off by this time; it was almost 2am and i’d just about decided that we weren’t going to find it, and that the driver would simply take us back to Lucknow...when a glowing orb appeared against the sky-- an impossible white dome, lit up with ultra-violet, topping a structure lit up with twinkling white and green strands of lights. “it’s a space ship!” “it’s a magic castle!” “it’s Disney world!” no: it was the Urs. in that single second the whole night’s journey was worthwhile: the sight of it was so fantastically unexpected, bright and beautiful. also quite appropriate to the point of Sufism, which is all about the journey.

the driver let us out at the edge of the encampment that had sprung up outside the site; he’d wait. i thanked him fervently and he answered with a huge and gracious grin: koi baat nahin. so in we went,trying to be respectfully lowkey as we hovered around the edges. of course we got some stares: 9 foreigners trooping in during the wee hours, to a location that was literally off the map, inacessible from any city transport, unannounced in any obvious manner. there had been no propaganda, no tourist bait. this was real. once people’s surprise wore off we were ushered [with little opportunity for refusal] into the center of the proceedings.

the shrine consisted of a raised, enclosed square platform, where the saint’s tomb was displayed, and a large, covered rectangular area with a few notables seated on the side nearest the tomb and the qawwali musicians on the far side. first we were waved up into the tomb enclosure, where they draped our shoulders with tinsel-trimmed dupattas before we sprinkled rose petals on the body. the air was thick with some powerful incense or attar, which lingered in my clothes for days. then we were called down into the big space and asked to sit in the row of people framing an open rectangle in the center. behind us, women vigorously waved what looked like either fans or banners, setting up a stiff breeze over the heads of the seated. at appointed moments, men got up to whirl around in the central space-- they whirled until they were dizzy and reeling, at which point their friends would hold them up and assist them as they staggered over to kneel in front of the notables, placing their foreheads on the ground to receive a blessing. a couple of young men seemed to be having such intense experiences that they had to lie prostrate twitching for a little while. i wondered if they were faking until i saw the face of one of them taking deep breaths, supported by a couple of older men as he recovered, and then i didn’t think so anymore.

the males among us were also asked to stand up for the dancing times; the females were not, although we were the only women present to be seated in the inner row. we were, however, handed small rupee notes to take up to the bigwigs, and touch our heads to the ground as well. as we left, a while later, the convener of the event gave us his business card and some prasad and tried [and failed] to get all of our contact info. we got home about 4am, in a fraction of the time it had taken for the outward journey. a few days later, the Times of India, Lucknow Edition, reported that “Urs of sufi saint Sabir Mohammed Zakaria ended...with distribution of clothes and medicines among destitute...a large number of foreign devotees of the sufi saint visited the urs to pay their respect.”