eid and kawar

This piece was written last year.

Grudgingly I left for my office on 9th December for it ought to have been a holiday since it was Eid. It is high time that holidays for festivals and jayanthis be brought under the purview of fundamental rights. Reduction in human and vehicular traffic could be noticed but Gurgaon, being infested by mnc’s, was as usual. Lap one of my journey was as usual spent listening to chants and dozing off. In the lap 2, which is in the rickety dtc, I again tried to sleep for speeding qualis, sedan’s carrying air-hostess’s and planes touching the tarmac no longer motivate me to gaze outside the window. Lap 3 is where I encountered the rush and jam. From the jam-packed auto I could see vehicles being shooed away from the NH into the service lane. “Wow! The NH is being cleared for some poli-tic-ian and his cavalcade”, I thought and started cursing the whole breed; the breed which barges in uninvited and whines when shooed away. The autowallah asked us to disembark midway. A few paces took me to a constable and on enquiry I came to know that traffic had been stopped for Eid celebration. Nonplussed, I carried on further and I could see a slice of the truth. Soon beggars greeted me and kids pressed into me, few more paces I could see the side-lane near to the local mosque being fully occupied by men wearing white kufie caps, settled on mats, row after row. I soon reached the end of the fly-over and a peep revealed that the gradient (both sides) was occupied by battalion of men in their kufie; all set to offer special prayers.

Why, when, where and many question about this festival can be found out using google. This link http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eid_ul-Fitr also provides some information as to how Eid is celebrated worldwide. I had always wanted to visit jama masjid and capture the praying shot. And here I was before a much larger gathering, filling 2 service lanes and the rajeev chowk flyover. I missed my digital camera but nevertheless the phone came handy. A voice crackled through the loudspeaker foisted over the lamp post and went on lecturing about Islam, its meaning, worldwide status of muslims, education and dereliction to offer namaz as kids with begging bowls played on the NH and beggars lay revealing doctored wounds.

Traffic had been completely stopped, from which point, I do not know. But there would have been a huge pile up for the whole affair lasted from 8:30 to 11 am. And no attempt was being made to hasten up the process. Police stood by doing what they do the best chatting and yielding their sticks. The sermon dragged on and the actual namaz lasted only for 10 minutes; a visual treat, how the men bend and raise in unison calling allahu akbar. The assembling, lecture and dispersal took more time than the prayer.

I was waiting anxiously with couple of bhelpuri wallas for the finale. I wanted to see men hugging and wishing eid mubarak which is called musafa (I think) just as in bollywood films. However to my disappointment, I could only see couple of hugs and the men started walking back to their homes as the preacher repeatedly pleaded for musafas. And I too slowly walked back to the auto stand and reached office at 11:30.

This year too traffic was stopped on the national highway for atleast 3 hours and one can imagine the pile up of traffic. Luckily, I reached only an hour late. And this time the times of india carried an amazing pic of namazis occupying the entire rajiv chowk flyover with comments on resulting traffic jams.

Yet another kind of fanaticism is seen when kawarias throng on the road and the state governments make special arrangements for them, reserving a part of the lane for their smooth travel and also closing the highway leading to haridwar and offices. Often, these kawarias indulge in wanton destruction of vehicles and sorrounding fields if per chance a kawarian is killed or water carried by him is spilled. A new variant is also seen these days, the relay kawari, kawaris in bikes and trucks, each runing with ganga for certain distance with loud music. More hooliganism and traffic is seen. It has become more of a show business rather than professing of faith.

Unfortunately, vote politics and appeasement policy has lead to pampering of such practices. Decades ago, when gandhi supported the khilafat agitation, jinnah had warned, "that it was crime to mix up politics and religion..". Wise words...anybody listening?