Drink Love Pray

Ashfaq had a small tea stall outside the dargah. There were many such tea stalls around but there was something special about Ashfaq’s tea that attracted the locals over and over again. Balbir, the police sub-inspector, one day asked, “Ashfaq Mian what do you add that makes your tea so special?” “There is nothing special about my tea. It is the same what my father would make and sell and I just continue the tradition. I remember my father telling me of a Bengali babu who had visited the stall and had shown him how to mix two varieties of tea leaves. Since then we have been buying two types of tea leaves and then of course we always serve it in earthen pots. The masala we add is nothing unique. It is the same ginger paste with some herbs we add to give our tea the flavor that possibly the people love. My father would always tell me to make tea with love and care and never worry about the everyday collections. If your tea is good, Allah will be kind. And when kindness showers on you, you need to spread it to those who need it more than you. So, every day, no matter how much I earn from selling my tea, I make sure to buy a simple meal for at least ten people outside the dargah. My Allah has always been kind to me and on some days I am able to give food to many more people.”

Lately, the town had slowly been converted into a fortress with police cordons everywhere and people being frisked at regular intervals. Ashfaq would hardly spend money on newspaper or keep a television set in his home or stall but the people who visited the tea shop would talk in hushed voices and he understood the real cause for concern. However, Ashfaq himself was not too bothered about things political and religious for his customers were not from any particular community. Both mullah and pandit were always welcome and he served both with the same love and affection.

It was 9^th of November 2019. Ashfaq was wondering why the regulars and first timers to his stall were all missing that day. The city seemed to have come to a dead halt. He had, as usual, made a tumbler full of tea and kept on the choolha on low and simmering heat. After a while, Kazi Obaidullah came and Ashfaq handed him a cup of tea. In a hushed voice, Kazi Sahab said, “ Ashfaq Mian, you may need to move your stall away from here. We have lost the case in the highest court and now this whole area belongs to Ram Lalla. We will go some distance away and have a new masjid built there.”

Ashfaq was visibly irritated and said, “ When the time came seventy years ago, my Abba was asked a similar question to which he said no and stayed behind when most of his brethren had moved westward to a new and promised land. Today, my answer to your proposal still remains the same…NO! This is my land and I shall stay here till the very end.”

Wah ri zindagi,

Aaj tu kuchh naya hi sikha gayi;

Chai ki kal tak koi mazhab na thi,

Aaj ek patti Hindu, toh dooji Musalmaan ho gayi!

Ashfaq refused to go to a new place to meet his Maker, however, chai took my mind to the lush tea gardens of Assam.

The other day a friend in Guwahati lost his Mummy and instead of sending him a WhatsApp condolence message, picked up the phone to say a few kind words to console. My friend said that there was no reason to feel sorry at the loss for she was old and suffering. The mother, some years, ago had made a will, which was properly registered, wherein she had asked her children that her body should be given to the medical college where all the sound body parts could be given to patients in need and her skeletal structure to the medical students. There should be no rituals and a simple ceremony at a nearby Arya Samaj Mandir. I was completely speechless and remembered another great son of India, Nani Palkiwala, who had a similar vision for his afterlife.

When I die

Give my sight to the man who has never seen a sunrise

Give my heart to one who has known the agony of the heart

Give my blood to a youth pulled away from the wreckage of a car so that he might be able to see his grandchildren play

Let my kidneys drain the poison from another’s body

Let my bones be used to make a crippled child walk

Burn what is left of me and scatter the ashes to the wind to let the flowers grow

If you must bury something, let it be my faults and my prejudices against my fellowmen

Give my sins to the Devil

Give my soul to the God

If you wish to remember me, do it with a kind deed or word to someone who needs you.

If you do all I’ve asked, I’ll live forever.

They don’t make ‘em like Nani and Mummy anymore. God selfishly likes to keep such good godly souls in his entourage and calls them away. While my friend’s mother went away to meet her God, there were others like my friend Debu for whom such meetings with the Maker are of a different kind.

Debu, my friend of old, had never been the religious kind and one small incident happened when he was about seven years old. One Saturday morning, at around 8am, he discovered a pair of tiny footprints near the kitchen where his Ma was making breakfast. Who can it be? He just could not zoom in on anyone in the house so asked Ma if anyone had come to their house since morning. She looked blank and said no. He called her and showed her the faded footprints that could be seen on the dark floor. Do not remember whether it was Debu or his Ma who immediately concluded God must have come to their abode. They were blessed! He quickly went to the puja enclosure and lit two incense sticks, put them on a stand and went down on his knees before the footprints and did a quick arti. His sister came in from another room and was pretty amused at what was happening between the mother and the son. She caught hold of Debu’s hair from behind and said, “Stop this nonsense.  The dhobi had come with his little daughter in his arms and while taking the clothes he put the kid down. These are the foot marks of the kid.” All his aastha and devotion was lost in no time and he started laughing aloud at the foolishness in search of his God.

Today things have changed. Debu is now in his fifties. Every morning whenever he is at home, he does a thirty second routine of standing before an image of Durga on the wall and some brass idols of Krishna, Ganesh, Saraswati, Lakshmi and Shiva on a glass shelf. Next to this shelf is another smaller shelf where a picture of his late parents is kept. Debu says his little prayers here.

Debu confessed to me that whenever he stands there and closes his eyes to say the only prayer he knew, “My mind imagines as if Ma Durga is piercing her spear into my heart. On some days she chops off a limb here and there and in others my skull is flung afar with the kharga (sword) or the Chakra. She uses one of her many weapons in her possession every day. Each day she punishes me for all the ills and wrongs I have done in the past. The blood that comes out is the pain I have to suffer and she tries to cleanse me but then I repeat my mistakes and so she never stops punishing me. It is here that I stand before God who is all good and my frailties and shortcomings get exposed. My mask is pulled off my face and I stand naked and exposed and I don’t mind this punishment, actually my mind accepts this divinity before me. And while all this is happening, my parents in the frame are also looking at their son in all his weakness. Whether I place them at par with punishing divinity is something I have not thought of but this is my daily penance. I die a new death every day. In most cases it is Ma’s spear that digs deep into my heart and then twists it as well…that is me and My God.”

That’s Debu who has found his benevolent God in a malevolent state…angry and non-forgiving yet the man goes before image daily possibly in search of his true self.