Sermon In the Sands

THE SAND CREPT UP THE HILL. INCH BY inch, grain upon grain, season by season, the bare hill stood like a mute spectator to this gradual assault by nature. Unlike a military manoeuvre on a hill feature, this assault was sans weapons, other than the sheer power of the wind, and it was silent but for a whisper generated by the breeze as it lifted the tiniest particles of sand when it moved farther on its unprovoked attack on the quiet basaltic hill. The attacks had been relentless, over count­less millennia, as the sand dune crept upwards, grain by grain.

Faith intervened to stop the sand from further encroachment on the hill. Faith came in the form of a man with an unusual name, professing an unlikely fusion of thoughts, and faith also brought with it the most valuable of blessings in the desert—water. Or so the modern-day faithful would have the inquisitive types believe. But before faith arrived the sand had already crept into the tiniest of crevices on the hill side, just as it had slid into the littlest of valleys along the barren range, and as a result had also created standalone hillocks.

The unusual faith that intervened to stop the sand from spreading upwards is equally matched, if not even more so, by the extraordinary rock formations in the area. The same rock, hills, that the sand crept up to engulf. If the unusual names and belief of this faith is a theologian’s dream spot, the hills that abound in this area are a geologist’s hot spot. Theories range from meteor impact to geothermal activi­ties that resulted in lava flows that seem to have frozen. Some hills look as though the lava solidified quite suddenly, and the subsequent waves of lava piled up.

The meteor impact theory is apparently supported by the discovery of rhyolite in the rocks, evidence that there was some extraterrestrial source here. And un­like conventionally believed meteor craters, there was an upsurge of soil towards the surface as a recoil reaction. And the impact area is calculated to be in a 350km diameter, encompassing various Rajasthani districts, as well as Nagarparkar across the border in Sindh. The meteor is believed to have triggered volcanic activity, thus creating some of the largest granite deposits in the country. Whatever the origins, geologists agree on the name: Malani Igneous Suite (MIS).

This belt is distinct from, and formed at a later stage, than the better known Aravalli Range that cuts through Rajasthan and terminates as the Ridge in Delhi. The commonly accepted age for the MIS is estimated to about 750 mil­lion years, give or take a few million. Over the subsequent millions of years, as the MIS settled towards its present form, the sands from the surrounding Thar Desert also began to spread, outward, and upwards as well. Thousands of kilometres came to be submerged by the expanding sand, and many an alley and valley along the hills too.

THE PANDEMONIUM OF PARROTS, THE BOREAL ROSE-RINGED parakeet (Psittacula krameri borealis), were so loud in their morning rit­ual of greeting each other that they easily drowned out the children of the government upper primary school sitting atop the dune where faith had stopped the upward march of the sands. The children sang the morning an­thems and school prayers, but their zeal was totally excelled by the cacophony coming from the neem (Azadirachta indica) trees that provide plenty of shade for devotees visiting the shrines where faith brought the sands to stop further expansion. On the skimpy dune stood the shrine.

Sain said the devotee, but I couldn’t read that quintessentially Sindhi sword anywhere on the walls which loomed over the tombs of the four holy men. Instead, what I read appeared so extraordinary that it was read multiple times, just to be sure my eyes weren’t spoiling any further. The light was as good as it could possibly be on that clear November morning, just bright enough to read the writing above the tombs, but still allowing the rich blue of the sky to display its crisp tint. I read the four names, and they were unmistakably unorthodox, extraordinary in unification.

Shri Shri 1008 Ahmad Shah Maharaj in brilliant vermilion, with a little tile of Shiva pasted above the words, and the standard Nandi, conch, and lingam, placed in a linear manner on the mar­ble-topped tomb. The tomb was bound by a grill, though unlocked, receiving direct light from the sun as it rose farther up. To one side of the room was a statue clearly meant to be that of the late holy man. Turbaned, crowned, garlanded by kitsch flowers that swarmed over the ubiquitous rudraksha that went round the neck as well as the left arm.

Two devotees, now deceased, also had photographs placed on one side of the wall, clearly demonstrating loyalty to the holy man. All of them dwarfing the statuettes of Sathya Sai Baba and Hanuman. Levels of devotion demonstrated by the size of displays, clearly. His predecessors though didn’t have the same size of rooms, or displays of devotion. Faith has obviously grown over the years, and modern means of demonstrating fidelity expanded proportionately. The prefix of Shri Shri 1008 remains the same as does the suffix of Shah Maharaj, and the names of the predecessors were Samandar, Malang, and Bhim.

GOPAL RATHI, A RETIRED SCHOOL teacher, deeply attached to this shrine, has been paying obeisance since Ahmed Shah Maharaj was holding sermons here. He refers to them as Sain, the Sindhi word that can be used in a devotional sense as well as an expression of respect towards a senior. Sain is also commonly used in Seraiki, spoken in Pakistan‘s southern Punjab. Revenue Depart­ment records refer to the saint’s community as Sain! Rathi reads from a 71-year-old document which identifies this shrine as ‘Mandir Shri Jee­vit Samadhi, Pujari Ahmad Shah walad Mangal Shah, Qaum Sain, Samvat 2009’.

The revenue official who documented the ownership records obviously didn’t have Sufi sensibilities, and so replaced Malang with the locally common Mangal. The names, and titles, used clearly demonstrated a straddling of faiths, beliefs, and practices. This ecosystem persisted over a considerable period, albeit in a different location. In fact, the origins of this shrine now lie in an urban sprawl, lodged under the shadow of a much-contested medieval fort, Siwana. Local disputes, with hints of inter-faith contestations, compelled Samandar Shah to shift base, and he set off on the camel track leading northwest in the direction of Balotra.

The track skirted the first hill features near Kuship, and turned into the next range where it skirted the spur extending southwest. Here, the sand had crept deep into the gulley, between two low-lying hills, and an easy traverse for the camel train. But Samandar Shah obviously didn’t enter that gulley, or continue along the track, for just as the trail neared the hills, on a crest to the right lay a thick mass of shrub. This was the surest sign of water deep in the soil. And wild animals were plentiful here, Rathi contin­ues in his storytelling form.

The bush stands alone, as though supremely confident of the beauty which emanates from its branches. For, they were flush with bright yellow flowers, as the oleander competed with the sun in brightening life. And there was plenty of it here, and the once-upon-a-time shrub-sur­rounded dune was now covered by the green of the neem trees. The parrots screeched from these trees, as schoolchildren tried to have their songs heard by dutifully mindful teachers. To the left, with a slightly raised compartment covered by easily removable planks, lay the point why the shrine moved here.

Shimmering water reflected the sky above, and peering faces too, as we looked into the well that stopped Samandar Shah’s camel train from proceeding farther aeons ago. We peered down into the well, called beri in local parlance, and for a desert the water was sur­prisingly high. It is like amrit, said the deeply moved Rathi. Under normal circumstances the beri would have been called ‘Bamnaal Ri Beri’, but this was no routine waterhole, and it certainly didn’t appear from a vil­lage or hamlet endeavours. Faith brought the search party here, and so it is called ‘Sain Ji Ki Beri’.

Digging this well here brought to life 300 others in the area, Rathi continued with his devoted tale. The shrine currently owns 54 bighas of land farmed by crofters under a contract system. Going by the simplest of constructions and severely limited resources on display, it would seem to be just about all the assets owned by the shrine. This isn’t one of those 24/7 well-endowed religious places, just a bare minimum structure kept alive by the devo­tion of those like Rathi. They organise two festivals here annually, on Guru Purnima and in Kaati, November-December.

The festivities, though, are in honour of Ahmed Shah and not his predeces­sors, admits Rathi. Their dates have been forgotten and none of the devotees during that period bothered to keep a note of significant dates surrounding the holy men. So, no record of when Samandar Shah passed on to the next life form, nor of his successors. It is possible that this was on account of duality in claims of ownership, with Hindu and Muslim devotees seeking sole propri­etorship of the shrine and legacy. And it is also possible that a new location was sought on account of that tussle.

Where did Ahmed Shah come from? I asked Rathi. Since there was no familial connection with any of the predecessors, and in fact each came from a different background. Sangrur, in Punjab, Rathi replied. So what brought him here? I con­tinued to ask, and Rathi was honest enough to admit that he had asked the same question of Ahmed Shah. But he never answered that query and would simply parry the question away. He was actually quite short-tempered, and disliked visits to Balotra or other cities, recalls Rathi. Deeply ironical that he passed away in Ahmedabad after an anaesthesia injection.

Ahmed Shah was also very choosy about who was allowed to sleep over at the shrine, since weary travellers make such requests. Or even the devoted seeking extra solace. After feeding them, he would brusquely ask some of them to leave, recalls Rathi. The crestfallen devotees, or travellers, had no choice. But when it came to choices of faith, Ahmed Shah was unequivocal in declaring that the future lies in science, so adopt it wholeheartedly he would say, shun superstitions. Nearing the end of our conversation, I asked Rathi about current practices. He replied quickly, oh, there are only Hindu rituals here.

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