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The communal virus so well spread out here in our country has reached such lows that even refugees not spared.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n The World Refugee day – 20 June, came and passed by. Without we coming up with anything substantial for their wellbeing and safe survival in our cities and towns.<\/p>\n It\u2019s time to sit back and contemplate: The refugee needs protection and security. After all, he or she and entire families have fled their homelands in utter despair. Also, who knows about the destined turns in our own lives. Who all amongst us will be rendered refugees in the days to come!<\/p>\n It is disgusting-cum-frightening to see how we are hounding the hapless refuge- seekers!\u00a0 Under severe crisis they fled from their native home countries, seeking shelter here in our country, without realizing that they would be treated in the worst possible ways. The communal virus so well spread out here in our country has reached such lows that even refugees not spared. Not to be overlooked the fact that a great majority of the refugees from Bangladesh and Burma happen to be Muslims.<\/p>\n Shouldn\u2019t the UNHCR (United Nations High Commission for Refugees) step in and veto the politicians\u2019 reckless accusations, heaping all possible blame for all the civic woes on the hapless Bangladeshis and Rohingyas living in refuge in our country.<\/p>\n It is actually frightening to visualize the growing numbers of those displaced from their homelands. And with internal strife and outside interventions only intensifying, their numbers would only be increasing. Yet, we are not getting emotionally trained nor sensitized enough to reach out. Tell me, in how many schools or educational institutional there are discussions or meets or talks focusing on the plight of the refugees in today\u2019s so called developed times? Tell me, how many young adults have thought of ways to reach out to the refugee\u00a0 families\u00a0 living in one of their towns and cities? Mind you, surviving in the most dismal of situations with the barest possible means to survive. Not to overlook the fact that the Right-Wing lobbies and mafias under their control all set to target them on any given alibi! Hounding them, pushing them from here to there, in the most humiliating and insulting and barbaric ways.<\/p>\n Each time we see the Rohingya refugees fleeing from one locale to the next, as the government agencies threaten to deport them to Myanmar, many amongst us are left thinking aloud, \u201cMaybe a day comes when we are also forced to flee\u2026Maybe we are Rohingyas in the making. Maybe we end up with the same fate. Look what\u2019s begun in the North East!\u201d Many furthering their apprehensions, \u201cSee, what\u2019s happening in Palestine, Syria, Iraq, Yemen… Haven\u2019t you seen shots of the dying Syrian children and also of the hapless Palestinian teenagers and the starving Yemeni kids? Those shots just too hitting!\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What a memorable meeting!<\/strong><\/p>\n As Eid \u2013ul-Adha is to be observed soon, in the second week of July, so let me write details to one of my earlier meeting with the late Khwaja Hasan Sani Nizami \u2014who was a direct descendant of Sufi Sheikh Nizamuddin Aulia.<\/p>\n I\u2019d met him on Eid-ul-Adha\/ Eid of sacrifice, at his New Delhi situated Basti Nizamuddin, where stands out the dargah of Sheikh Nizamuddin Aulia. And it was such a memorable meeting that all those details have remained unmoving!<\/p>\n After reaching the Nizamuddin dargah I walked a very short distance before reaching his home. A well spruced-up tidy place with a courtyard. I was ushered inwards, towards the veranda where he sat reclining on the takht. Didn’t look well but was receiving visitors. Soon a young\u00a0 man\u00a0 came with a\u00a0 tray full\u00a0 of\u00a0 kachoris, qeema<\/em>\u00a0 with\u00a0 onion\u00a0 slices sprawled\u00a0 by\u00a0 its side, and\u00a0 a\u00a0 bowl\u00a0 of\u00a0 siwain<\/em>. The food spread gave me an excuse to ask him about the qurbani. How many goats were sacrificed in his home that Eid morning?<\/p>\n “None!” said Nizami sahib. And his answer took me by surprise. As all along one had heard that qurbani was a must. Of course, for those who could afford it and surely this family could.<\/p>\n Perhaps, seeing me look somewhat bewildered, he continued, \u201cFor the last 74\u00a0 years I\u00a0 haven’t had any\u00a0 qurbani done. Because in keeping with the Sufi traditions before the day ends we distribute all the\u00a0 money we have,\u00a0 so that when we retire for the \u00a0night we are penniless. We live day to day, with just the minimum. And whatever donations are given to the dargah, they are distributed that very day, nothing remains for tomorrow. Who has seen tomorrow! Tell me, who\u2019s seen tomorrow or the day after! This is\u00a0 what\u00a0 our forefathers\u00a0 have been practising all along. But, yes, our relatives whose wives\u00a0 have jewellery do not fit into this\u00a0 category. But I haven’t married, and so there’s no wife and no jewellery!”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n What if there’s an emergency\u2026 a no- money situation?<\/strong><\/p>\n “It happened just once, during the Partition upheaval. We had\u00a0 just no\u00a0 money, not even\u00a0 for\u00a0 food, so\u00a0 had to\u00a0 borrow\u00a0 to survive, but\u00a0 no matter what\u00a0 happens we continue to live on a day to day basis, like Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia did\u2026at\u00a0 times he\u00a0 had\u00a0 not a penny to\u00a0 him but\u00a0 continued.\u00a0 After all, sufis and darveshes are not made of the average fabric! Only the present that matters. I must tell you that the day after the Babri Masjid demolition, a senior diplomat from one of the Western countries was going around here in this area for what\u00a0 he\u00a0 called his \u2018own survey of the\u00a0 situation\u2019. And he asked me, \u2018Would you be able to see tomorrow’s sun?\u2019 I told him I have left things to God and was confident of seeing the coming morning’s sun and also of having morning tea with him!\u201d<\/p>\n And as my conversation with Nizami sahib went on and\u00a0 more visitors joined\u00a0 in, more snacks and sweetmeats were\u00a0 placed on the table, but Nizami sahib didn\u2019t\u00a0 touch a thing. He didn\u2019t seem inclined to have anything beyond tea. At this point one of the visitors asked him whether it was viral fever he was recovering from.<\/p>\n His this answer made each one of us look taken aback. \u201cNo, no viral fever\u2026no fever at all. Actually\u00a0 one of\u00a0 my\u00a0 nephews, Salman, passed away just\u00a0 two days\u00a0 back \u2026 he died in Pakistan and I couldn\u2019t even\u00a0 travel for his burial. I have been feeling very upset after we got the news. He had grown up in this very house, scribbled on these walls here\u2026 those memories are coming back.”<\/p>\n Why he didn’t tell us this? Why serve us all these snacks?<\/strong><\/p>\n “Why should my sorrow be a burden for you! Sorrow is anyway a personal experience.\u201d He then went on to tell us more along the strain, \u201cYears\u00a0 back\u00a0 when my\u00a0 mother had been ailing and we had\u00a0 a\u00a0 guest who though\u00a0 was\u00a0 not\u00a0 staying with\u00a0 us but\u00a0 food were taken\u00a0 for\u00a0 him by my father. Even the day\u00a0 my mother passed away, my\u00a0 father took\u00a0 the\u00a0 evening meal and as this guest asked about her\u00a0 health my father replied, \u2018She\u00a0 is now resting.’ Its only after that\u00a0\u00a0 gentleman had finished eating, my father broke the news of my mother’s demise; adding that she\u2019s resting in her grave!\u201d His rationale was: Why tell others of your sorrows. After all, sorrow is yours alone!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The communal virus so well spread out here in our country has reached such lows that even refugees not spared. The World Refugee day – 20 June, came and passed by. Without we coming up with anything substantial for their wellbeing and safe survival in our cities and towns. It\u2019s time to sit back and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":338226,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[23,14770,2205],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338225"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=338225"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338225\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":338227,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/posts\/338225\/revisions\/338227"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media\/338226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=338225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=338225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tehelka.com\/rest-api\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=338225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}