The word Mirwaiz Manzil, for us had become synonymous with sitting in examinations. My grandmother, who had been a great devotee of Mirwaiz Molvi Muhammad Yusuf Shah, during our examinations visited Mirwaiz Manzil for getting an amulet, cup or a saucer scribbled with verses from the Holy Book for us, from Mirwaiz Mohammad Attiquallah – Aatta Saib as she called him.
For all children in the family, it had become an article of faith that drinking water from this cup or saucer before sitting for tests will help them pass the examinations. To strengthen us in this belief grandmother narrated number of stories, some related to my birth and prolonged illness of my mother after my birth and her speedy recovery. The story that impressed us most was about my uncle.
Unlike all others in the family, including my father, he was not an alumni of Islamia High School. He was a brilliant student of MP High School. She often told us that he would not have passed his matriculation examinations in first division, from the Punjab in early forties, but for an amulet from Mirwaiz-i-Kashmir Moulana Mohammad Yousuf Shah Sahib. Not discrediting claims of his mother, my uncle, who taught maths to all children at home, however, attributed his good score in matriculation examination to his teacher Pandit Keshav Nath. Admiring commitment of his teacher towards students, out of respect for him, he often said to us; “If I had my way I would wash his feet every day” Those days pupil washing feet of their teachers was seen as an expression of respect and not as exploitation.
Notwithstanding, my uncle attributing his success to the hard work of his teachers, our minds had got so conditioned that we had started believing that without sipping the “elixir” water of the holy verses, we will not fair well in the examinations. The House of Mirwaizs, which was at a three-minute walk from our school, because of the holy-verse-water’ had become a place of reverence for my siblings and me. Perhaps it was so for many other children in the school brought up in the same atmosphere with similar beliefs. Neither my siblings nor I had ever visited Atta Sab, whose amulets remained tied to our arms and whose holy-verse-water we had sipped during many examinations.
Old and living an ascetic life, he never visited our school. But, like Mirwaiz-i-Kashmir Moulana Mohammad Yousuf Shah, whom neither my classmates nor I had seen but had heard a lot from our teachers Salam-u-Din Sahib, Shah Sahib and Salam-u-Din Hakam- Atta Saib also had become a larger than life figure. I think, perhaps we were in class seven or eight when on day suddenly the school gong resounded and all students assembled in the school compound. Perhaps it was Principal of School, Mufti Sahib, who announced the news of the death of the patron of our school, and declared a holiday. Instead of going home, most of the boys joined hundreds of people who had gathered outside Mirwaiz Manzil.
Suddenly shutters of shops in all bazars and market places were down. Streams of people from all lanes, alleys and streets started Converging at Mirwaiz Manzil. My classmates and I were also part of more than two hundred thousand people that participated in the Namaz Jinaza and the funeral procession. It was the biggest ever funeral procession I had seen during my student days. So large were the procession that the coffin was passed from hands to hands till it reached the graveyard of Mirwaiz-e-Kashmir in the middle of Malakah at the foothills of Koh-i-Maran.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
