My mother had not been to a school. She was not an exception, so was true about my aunt. Majority of them to Quran chatthalls were they learned the holy book. At the crack of the dawn, every day without fail they recited verses from the holy book but I don’t think any of them knew the meaning of what they were reading. There were a few that could read psalm books in Kashmiri, but I don’t remember mother of any of my friends having mastery over Persian language. They were all great believers and new just basic things about the religion. I remember only one or two elderly women who visited a mosque near Bohiri Kadal on Friday’s talking about sects and “purification of faith”. There were a couple of chatthalls in the nearby locality overwhelmingly inhabited by the descendants of various saints sermonizers and missionaries that had arrived in Kashmir from Persia and various Central Asian countries. Some of them who claimed to have been part of the entourage of great missionary Mir Syed Ali Hamadani and his son Mir Muhammad Hamadani had settled in these mohallas since the time of the Sultans then my birth burg was a great centre of learning. Most of them even after six hundred years suffixed their names with names of the cities where from their ancestors had arrived in Kashmir.
Notwithstanding, our Mohalla being so close to the great centres for learning, why even after five hundred years education had not trickled down to it was amazing. It was like being in front of massive waterfall but not being able to have a sip of water. It often haunted me why my mother had not been to school for receiving a formal education when some twenty years before her birth barely a kilometre from our mohalla a girl’s school had been established by Mirwaiz Rasool Shah and yet another had been established about a mile and a half away by a Christian missionary. I often saw that ignorance and poverty was the cause. Nevertheless, there was a story about it. That one day my mother hardly five or six was stoking fire in a daan (mud-stove) with a poker and a Lassa Bab-a majzoob entered our kitchen. He always carried an earthen bowl filled to capacity with burning charcoal on one of his shoulders. Holding it firmly with naked hand—which was half burnt and oozing. On seeing my mother poking fire inside the daan, he had told her, “This is going to be your permanent seat.” Few years later my mother was married to her first cousin. And ever since that time my mother cooked food for the family till her death on the same daan. She even never accompanied my father on his postings outside Srinagar and literally remained confined to home and hearth.
My grandmother in wee hours of morning regularly visited almost all shrines —even the shrines of lesser known saints in our locality. The majority of women in our locality remained insulated to the outside world. The only men, other than their family members, they talked to were the hawkers selling trinkets, bangles, sandalwood combs, antimony, scented-hair oil and perfumes. Or the hawkers selling variety of willow baskets in exchanges of old clothes. Singing at marriage parties, was the only entertainment for them. Majority of men visited cinemas for watching films but for Women it was a taboo. I don’t remember having ever heard a story about any woman in our locality having violated the self-imposed restrictions and visited a cinema. Nonetheless, one day it happened so, there was a lot of excitement in women in our
Locality about a film to be screened in the Shiraz cinema. Every woman aged, old and young film. The aged and older bubbled with more enthusiasm than the younger lot. The aged believed it was a great blessing for them from Almighty Allah that they would able to see this film before they departed from this world.
The cinema hall was washed. Electricians fixed decorative lights all over the cinema hall as was done on annual festivals in all shrines. Hoardings with pictures of the holiest shrines of Muslims were put all over the city reading: Khana-e-Khuda – a film about pilgrimage to the holy Mecca would be screened in Shiraz Cinema from Friday.
It was somewhere in the summer of 1968 that the film was released at Srinagar. The film was released simultaneously in many cinemas in the sub-continent. It was an Iranian film dubbed in Urdu with background voice by famous Pakistani actor Muhammad Ali. The film directed by A. Razai, an Iranian documentary maker, was about all rituals connected with the Hajj.
The people’s enthusiasm about this film was not astonishing as those days only a few hundred performed Hajj. To thousands of others watching this film was a life-time achievement. I have seen tears welling up in the eyes of many while staring at these posters of the film. In their innocence, many believed that watching this film was as good as performing the pilgrimage to the holy cities. In keeping with the sentiments of the people, the government had exempted the film from entertainment tax. Schools had the directive to take children to the cinema hall for watching the film and special shows were organized for schools and colleges.
It was day of great thrill in our family when tickets for the film were booked for my mother, aunt and the children. Visiting cinema for watching the film was a historic day for my mother and many other women of the locality who considered even talking about it a sin. It was no less than a pilgrimage for my mother and aunt both of them wore new dresses and performed ablution before leaving the home. Many out of reverence for the film took out their shoes outside the cinema hall as they used to do on entering the mosques. Some with ornate sprayer’s sprinkled rosewater inside the cinema and some lighted incense sticks… And there were stories about some elders’ entering the theatre hymning religious songs. …. The cinema truly had turned into a shrine for weeks.
The film was also screened in few other cinema halls in various Districts.
Z.G.Muhammad is a noted writer and columnist
