Call of the Saint: The Sufi Shrine of Ajmer

Expressindia - Delhi Newsline
Thursday, May 18, 2006

A new coffee table book revisits the 700 years old
dargah at Nizamuddin.

At a glance, she looks ill-equipped to talk about the
legendary dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya in south Delhi.
Laxmi Dhaul is a saraswat Brahmin by lineage and a
Maharashtrian by birth. But the 50-year-old mother of
three has penned some 120 pages on the dargah in her
book The Dargah of Nizamuddin Auliya (Rupa, Rs 595),
which was released at Urs Mahal, Nizamuddin, last
evening.

"I made a lot of effort to have the book released on
this day," says Dhaul about the fact that the launch
coincided with the 702nd Urs celebration at the
dargah.

The coffee table book is not her first attempt at
discovering the mystic powers that the dargahs exude.
Dhaul, who has always been attracted to the history
and culture of Delhi, was first exposed to sufism at
the Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti's dargah in Ajmer when she
had her children admitted to the Mayo College. Soon
she compiled a A4-sized book, The Sufi Saint of Ajmer,
which was published and then reprinted in 2003 by
Rupa.

''The sanctity of the place gets lost in swotting away
the flies and shooing away the beggars at most of
these places. People all around you are telling you
where to deposit the donations or where to buy the
chadar from. And the next moment you are happily out
of the dust and crowd,'' says Dhaul, who also
co-partners husband Harry Dhaul's NGO, Independent
Power Production Association of India.

For Dhaul, her ''inexposure'' to dargahs has worked to
her advantage. ''I have a layman's view on the dargah
and even little details about the peer's life are new
for me,'' she reveals.

While Dhaul's second book is out with support from
Delhi Tourism Department, she is now busy working on
her next venture, the ''Eklingji Shrine in Udaipur''.
This, besides plans to pen a comprehensive book on the
dargahs of Delhi.