Devotion and Surrender

By Shalini Rai Narayan, "Sufism, revisited" - Express India/Pune Newsline - India
Sunday, December 7, 2008

In addition to temples and churches, Pune boasts some major shrines of Sufi saints and keeps the culture of liberal spirituality alive

It's an uncontested fact that Pune is a city of divinity and home to many temples, churches and mosques. However, it's also the abode of some major Sufi saints and home to a thriving Sufi culture. Among the notable shrines in the city are those of Hazrat Babajan in Camp, the Kamar Ali Darvesh Dargah at Khed Shivpur and the Peer Baba at Vishrantwadi.

While Hazrat Babajan is well-known and very much a landmark in the city, the other two are lesser-known, except among devotees or close followers.

Not many are aware that Hazrat Babajan was a woman, born as Gulrukh, a Pathan princess in Balochistan (Pakistan), sometime in the early 1800s. However, she fled home at the age of 18 and ventured around the world (making pilgrimages to Mecca and Medina twice) before landing in Mumbai in 1904.

From Mumbai, she went to Ajmer (to pay homage to the Sufi saint Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti) before arriving in Pune.

She made her home in the city first under a neem tree [Azadirachta indica] near Bukhari Shah's mosque in Rasta Peth and later beneath another neem tree in the then-dilapidated section of Pune called Char Bawdi. This is where she remained for the rest of her life and where the Babajan Dargah now stands.

Frequented by people of all religions, the dargah is an oasis of peace and sees a unique coming-together of spiritual influences. The most heartening thing here is that the neem tree under which Babajan breathed her last still stands tall and sturdy, serving as a constant reminder to her murid (disciples) of their qutub (Sufi term for the highest form of master).

One such murid is Shaziya Haq, a mother of four and a regular at the shrine. "I come here for solace and have been visiting Hazrat Babajan dargah for the last 32 years. It gives me a lot of peace, just coming over and sitting here," she says.

At the Kamar Ali Darvesh Dargah at Khed-Shivapur, 21 kms away from Pune, a 90 kg rock can be lifted up by the mere finger-tips of each of the 11 men who are needed to raise it. Eleven men stand around the rock and each one bends down and lends his index finger to apply enough pressure to lift it. As they chant Ya Kamarali Durvesh! in a chorus, the stone is flung in the air.

"I just could not believe this story when a friend mentioned it to me over dinner last year. So, I recently went and tried to check its veracity and believe me, the stone actually got lifted! I mean, in this day and age, when every belief is being held hostage to the demands of logic and rationale, it was an experience I could never forget," avers Mazhar Siddiqui, member of a paramilitary force stationed in Pune and a true convert to Sufism, if ever there was any.

Similar stories can be heard if you happen to visit the Peer Baba of Vishrantwadi, as this shrine is popularly known.

"I was childless and had been praying for a miracle. Then, someone suggested that I should come here and soon, I was blessed with a daughter. Now that she has turned 10, she too comes here regularly with me and my wife," says Sachin Dadhich, a resident of Khadki.

Truly, the Sufi tradition is still alive and kicking in Pune or Punyanagari, as it was once known, and contrary to popular (mis)-perception, the spirit of harmony and peaceful co-existence still thrives here.

Visit any of the above mentioned or other less well-known Sufi shrines scattered across the city and you'll find people from all strata of society, irrespective of race and religion, heading there; with their only thoughts being those of devotion and surrender to the Almighty.

[Picture: Hazrat Babajan Samadhi in Pune. Photo from http://www.trustmeher.com/files/five/babajan.htm].