Good old Muharram days

As one grows older, one develops a tendency to look back into the past. The 10th of Muharram is important due to the great sacrifice of Hazrat Imam Hussain (A.S.) and his companions. This episode took my mind years back and associated memories came flooding back before the mind’s eyes in the shape of realistic touching images, virtually like the contemporary videos.

As I viewed the images, I was entranced, losing all sense of time in watching something that in fact took place only in the thoughts. All for fighting tyranny revere the Holy Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him)’s grandson, Imam Hussain (A.S.), as they take it as the turning point in the history of Islam when it got re-birth. The mind being an unparalleled RAM (random-access memory) started retrieving images from Muharram of my childhood.

My childhood, now at this distance of time, seems to have been the epitome of the composite culture of Rawalpindi. Life mostly revolved around Muharram, when all Pindiites used to participate in the Majalis and processions. All community members were part of it. Everyone would come out of his/her home to join.

In those days, although the roads remained blocked for hours, more for ensuring a clear passage than for security, however, no one would mind the inconvenience. Those were easy-going times. People would go about their works as usual regardless of the mass of humanity.

Women and children gathered on the balconies and rooftops to witness the procession. I remember my brothers; sisters would go with parents through the milling crowds to reach the house of an acquaintance of my father that had a veranda that offered a ringside view of the proceedings.

The people would jostle to get a better view of the procession. Some would be upon their legs; others would crane their necks from behind, holding their children high above them on their shoulders or climb on trees or any vantage point just to see the procession.

That Imambargah was very old and impressive, had a beautiful architectural design, high ceiling, mammoth dimensions, and housed several-storied tazia. The gatherings used to be thickest near the Imambargah that was also the point of origin of the procession. Processions with numerous tazias and alams came from various parts of the city and converged around Imambargah. Some tazias were with embellishments; others were stark black, almost somber.

I recollect the huge shiny golden multi-storied tazia and other smaller shiny and richly colored ones along with several tall colorful alams in a seemingly unending stream. They would slowly go their way down the streets followed by hundreds of mourners, a few with blood on their backs from the iron chains with which they beat themselves.

Sabeels were on offer at different points along the routes of Muharram processions for the faithful.