Khwaja Garib Nawaz: I Too Laid a Chadar

I too laid a ‘chadar’.

If you’ve been to the holy shrine of Khwaja Gharib Nawaz, you’ll know what I mean.

The beautiful green and glittering offering perfumed with a thousand rose petals,

In obeisance to the Sufi saint.

He came to unite the plagued and looted people in the 12th century late.

A beautiful conglomeration of the faith in humanity,

We were shown large cauldrons, feeding thousands who visit and were told,

'A gift from the Mughal royalty' with their names well enshrined.

From Akbar to Shahjahan they were all in line!

Qawwali, a must-hear when in his darbar,

We sat segregated from men, afar.

An old lady shifted close, as we huddled,

On the carpet through the icy winter in Rajasthan.

Her feet bare and her toes short of the warmth

Of the carpet that lay away from her squat.

Resigned she sat on her flattened cardboard,

A box barely covering a few inches to settle away from the carpet fringes.

I laid the shawl on the stone-cold ground,

And offered my chadar as an obeisance to keep her warm.