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Hajj, Pilgrimage to Mecca

Hajj Pilgrimage to Mecca

3 Comments / abraham, adam, book blog, buddhist, christian, education, hajj, hindu, islam, mecca, muhammad, pilgrimage, school, short stories, short story, writer's blog /

The year of 1973, I was a 7th grader. Ours was a school nestled in the hilly district of remote Bangladesh. Our class rooms were crammed, with boys and girls sitting in rows of wooden benches. Among the subjects we learnt were Math, Bengali, English, Geography, History and Religious education. During period of religious education, the students used to divide up according to their respective religions, Hindus studied Hindu scriptures, even an only one Christian student in the whole class studied Christianity and Muslims studied Islam, also known as “Islamiat” education. Our Islamiat teacher was a simple down to earth man, a bespectacled thoughtful person whom we called Abu Bakr Sir. He wore scruffy beard on his face and his eyes were deep set with a sharp Aryan nose standing out in the middle of his cheek bones in a precise symmetrical formation as if a ridge of Andes mountain had risen out suddenly of the tectonic collision in the planes of Bolivia. He seemed to be always in a metaphysical world and while teaching us about the religion of Islam, he often veered off to the philosophy of religion. One day, the topic of Islamic studies was Hajj, a pilgrimage to the holy sites in Mecca called Kaaba, considered to be first place of prayer in Islamic faith, established by Adam, the first man and the first prophet of mankind in Islamic faith. It is believed by the Muslims that this place of worship had been subsequently reclaimed and restored by Abraham, and his son Ishmael, who are also prophets in Islam. This is where Muhammad, the last prophet of Islam, performed his pilgrimage and who also took part in the renovation of this universal place of worship. Any Muslim, capable physically, mentally and financially is supposed perform this pilgrimage once in a life time. However conditional to this is that a Muslim before embarking on such a rite should have fulfilled his family’s need. By family, Islam does not mean only immediate family but members of the community. To drive home the importance and meaning of Hajj pilgrimage, this day Abu Bakr Sir told us a story: one day two close friends, who happened to be Muslims decided to perform Hajj. Once they resolved themselves to such an obligatory rite, their whole focus of life was to achieve this goal. The two friends performed all the necessary actions and collected all the provisions for their long journey and ensured provisions for their respective families during their absence. Having done so, they embarked on their journey, a path of irrevocability that no one can distract them from. Soon after they had started the journey, the two friends came across a poor family which had no means to meet its basic needs. They heard poor children of this family crying of hunger. Having heard children crying of hunger the two friends had to pause and rethink about their journey and the means they had at their disposal. One friend said, “I had already promised to Allah that I am on this journey for Hajj, nothing is going to veer me off this path.” The other friend, seemed to be more reluctant and said, “It is true. But it is also true that I need to take care of my brothers and sisters before I can perform my Hajj. My decision is to help out people in distress and as long as they are in distress I cannot go to Hajj.” So he decided to give all his money and means to the needy family and returned home with a heavy heart. The other friend traveled all the way to Mecca to perform much desired Hajj as usual. In the act of Hajj, a five day event, a Muslim performs many rituals from circling the Kaaba, a sacred sanctuary of the prophets to spending a night in the open air in Arafat to reenacting the frantic run of Hagar, Abraham’s wife (slave in Bible) in between the two hills called Safah and Marwah when she was looking for water for her infant son Ishmael. During this time, Muslims also throw ritual stones at Satan, to wipe out evils from their heart. The friend who remained unwavered in his journey made all the way to Mecca performing Hajj and had accordingly performed all of these rituals continued to see his other friend doing the same the whole time. He thought, his friend had changed his mind later and came to pilgrimage just like him. After months of the arduous journey, he had returned home to find his friend was already at home. “When did you come home? And when did you change your heart dear friend?” asked the Hajj performing pilgrim to the other who donated his money to the poor family. “I had never gone to Hajj dear friend, remember I gave all my means to the poor family and therefore I had to return home and have been here all the time you were gone to Mecca”. The Hajj performing friend was bewildered and asked all the neighbors around. They all testified that the second friend had never gone to Mecca and was doing his normal duties at the hometown having returned on the half way from the journey. The Haji (one who had performed the Hajj) friend was thoroughly confused, and thought he was possessed by Djin to have seen the other friend in all the rituals of Hajj in the holy city of Mecca and Medina. He then called his friend and the two sat down together discussing the whole situation. The friend who could not make the journey understood the situation of his Haji friend and the two friends decided to seek help of a wise man to resolve the issue. The next day the two friends got up early and went to the wise man in the neighboring city. Both of them told their own stories to the wise man in details. The wise man

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The Boy Who Stole His Mom’s Money

3 Comments / Bangladesh, book blog, book publishing, children, children fund raising, Chittagong, dead mother, doctor, healing and storytelling, healing through storytelling, koshi, memory of mother, Mother died long ago, Mother's Day, Mother's Day for dead mother, pitcher, publish, school, short stories, short story, stealing money, writer's blog /

The school house was high up on a flattened mountain top clearing of Chittagong Hill Tracts, a district in the farthest corner of Indian subcontinent and called appropriately so due to its hilly terrain and forbidding landscape of impenetrable jungle infested with year-round malaria and dengue causing mosquitoes. Its open spaces were carpeted with tall shimmering green grasses undulating languidly like a ballet dancer with the passing of humid breeze where blood sucking leeches lurked on every blade. Although surrounded by lush green rain forest, in the dog days of summer, the tormenting brew of high humidity, heat of the tropics and bright sunshine used to raise the temperature to 110 to 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the tiny tin roofed school building where four class rooms for nine to ten year old school children were housed. Currently on lease from the government of Pakistan by a giant private paper company that exploited the natural resources of the surrounding forest to make paper, no one actually knew how this building came into being. But elders say it was an abandoned hill-top Second World War era military station which in its hay days served as surveillance outpost in the Anglo-Japanese war front when the Japanese Imperial Army occupied Burma rather quickly and was knocking at Chittagong, located in the farthest South Eastern corner of British India. The building was in disrepair and dilapidated; passage of time was evident on some of its corrugated tin sheets that had curled up and rusted long ago; in some others, rusting had given way to small holes through which sunlight poured in the midday like a thin slicing sword down from the heaven.  The building base was a square of cement slab with brick walls on all sides; the cement was peeling away in many areas exposing the carnelian red bricks in places. Each of the classrooms could perhaps accommodate twenty children at the most, but now due to rapid population boom of this jungle town, fifty to sixty children were crammed in the same tiny space. Only some of the students could sit on the stools with a desk and the rest either stood on foot or sat on the floor during the class time. Children used to come on foot traversing the dusty winding road cut in between the mountains from dense settlements sprawled at the foot hills of the hilly tracts, from far and near. Then they had to climb hundreds of steps of thin stairways, curved on the steep side of the mountain to get to the class room. This was the most dangerous part of their journey to school everyday and children did it with remarkable patience and care, because they knew just one slip of stairs meant their young body will swirl down several hundred feet down below. Climbing the steep stairs by the time they had reached the top of the hill, they were already drenched in sweat. The class rooms had no running water, but there was piped water that ran near the outhouse little further away. The water was pumped through the exposed on-the-surface metal pipes, and it was as hot as boiling water in the summer. Being so hot both inside and outside the class room, the children needed a constant supply of cool water. The school had no air conditioning and in those days, children in the remote corner of East Pakistan, current Bangladesh, had never heard of refrigerator yet, let alone having one in the class room to keep the water cool. The only way they could keep the water cool is by storing water in an earthen pitcher, locally called “kolshi”. This large earthen vessel of the size of a giant turkey fryer used to be kept on the corner of the class room and students and teachers alike could pour in a little drink of cool water in their ceramic glass they all shared to keep them hydrated especially in the long hot summer days. Earthen pitcher cools down water by capillary action, a basic law of physics. One day early in the summer time the old earthen pitcher of the class broke into pieces as it grew old and could not contain the pressure of the water inside it any longer. Children had no more supply of cold water, and in their tender mind, they knew that it was essential for their life. They decided to raise money and buy a new kolshi soon. Although just few pennies in American currency, it was expensive for the children in this corner of the world, where some of them used to come to school without any breakfast and some of them could only afford to eat one meager meal a day. So raising money was difficult and yet they all pitched in with an urgency and they raised about five “takas”, equivalent of six US pennies. A boy, son of a teacher, who was voted as the “Class Captain,” was given the responsibility to safe guard the money the class had raised and it was his job to buy a new kolshi from the bazaar, one hour on foot journey from the neighborhood.  The class decided for him to accomplish this on the weekend so they have cool water from next Monday. As the Sunday came, he was ready to go to the market with the raised money to buy the kolshi. He took out the only pair of pants he had, which he always wore to school and as he put his hand in the pocket, he felt no coin! He was surprised; a shiver crossed through his spine. He put his hands on both the side pockets and then to the back pocket, but his fingers felt no money, no jingle of coins. He was at a loss and he now started sweating profusely. What had happened to the money? Did he lose it or did some one play a trick on him or had someone picked his pocket? What should

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