The melodies of Muharram

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Jan 13 2012
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The melodies of Muharram
Face to face with blood and beauty on the day of Ashura in Old Delhi.
By Rachel Firestone
Dust could be seen curling up through the glare, and the thin, hard winter sunlight gave the crowded lane leading up to Old Delhi Railway Station a pearl-like sheen. Imran was on the corner of the lane, between a red motorbike and a clump of men sipping chai beside a nearby stall. Over his shoulder could be seen a sea of people dressed in black, walking in procession.
It was the last of 10 days of mourning, the day of Ashura, also known as the Muharram, after the Muslim month in which the festival takes place. Several tall alams (symbolic flags) rose out of the crowd with the embossed black-and-red panja (‘claw’ or ‘palm of a hand’) emblems glinting gold at their tops. The men were quiet, milling around a peevish white horse speckled with scarlet pain, shaking its mane in their midst. A few metres away, others circled a raised casket bearing the figurative body of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, whose death and martyrdom at the Battle of Karbala in today’s Iraq was being commemorated.
Amassed since the morning, the procession thinned at the time of the afternoon call to prayer, after which the men trickled back into the main thoroughfare in twos and threes. Some of them had bandages over their foreheads, while others bled openly from their heads and chests, displaying marks of self-flagellation, devotion and grief. Every few minutes, small groups of people would gather and, together, pass beneath the palanquin or the white horse to receive blessings from the effigy of Hussein’s martyrdom.
Although Imran, a friend and colleague, is a Kashmiri Sunni, and does not celebrate this primarily Shia holiday, many of his Kashmiri Shia friends were participating in the parade. Together, we followed the crowd as it moved down the road, thickening with new entrants and forming circles of rocking, chest-beating, water-doused, blood-dripping men. Singing filled the air, as one circle and then another chanted in appeal and response to each other through songs of mourning sung traditionally during the Muharram. Melancholic, harmonious and redolent of West Asia, they reminded me of the melodies of my own European Jewish community, of the songs we sing during the Jewish Hallel service, a special set of prayers reserved for particular holidays, harvest festivals and the coming of a new month.
On the fringes of the crowd, women in black headscarves and burqas lined the curbs, leaning against or sitting on stools in front of closed shops, while the lacy white niqabs worn by little girls shone bright against their dark shadows. In contrast to the loud chanting of the men, these women recited in murmurs, their hands gently tapping their chests almost as an afterthought to the voracious pounding taking place within the circles of men.
The men, singing in the circle directly before us, were from Kashmir. Imran, though Sunni, sang with them, closing his eyes during the crescendos. ‘And she will be left alone,’ he kept repeating, simultaneously translating the chorus of the main melody that echoed all around us. Despite knowing most of the story, I let him go on, and without his usual shyness he eased smoothly into the theatrics and pathos of the drama. As he outlined the narrative behind the poetic recitations and passion plays being staged around us, explaining the first commemoration of Hussein’s martyrdom by his sister Zainab, the personal connection the participants felt with the story was palpable.
The husseina
A short while later, Imran, who had been with the crowd since the morning, headed off for home, and I turned towards some of the narrower alleys, hoping to catch the procession at its front end. After meandering through the spiralling tentacles of Kashmiri Gate’s Motor Market, I met the procession again at a sunlight-spattered T-stop. Following the crowd through a twisted galli for a few moments, the throng before me suddenly thinned and disappeared. The gaping doorway of an engraved community structure yawned to our right, apparently the procession’s final destination. A husseina, a guard later informed me, was a space dedicated to the singing of dirges and mourning melodies during the month of Ashura.
Once inside, the hot heaviness of the air and the intense, entranced gazes of the singers were unnerving. Lined three people deep, the balcony above was as crowded as anywhere else in the building, but being surrounded solely by women and children had a calming effect. Families sat in groups eating biryani and dates, while toddlers lay sprawled on the floor, asleep with their eyes half open, their full, round bellies exposed as they dreamt. Melodic recitations reverberated against my ribs, and the crowded courtyard below ebbed and flowed in sync with the deep percussion of flesh hitting flesh.
Being at the centre of a sprawling, three-story building brimming and dripping with the same song, being covered, saturated, painted by the emotion of a narrative different from my own – the effect was transportive. I was suddenly in a completely  different time and place. Despite the differences between myself and the others standing on the balcony, I was beckoned, even welcomed, into someone else’s story.
On my way out I took a wrong turn and came down a different staircase, at the opposite end of the building. Finding myself in the middle of the courtyard, I was suddenly surrounded by self-flagellating men; the air was warmer, and filled with a distinct scent I could not name. It dawned on me that hundreds of men were striking themselves with blades, bleeding all around me. I could not get out, I could barely see, and I was standing in a pool of human blood. Suddenly this ‘other person’s story’ felt too different, too far from my comfort zone. The frenzied ‘I must get out’ beating within my head mixed eerily with the sorrowful ‘And she will be left alone’ echoing all around. And then, suddenly, a doorway appeared, a young guard in kurta ushered me out. And then, just as quickly, my mind cleared.
Contemplating the day on the way back to the metro station, I was interested by my sudden change of mind. I saw within myself the ease, ferocity and aggression with which we humans can suddenly see our peers as something negative, something foreign, sometimes without our even realising it. In the husseina near Kashmiri Gate, I was a guest – welcomed to partake in the reliving of a neighbouring community’s stories despite lacking sufficient background information or historical context for any kinds of judgment.
Stories are told of men in mosques in Isfahan and Baghdad, dripping tears onto their prayer books as they sing in memory of Hussein. Such physical outpouring of emotion, demonstrated alone, by an individual separated from the group, might strike some as farcical or confusing. But here, in the gallis of Chabiganj, on the day of Ashura, in the power of human assembly and through community concepts of history, these groups of men, beating their chests and chanting, created an overall aura of commemoration – a non-duality between blood, violence and sanctification.
Joining them quietly, on the side, was an old, wrinkled woman sitting up against the wall. Slightly on the fringe, wrapped in her own quietness, she sang softly to herself along with the men, scenes of Karbala flitting across her closed eyelids.
~ Rachel Firestone is an American currently living in Delhi, who has worked on sustainable development, community empowerment and gender issues across India for the last four years.

By Rachel Firestone

Face to face with blood and beauty on the day of Ashura in Old Delhi.

Muharram_rachel_one

Images: Rachel Firestone

Dust could be seen curling up through the glare, and the thin, hard winter sunlight gave the crowded lane leading up to Old Delhi Railway Station a pearl-like sheen. Imran was on the corner of the lane, between a red motorbike and a clump of men sipping chai beside a nearby stall. Over his shoulder could be seen a sea of people dressed in black, walking in procession.

It was the last of 10 days of mourning, the day of Ashura, also known as the Muharram, after the Muslim month in which the festival takes place. Several tall alams (symbolic flags) rose out of the crowd with the embossed black-and-red panja (‘claw’ or ‘palm of a hand’) emblems glinting gold at their tops. The men were quiet, milling around a peevish white horse speckled with scarlet pain, shaking its mane in their midst. A few metres away, others circled a raised casket bearing the figurative body of Hussein, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, whose death and martyrdom at the Battle of Karbala in today’s Iraq was being commemorated.

Amassed since the morning, the procession thinned at the time of the afternoon call to prayer, after which the men trickled back into the main thoroughfare in twos and threes. Some of them had bandages over their foreheads, while others bled openly from their heads and chests, displaying marks of self-flagellation, devotion and grief. Every few minutes, small groups of people would gather and, together, pass beneath the palanquin or the white horse to receive blessings from the effigy of Hussein’s martyrdom.

Although Imran, a friend and colleague, is a Kashmiri Sunni, and does not celebrate this primarily Shia holiday, many of his Kashmiri Shia friends were participating in the parade. Together, we followed the crowd as it moved down the road, thickening with new entrants and forming circles of rocking, chest-beating, water-doused, blood-dripping men. Singing filled the air, as one circle and then another chanted in appeal and response to each other through songs of mourning sung traditionally during the Muharram. Melancholic, harmonious and redolent of West Asia, they reminded me of the melodies of my own European Jewish community, of the songs we sing during the Jewish Hallel service, a special set of prayers reserved for particular holidays, harvest festivals and the coming of a new month.

On the fringes of the crowd, women in black headscarves and burqas lined the curbs, leaning against or sitting on stools in front of closed shops, while the lacy white niqabs worn by little girls shone bright against their dark shadows. In contrast to the loud chanting of the men, these women recited in murmurs, their hands gently tapping their chests almost as an afterthought to the voracious pounding taking place within the circles of men.

The men, singing in the circle directly before us, were from Kashmir. Imran, though Sunni, sang with them, closing his eyes during the crescendos. ‘And she will be left alone,’ he kept repeating, simultaneously translating the chorus of the main melody that echoed all around us. Despite knowing most of the story, I let him go on, and without his usual shyness he eased smoothly into the theatrics and pathos of the drama. As he outlined the narrative behind the poetic recitations and passion plays being staged around us, explaining the first commemoration of Hussein’s martyrdom by his sister Zainab, the personal connection the participants felt with the story was palpable.

The husseinaMuharram_rachel_two
A short while later, Imran, who had been with the crowd since the morning, headed off for home, and I turned towards some of the narrower alleys, hoping to catch the procession at its front end. After meandering through the spiralling tentacles of Kashmiri Gate’s Motor Market, I met the procession again at a sunlight-spattered T-stop. Following the crowd through a twisted galli for a few moments, the throng before me suddenly thinned and disappeared. The gaping doorway of an engraved community structure yawned to our right, apparently the procession’s final destination. A husseina, a guard later informed me, was a space dedicated to the singing of dirges and mourning melodies during the month of Ashura.

Once inside, the hot heaviness of the air and the intense, entranced gazes of the singers were unnerving. Lined three people deep, the balcony above was as crowded as anywhere else in the building, but being surrounded solely by women and children had a calming effect. Families sat in groups eating biryani and dates, while toddlers lay sprawled on the floor, asleep with their eyes half open, their full, round bellies exposed as they dreamt. Melodic recitations reverberated against my ribs, and the crowded courtyard below ebbed and flowed in sync with the deep percussion of flesh hitting flesh.

Being at the centre of a sprawling, three-story building brimming and dripping with the same song, being covered, saturated, painted by the emotion of a narrative different from my own – the effect was transportive. I was suddenly in a completely  different time and place. Despite the differences between myself and the others standing on the balcony, I was beckoned, even welcomed, into someone else’s story.

On my way out I took a wrong turn and came down a different staircase, at the opposite end of the building. Finding myself in the middle of the courtyard, I was suddenly surrounded by self-flagellating men; the air was warmer, and filled with a distinct scent I could not name. It dawned on me that hundreds of men were striking themselves with blades, bleeding all around me. I could not get out, I could barely see, and I was standing in a pool of human blood. Suddenly this ‘other person’s story’ felt too different, too far from my comfort zone. The frenzied ‘I must get out’ beating within my head mixed eerily with the sorrowful ‘And she will be left alone’ echoing all around. And then, suddenly, a doorway appeared, a young guard in kurta ushered me out. And then, just as quickly, my mind cleared.

Contemplating the day on the way back to the metro station, I was interested by my sudden change of mind. I saw within myself the ease, ferocity and aggression with which we humans can suddenly see our peers as something negative, something foreign, sometimes without our even realising it. In the husseina near Kashmiri Gate, I was a guest – welcomed to partake in the reliving of a neighbouring community’s stories despite lacking sufficient background information or historical context for any kinds of judgment.

Stories are told of men in mosques in Isfahan and Baghdad, dripping tears onto their prayer books as they sing in memory of Hussein. Such physical outpouring of emotion, demonstrated alone, by an individual separated from the group, might strike some as farcical or confusing. But here, in the gallis of Chabiganj, on the day of Ashura, in the power of human assembly and through community concepts of history, these groups of men, beating their chests and chanting, created an overall aura of commemoration – a non-duality between blood, violence and sanctification.

Joining them quietly, on the side, was an old, wrinkled woman sitting up against the wall. Slightly on the fringe, wrapped in her own quietness, she sang softly to herself along with the men, scenes of Karbala flitting across her closed eyelids.

~ Rachel Firestone is an American currently living in Delhi, who has worked on sustainable development, community empowerment and gender issues across India for the last four years.

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