Vinita Govindarajan

It’s dusk in Chennai. The warm evening light streams in from behind the two white minarets of the Wallajah mosque in Triplicane. In the spacious front yard, more than 50 men wearing white fez caps wait silently. A little before the evening prayers begin in the 220-year-old mosque, a yellow truck swings into the driveway. The men immediately spin into action, unloading metal containers of porridge, biscuits, bananas and vadas.

As they have done for the past four decades, Sindhi volunteers from the Sufidar Trust – who follow the teachings of Dada Ratanchand, a Partition refugee who settled in Chennai – have gathered to serve iftaar, the meal that ends the daily fast during the month of Ramzan.

The trust aims to spread the teachings of the Sufi saint Shahenshah Baba Nebhraj Sahib of Rohri, Sindh. “We believe all Gods are one, only people have turned it into different sects,” said Govind Bharwani, who has been a volunteer with the Trust almost since its inception. “That is what our guruji told us.”

Every afternoon, followers of Dada Ratanchand gather at the temple of The Sufidar Trust to offer du’aa, or prayer, to the Sufi saint Baba Dastageer. This is a large room with statues of Hindu gods and goddesses, Jesus Christ, the Sindhi river god Jhoolailum and pictures of several Sufi saints.

Most of the people here are second-generation Partition refugees from Sindh. Jaikishan Kukreja, a businessman, said that his grandfather had traveled to Bombay during the Partition, and had heard an announcement in the railway station about trains going to Chennai. “My father’s brother was already here in Chennai at that time,” said Kukreja. “So everyone traveled here.”

Kukreja’s father was a hawker on Godown Street in Central Chennai. “He used to sell long cloth that used to be brought in from other states,” said Kukreja. “That’s how he came up in life.”

Godown Street in Central Chennai is still known for its low-priced, wholesale textile shops, a business that was once popular among the Sindhi refugees. Dada Ratanchand himself worked in a shop at Godown Street before he took up a spiritual path.

Call to prayer

At the Wallajah mosque, more than thousand Sunni Muslim devotees filed into the courtyard, seating themselves in rows in front of the mosque. They will break their fast before going in to pray. The members of the trust wasted no time in serving the food. Although they do not know why their teacher has chosen this particular mosque to serve, they believe that this is tradition allows them to work actively together as a community.

“We call it seva,” says Govind Bharwani. “Our guruji started this many years ago and we are continuing with it. He began this tradition because he just felt like doing it. Nobody objects to this from the mosque also.”

The Wallajah mosque, also known as the Big Mosque, was built in 1795 by Muhammed Ali Wallajah, the Eighth Nawab of Arcot in Triplicane. One of the most striking features of the mosque is a chronogram composed in Persian by Rajah Makkan Lal, the Nawab’s private secretary.

About four decades ago, at Dada Ratanchandji’s request, the mosque authorities granted the Sufidar members permission to distribute food at the mosque. Ever since, there has been an understanding between the mosque authorities and the Trust that iftaar will be distributed by the Sufidar members. “We have never really coordinated with the mosque to do this,” says Bharwani. “We just come here every year ourselves.”

Suhail Ahmed, a volunteer of the Wallajah mosque, said that in most other places, they don’t allow people from other communities to distribute food. But this period is special. “Eid is a time when we can all come together,” he said. “That is one reason why we continue this tradition. We look at this as a time for brotherhood and to meet people, be it Hindus, Muslims or anyone.”

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Courtesy: Scroll

The post For decades, Sindhi volunteers help worshippers at a Chennai mosque break their Ramzan fast first appeared on Sindh Courier.

Rajashree Das

“Human beings love stories because stories give you an immediate emotional connect to people,” says Anuradha Uberoi, author of recently-published Chennai Brew. The book is a compilation of personal stories told by individuals from different communities — Parsis, Sindhis, Bengalis, and Punjabis — who made Chennai their home. Anuradha says, “For me, the stories show how many communities live, prosper, survive, here, and are connected to Chennai.”

Some migrated to Madras during pressing times. “People witnessed violence of mammoth proportions during Partition. Many saw death at close quarters. They survived due to sheer luck or sheer bravery,” says Anuradha. The book has documents from such times… “There’s a document from Punjab Association asking people to come forward and claim property that was left behind. There was compensation for that. There is also a bank receipt for Rs.8, 000 that belongs to a gentleman named Ravi Malhotra, whose father received it for a property he left behind in Pakistan.”

Some were born around the time the city earned the sobriquet Detroit of Asia. Their forefathers had moved here seeking better work opportunities. Anuradha herself, who is originally from Chandigarh, moved to Chennai with her family in 1987 on work. But all of them came to the city with no thoughts of looking back.

The book acts like a tool to help one understand different communities through stories of individual lives. Anuradha has written about people from different walks of life: a school teacher, a CEO, an entrepreneur… Some stories reinstate traits attached to certain communities while others break stereotypes.

A community, Anuradha says, “Represents a group of people who belong to a similar demographic profile and who bond over familiar social customs, rituals and language.” She adds, “They are easily recognizable as they have many common social traits and beliefs.” Anuradha hopes that her book will help us understand each other better. “Perhaps some prejudices we have against certain communities will melt away,” she says.

Chennai Brew transports readers to another place and time with its interesting accounts. For instance, the Government declared book-keeping with the Sindhi accounting language Hatvanka illegal in the late 1960s. The number of Sindhis who know the language has dwindled over the years. “Those who know it don’t want to be associated with it because it was primarily designed to hoodwink the income tax authorities,” she says, and recalls how she met one Behari K Bajaj who, despite being unwell, wrote the alphabets and digits in the language on a piece of paper for her.

Anuradha says about her move to the city: “To say that Madras came as a culture shock to me is an understatement. The language handicap and the differing norms of socializing, food and entertainment posed barriers for me” But, over a period of time, she came to love it. “Today, I’m more comfortable here than in the North. When I hear Tamil in the streets of New York when travelling, for instance, I feel as elated as I would when I hear Hindi,” she says.

Anuradha’s quest for cultural understanding and integration doesn’t end with the book. “I take pains to educate my friends and relatives in North India about the rich culture of Chennai and the vast South Indian cuisine. I enjoy busting their myths about the city I’ve grown to love.”

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Courtesy: The Hindu

The post Chennai – A home to Sindhis and other communities first appeared on Sindh Courier.