Thursdays are important to various religious sects in India
Most of us know that Thursday is special for the devotees of Sai Baba
Also many Muslims visit dargaahs of saints on Thursday
A Shia woman staying two streets away from my building has an Imambara in her house and I am told that she organises a small ijtema every Thursday at her place
My Daadi used to say a special short prayer every Thursday at a particular spot in our kothi
I don't remember if there was a specific time for this ritual
The belief though was that there in that area lived a peaceful and kind Jinn who was a well wisher of our household and a God sent Protector for the place and its people
This benevolent Jinn came to be known as Buddhe Dada ... how and when we don’t know ...
So this prayer by Daadi was a kind of Thanksgiving every Thursday though none of my generation know how it had started 🙂
For us as children the details didn't matter ... we loved and waited for the mithai , usually batashas that Daadi ( Ammi ) distributed after the prayer 🙂
After Daadi Ammi passed away , my mother carried on the thanksgiving ritual which had by now become a spiritually enriching family tradition
She use to perform the prayer herself whenever we were visiting
Otherwise my aunt who used to take care of the things and stay there in our absence , Mummy had requested her to keep the family tradition going for the barkat and purity it brought home
As it happens with a lot of ancestral properties , they are encroached upon or totally grabbed by people living in and around them in the absence of the real owners
So after the passing away of both my parents the people living in my Dada's Kothi have taken it over completely
My siblings and I are no more welcome in the kothi that is an invaluable part of our childhood memories
The place where I learned to hold the needle and put a thread in its eye
The place where I held a pencil in my hand for the first time
The place where under the affectionate guidance of my Dada ( Abba ) I recited the first verse of The Qur'an
is now practically out of our reach
I don't know if anyone says a prayer of Thanks to Buddhe Dada at the Kothi any more
The aunt lives on
But I doubt if the ba-barkat Buddhe Dada still lives there ...
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In this din and depression that surrounds CAB ... mujhe khayaal ayaa ke ...
Be-ghar honay waaloN ka sirf ghar nahi chhoot-ta hai ...
( Written in Dec 2019 Facebook Timeline )
