The only time I went to Pakistan was for the first-ever SAARC lit fest to be held there 20 years ago. We crossed the border on foot at Wagah and drove to Lahore. The Dawn newspaper got in touch as I was from the media and hospitably asked if there was anything special I wanted to see or do in Lahore.
I wanted to pay my respects at the shrine of Sufi saint Mian Mir (1550-1635). He was apparently a direct descendant of an Arab caliph and belonged to the Qadiri order of Sufism. He migrated to and settled in Lahore at the age of 25. Legend says Mian Mir was invited by Guru Arjan Dev, the fifth Sikh Guru, to lay the foundation stone of no less than the Golden Temple at Amritsar.
Guru Arjan Dev apparently asked him because it was foretold that the holiest man of the age would lay the 'neev' or foundation of the temple. Since Guru Arjan Dev considered Mian Mir to be that person in then undivided Punjab, he invited him to do the honours and the Sufi agreed.
Yet another story goes that Mughal emperor Jehangir came to the saint in full imperial pomp. But Mian Mir's doorkeepers stopped him at the gate and asked him to wait until their master gave permission to enter. Jahangir was annoyed. No one had ever made him wait in his life. After a while, he was ushered into Mian Mir's presence.
Unable to hide his bruised ego, Jehangir told Mian Mir in Persian as soon as he entered, “Ba dar-e-darvis darbane na-bayd” meaning ‘At the door of a fakir, there should be no sentry’. Mian Mir replied, “Babayd keh sage dunia na ayad", meaning ‘So that just anybody may not enter’.
Jehangir asked for blessings on the invasion he planned on the Deccan. But it seems Mian Mir refused to bless him. He openly called Jehangir greedy, saying he had plenty of land already but still wanted more. However, that did not result in any unpleasantness for the Sufi since his spiritual aura was such that Jehangir merely went away abashed.
Interestingly, Mian Mir’s student was Jehangir’s grandson, Dara Shikoh. The very Dara who won Hindu hearts in his time with his respect and understanding read Mian Mir’s funeral oration.
In passing, it’s hard to overlook the fact that Dara is the big might-have-been in Indian history. If he had won the Battle of Samugarh in May 1658 against Aurangzeb and become the Mughal emperor instead of his brother, India may have never had to endure Partition.
Whereas Aurangzeb’s violent legacy of communal hatred, furthered by British divide-and-rule, was unresolved by the clashing ambitions of 20th-century Indian political players. This legacy of hate culminated almost inevitably in Partition. Such thoughts, not unnaturally, crossed my mind en route to Mian Mir’s shrine.
As a Deccani, I appreciated Mian Mir’s principled stand against Jehangir and took flowers to offer at his shrine. The sweet scent of roses at the shrine lingers in my mind even after all these years. I found myself quite moved because I was deeply touched by the shrine’s peaceful aura.
As a South Asian, I accept that some holy places are ‘jagrut’ or alive and if you’re lucky, you may tune in to the Anhad Naad or the hidden melody of the cosmos. It can be like that at temples in India. You feel very connected to some, others don’t particularly touch you and the atmosphere can even put you off at some places, which is not God’s fault but man’s.
I had first encountered the name Mian Mir in Rudyard Kipling’s book Kim from 1901, a staple in Indian bookshelves in the 20th century. Kim, the eponymous homeless orphan hero is a street-smart urchin in Lahore who befriends an innocent, unworldly lama from Tibet. The lama is travelling around in then undivided India. Kim appoints himself the lama’s guardian and they decide to go from Lahore to Ambala by train. To quote from the book,
‘The lama, not so well used to trains as he had pretended, started as the 3.25 am south-bound roared in.
“It is the train - only the te-rain. Wait!” Amazed at the lama’s immense simplicity (he had handed him a small bag full of rupees), Kim asked and paid for a ticket to Umballa. A sleepy clerk grunted and flung out a ticket to the next station, just six miles distant.
“Nay,” said Kim, scanning it with a grin. “This may serve farmers, but I live in the city of Lahore. It was cleverly done, Babu. Now give the ticket to Umballa.”
The babu scowled and dealt the proper ticket.
“Never did yogi need chela as thou dost,” Kim went on merrily to the bewildered lama. “They would have flung thee out at Mian Mir but for me.”’
It was Kim that impelled my interest in visiting Mian Mir because I loved the book so much. If you’d like to read this book, because almost nobody gives us a sense of North India in the 19th century like Kipling, you can read it for free on the net.
When I started researching Mian Mir, I discovered the Golden Temple connection. This made me even more keen to go there as I love the Golden Temple. After visiting Mian Mir, I bought a new copy of Kim for my father from the Lahore Museum. It felt right.
(Views are personal)
(shebaba09@gmail.com)
Renuka Narayanan