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New Delhi: With The Naked Sufi

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  • New Delhi: With The Naked Sufi

    WITH THE NAKED SUFI

    Hindustan Times
    June 27, 2008
    India

    NEW DELHI, India

    The sufi shrine of Hazrat Sarmad Shaheed in Old Delhi, shaded by a
    large neem tree and lying opposite the eastern gate of Jama Masjid,
    is a bubble of serenity in the otherwise chaotic district. The noisy
    biryani sellers and quarrelsome Bangladeshi beggars in the alley
    outside are unable to disturb the quiet that reigns inside the shrine.

    Cross the entrance and you are in a chamber that has been distilled
    of all the turbulence of the worldly world. Here you can be as
    calm as the Buddha and as cosy as when you were in your mother's
    womb. Nothing stirs the senses. Not even the flaming red walls of
    the dargah. Everything - the tomb, the tiny courtyard, the sunlight,
    the occasional pilgrim - conspires to make you lose the concerns of
    the day. The weary body starts surrendering itself and the worried
    mind starts forgetting its burdens. The heavy weight of one's being
    becomes as light as a mynah's feather.

    The tranquility of the dargah is misleading, though. Its patron
    saint, Sufi Sarmad, lived a controversial life and died a violent
    death. People say Sarmad was an Armenian Jew from Iran who converted
    to Islam, came to Sindh, fell in love with a Hindu boy, grew oblivious
    to society's conventions, discarded clothes, became a naked fakeer,
    and arrived in Delhi.

    The Sarmad legend

    The Mughal prince Dara Shikoh, the heir anointed, took to the
    naked sufi and became his disciple. But history strummed its own
    tune. Aurangzeb, Dara's younger brother, rebelled against his father
    Shahjahan, killed Dara, and was crowned as Hindustan's emperor. Not
    long after, Sarmad was martyred by Aurangzeb's executioners and soon
    he came to be known as Sarmad Shaheed.

    This verse is displayed outside the dargah: And call not those who
    are slain

    Dead Nay, they are living Only ye perceive not

    However, all the ishq, junoon and khoon that defined Sarmad's life
    seems to be forgotten within the blood-red walls of his dargah. That
    Sarmad is a sufi saint is perhaps enough in itself. Who cares for
    his story? Devotees come, pray, make wishes, sit, doze off, wake up,
    go away, and come back again. The legend lives on.
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