Avarice in Ajmer

On the look out for places of interest to visit around Jaipur, Ajmer & Pushkar were pretty obvious choices. Though I knew about Pushkar's history as the World's only temple dedicated to Lord Brahma, the Hindu God of creation, I was apprehensive about what to expect in Ajmer.

Ajmer is famous for the Dargah of an Islamic saint, Moinuddin Chishti better known as Khwaja Garib Nawaz, "The Saint of the Poor" to which a lot of celebrities and foreign dignitaries often make a beeline. I knew the Ajmer Dargah was visited by people of all faiths but, since I had never been inside any Islamic place of worship before, I was anxious. Anyways, the enthusiasm of my friends and their extolling of the powers of the Ajmer Shrine rubbed off on me and I put aside my misgivings and decided to make the trip.

The drive from Jaipur to Ajmer is very good. The wonderful NH 8 allows speeds in excess of 150km/h to be reached easily for most of the way. Ajmer is a typical small town - dirty and crowded. As in all tourist places, the bilking starts even before you find a parking for your car. Even as we drove through the narrow street leading to the Dargah, we were accosted by lads asking us to park the vehicles inside the adjoining buildings for 30 to 50 rupees. Since there is no other parking available anywhere nearby, one has to use only these facilities though a bargain can be struck for 30 rupees. As soon as you get down from the vehicle, you get a fair idea why it also called the Dargah of Garib Nawaz. The beggars crowd around & annoy you with every step asking you for alms in the name of the Khwaja and promising you everything from success in the business to male heirs in return. The elderly and the very young among the beggars fall at your feet, trying to embarrass you into giving them some money, while the women promise you riches and an end to all of your problems if you gave them money. It is a 500 metre walk from the place to park your car to the Dargah gate and by the end of this walk, you are either broke from doling out the alms or really wound up with irritation. I was more of the latter. As per Islamic tradition one has to cover their heads before entering the shrine and handkerchiefs & skull caps are available en-route. The tradition at the Dargah is to make an offering comprising of a chaddar (embroidered cloth), flowers, incense sticks and a bottle of perfume. The shops near the entrance sell all of these items as a package at various exorbitant rates depending on the size of the chaddar. Here too, you are discouraged from bargaining for the same saying that one shouldn't bargain in these matters afterall, it is an offering to the Saint. So, we naturally didn’t bargain. The four of us purchased four such trays of offerings at Rs. 290 each and the shopkeeper sent a young lad to accompany us inside. I found some shops selling similar chaddars for prices as low as Rs. 50. I pointed out the same to my friend who was a regular to the shrine and he said those were recycled ones. They had already been offered once by other devotees.

There is a security check at the entrance which is the norm in most famous religious places in India. The young lad, who was accompanying us, took us straight to one of the Khadims who wore an ornamented cap. The Khadims are the traditional keepers of the Sufi shrine who maintain and are involved in the day-to-day activities of the shrine. The Khadim bade us to sit in front of him and asked us our names and from where we had come. He asked us to place our hands on the offerings we had brought and called upon the Khwaja Garib Nawaz to bless us all, help our businesses prosper and keep us healthy. Then he took out a ledger and said that the usual offering is Rs. 425, but some people give more. So, Rs. 425 per head it was. When we had paid, he warned us against keeping anything in the back-pocket of our trousers and asked us to beware of pick pockets since we were supposed to enter the mausoleum containing the tomb of the saint with the tray of offerings held on our heads.

Inspite of the jostling of the people to get inside the mausoleum, I found time to admire the wonderful gold work at the entrance to the mausoleum. The dome of the tomb is also covered with gold and the lad accompanying us told us that the main doors of the Dargah were also made of pure silver. Once inside there are about half-a-dozen Khadims around the tomb. They collect the offerings, put the chaddar on the tomb, splash most of the perfume on the tomb and apply a dash of it on our fingers and give us some of the flowers to throw on the tomb. The people who hadn’t brought any offerings were literally pushed and hurried away. We were then blessed again by another Khadim who wrapped a Chaddar around the four of us and called upon the Khwaja Garib Nawaz to bless us. If you thought that was it, no, it wasn’t. The Khadim then demanded money and took a hundred rupees from each of us. As we went around the tomb, the remaining Khadims tried to wrap their Chaddars around us and we literally had to fend them off saying that we had got the blessings but, they asked us for the money anyway. Once out of the mausoleum, it was time to check our belongings and confirm that they were safe. It was quite an experience, the crowd and the Khadims. The lad, our guide, was waiting for us and he took us to a tank and asked us to wash our hands and feet. We did so and then he took us to a huge cauldron and said that it was used to cook rice for the pilgrims and asked us to make a contribution. By this time, I had decided that this Ajmer trip was proving fiscally arduous for me and I didn’t though my friends threw in a hundred rupees each.

We went back to the shop where we had purchased our offerings. The remaining flowers and Prasad in the tray were transferred to a carry-bag and we were asked to visit the Adhai-Din-ki-Kothri (meaning the house that was built in two and a half days) nearby. It proved to be nothing more than a few pillars and a place for the daily namaz.

The walk back to the parking was again a struggle to avoid the beggars. On our drive from Ajmer to Pushkar, I couldn’t help but reflect on how commercialized religion was today. This was supposed to be a saint who was a champion of the poor but, you could get the preferential treatment at his mausoleum only if you had the money. There are hundreds of chaddars that are offered daily at the tomb and a great many of them find their way back to the shops to be sold again. Isn’t there a question of ethics here? I’m no expert on Islam but, I believe Sufism, of which the Khadims are proponents, involves “renunciation of the material world” as one of its main principles. I also found it strange that a religion that strongly advocates mono-theism and an absolute God would accept a human being, even though regarded as a saint, as the creator of miracles and pray to him for their material needs such as money or children. Is it a fault in the religion itself or just another of the numerous influences of the original religions of south-Asia?