Chapter XXIII: The Moharam Festival.1

[1] Reprinted by permission from _The Fortnightly Review_.

A little Mohammedan boy was sitting cross-legged upon a worn-out old quilt or rezai, the hair-stuffing of which peeped out all over it through irregular holes. The covering was partly red and partly blue. On his knees was a wooden board with a handle piece projecting at one end. This board called a "Takti," shaped like an old English horn-book, had been washed over with mud-water so that it was nearly white and former writings were covered up. In his right hand the boy held a reed pen called a "Colam" with which he made strange characters upon the board. An earthen pot held the ink for his pen. Just in front of him was a little hinge book-rest called a "Ral" on which was a "Kitab" or book of short pieces.

Beside this boy were others also writing upon "Taktis." None were more than twelve years old and most were about eight. Some wore turbans and some little round plush caps, while one had a cap of fine linen with a broidered edge; he wore a quilted jacket of yellow.

In a sing-song voice they read the words they {318} had written. By the door was a heap of brushwood and two little mice peeped at the boys from under it.

The Maulwe sat in the middle of one side of the class upon the floor like the boys. He was very old and had a beautiful yellow beard. Some beards seem to grow yellow instead of white with age. Some of the boys could look down into the water-stream that ran along in the brick gutter. They were quite a yard above the road, but the passers-by came close to them, and once twelve camels passed with three baby camels, woolly things with long, long legs.

The sun was so dazzling that everything outside seemed to shiver and shake, but under the cool roof the boys could see quite well. The roof was partly tiled and partly thatched, and the row of brick columns supporting it at the outer edge was covered with white-washed plaster--at least it was once white, but just where Ghafur, one of the boys, leaned his back against it (when he was not bobbing his back up and down as he read) it was nearly black. How difficult it is for anything to keep white all over! It is easy to keep some patches clean, especially when they are in places we don't use. Ghafur began to eat sugar-cane when the Maulwe was not looking.

If you looked between Go Kal Chung (a boy with a dark crimson turban) and Abdul with the {319} green coat, right across beyond the road, through a dip in the wall on the other side to the far distance--although in the dust and the sunlight all distant things seemed nearly the same colour as the sky--you could just make out on the other side of the River Jumna the great white dome of the Taj Mahal.

I liked it best by moonlight.

In India, moonlight seems so much brighter than in England. Walking at night about the gardens I could still see the colours of the flowers; only the white roses seemed to whisper wakeful and restless, and the red ones to be silent.

The long path of water from the main entrance gateway to the pavement below the platform of the Taj is divided half-way by a circular tank and by this there is a marble seat. The soaring spirit of the vertical lines of the minarets was echoed everywhere; in the little fountains at short intervals all the way, and in the cypress trees along the garden beds parallel to the water-course. Far in the distance against the marble wall the glimmering light of a lantern moved waveringly; I could dimly distinguish the figures of some who had just been within to the tomb chamber. Then a spark, a little spurt of brighter light, gleamed out from far up the building.

The moonlight was slowly creeping round like a tide, and ever as it advanced some other of the innumerable gems set in the delicate pallor of {320} that vast facade for some brief moment, gleamed and died again.

The next day when I passed the little school I found it closed and the reason was that Moharam had begun.

The Moharam Festival extends over many days and at Agra I saw it celebrated elaborately. Its origin was in a fight over the question of succession some time after the death of Mohammed. Two Imams, named Hassan and Hussein, direct descendants of the prophet, died in battle. The place where they were killed was called Kerbela, which means the place of sorrow. Now everything connected with that fighting is remembered and, as far as possible, reproduced or re-enacted at the time of Moharam.

For long beforehand the preparations had been going on. Old swords and maces had been brought out and brightened. At the street corners I had seen men furbishing old weapons, long gauntlet-hilted swords, as well as others making new wooden ones for fencing, covered with red or purple cloth.

The Imams, Hassan and Hussein, died on the night of the tenth day of the month of Moharam, and it is on that day that the innumerable tasias are carried in procession to the Kerbela where the Janazas, the two little biers contained within the gorgeous pagoda-like structure of the tasia, are buried in the earth.

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Now when these Imams, Hassan and Hussein were fighting against Eazied, all the sources of water were closed and they suffered terribly from thirst. For this reason drink at this time, sherbet, a mixture of milk, sugar and water, or water alone, is obtainable everywhere. All along the streets at short intervals, on wooden stands the size and shape of an Elizabethan bedstead with grandly-decorated canopy, are rows of large red jars from which, in most cases, an attendant ladles the contents to smaller vessels for whoever will to drink.

Men of any means pride themselves not only on the lavish decoration of their "Tasia," but in furnishing one of these stands for free refreshment and keeping it supplied during the festival days. Here and there also I saw a man sitting in a chair, with two large pipes in front of him at which all comers were free to smoke. He kept tending the coal-bowls of the pipes.

For days the air was full of the noise of drums and cymbals, and I would see camels laden with families of children as well as crowded carts coming into the city from outlying places.

On the ninth day the crowds in the streets were very dense, but among them were kept numbers of little circular spaces in which were performed fantasias of various kinds. In one, men would be seen fencing with wooden staves and in another, to the accompaniment of drums {322} and cymbals, a man would dance, wildly brandishing with quick thrusts and whirling, back and forth, up and down, a long quivering sword with stiff gauntlet hilt well above the wrist. Sometimes he would be quite an old greybeard. Round and round he would lead and dance, the flashing steel never, by some miracle, touching the ring of onlookers though passing within an inch of their faces. Serjeant Troy's performance in the wood with Bathsheba would have looked tame to this. Until utterly exhausted the man kept up leap and dart and bound and brandish and then as at last he sank, another out of the eager waiting crowd took up the relinquished sword and the dance continued. Sometimes the people round gave a great yell of encouragement and waved their arms. The poor vultures, much disturbed by the unwonted crowd and the great noise, flew overhead while kites, seemingly less flurried, sat upon the trees.

The most grotesque circle I saw held a fantasia of six big drums. These were really heavy and very cumbrous. The drummers danced wildly together, crossing and changing places and beating all the while, keeping on till exhaustion claimed them and then slipping out of the drum straps for others to take their places.

In costume, it is proper to wear green for Moharam and about a third of the crowd do actually have green turbans.

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Comes along a grotesque tiger carried on a man's head on a wooden framework. Comes a "Saddah," a curious box-like erection shaped like a Punch-and-Judy show with the front of it all bunches of green muslin.

The streets were dense with people, but upon the roofs also men and women crowded; and towards sunset in their green, crimson, purple, amber or scarlet robes they looked in the distance like uncut jewels yielding for some mystic occasion the full intensity of their colour without shine or flash.

Another kind of display was a fight with short cloth-covered wooden sticks held in the right hand, while in the left was kept twirling a longer rod with ball ends.

Men carried children on their shoulders, and two little jesters--youngsters with whitened faces and tall pointed caps and dresses covered with jingling bells--dodged under legs and squeezed their way along.

At night, as if there were not quite enough mystery in the moonlight, the air was thick with dust from the trampling feet. I have said nothing of the "Buraks" which were as wonderful chimeras, half mythic creatures on which it is supposed the commander rode, beings with human faces and strong fore-limbs, half like peacocks with great spreading tails. Many of them were borne among the crowd {324} on frames or platforms carried shoulder high.

Here was a space kept for the Barati dancer. In a green vest and a white loin-cloth he danced with a small skull-cap on his head. He carried whirling in his hand the "Barati," a long rod with balls of fire flaring at each end. At one side of the space kept for this dancer, three men held up a frame on which hung specimens of many of the ancient arms, "Buttas" of various kinds, and "Danarh" too, and "Patapazis"--small shields.

Men pushed the circle outward to widen it for a yet wilder dance. "_Genari Hadri!_" "_Genari Hadri!_" the crowd yelled for encouragement. A man went round pouring fresh oil on the torches called "Kuppi" and my eyes streamed with the smoke and dust. The fretwork of the projecting upper parts of the houses looked white in this light. Two large "Tasias" passed and many drummers. Then a posse of police, with their tall red hat-like turbans, pushed through the crowd with long sticks.

Out of the great round earthen coolers into the small brown pots, attendants at the "Sabils" or drinking-stands, kept on ladling. Under one, two children lay fast asleep, their dark heads as close together as the golden ones of Goblin Market, while a little girl in green kept watch over them.

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These "Sabil" stands are given, some of them, by _filles de joie_, who are often lavish in charity.

A man was selling coloured plaster figures--he had a great basket of them--two pi for a big one. Paper lanterns called "Kandils" of many shapes, two feet high, hung from the houses. You must understand thousands of people were walking through and through the old city that night, and the people of the houses vied with one another to show each something more bizarre than the rest.

Some men carried trophies of swords and green streamers arranged in fan-shape on the top of a ten-foot bamboo pole. This is called "Zulfikar," and at intervals the bearer stopped, raised the pole and balanced it on his chin. "_Genari Hadri!_" shouted the crowd again, and the "Zulfikar" man marched on with his set of drummers in front of him. Then came men singing Marsias, _i.e._, verses about the death of Hassan and Hussein--poems of regret: and men of the Shia sect did beat their breasts.

When the enemy cut off the Imams' hands they put them on the spikes of banners and here, above streamer cloths, I saw flat pieces of silvered tin cut in the shape of hands.

Many private houses threw open that night the courtyard and one of the rooms for the crowd to pass through as it did in constant pressing {326} stream. In some of these one sat on a mimbar reading the Marsias, in others the "Tasia" was arranged for show in half of the room corded off or, when it was a very large one, in the courtyard. Bells of the jesters jingled among the crowd. In iron ladles coloured fires were being burnt in front of a colossal burak with gleaming eyes.

The "Tasias" were of infinite variety. One I saw was made entirely of cotton, with animal and architectural subjects painted all over it. In one house were twenty hand banners in one row. I followed streets narrower than that traditional narrowest of old Tours on the Loire. In some houses were grand "Torahs"--pictures, the drawing of which consisted entirely of cleverly-interwoven Arabic characters in such shapes as a camel or the British crown. There were clusters of floating oil lights in crystal glasses on gilded standing candelabras.

In one street a gigantic and most elaborate lantern had within it a revolving cylinder of cut-out figures making shadow pictures to move on its surface. Near this by another alley I was carried with the flow of people into a house where the crowd was more dense than ever. There was a rail across the room and behind that a second rail. Gold embroideries hung along the back, and in the centre stood the "Tasia" in this instance made in the shape of some buildings at {327} Mecca. Vessels for spreading rose-water stood within the railing and a long row of lamps, and in the middle of the front face of the "Tasia" was a miniature stage about two feet square; behind this, curtains dropped and rose again and various scenes, rather on the principle of old-fashioned "trick" valentines, followed one another slowly. The trouble here was that no one wanted to move, and the press was stifling.

At last came the day of the great procession, February 12, of our reckoning. The streets were thronged in the early morning as they had been all night and the previous day and the night and day before that.

I drove past the great mosque, the Jama Masjid; the white zigzags on its dome shone brightly against the red Agra sandstone which now, in the morning light, looked as if it had a kind of bloom upon it. That was on the left--on my right hand I could see the crenelated walls of the fort, colourless against the sun now streaming across them.

Parties of people, gay in new green cloths and turbans, were on their way to take their places in friends' houses for the day. Hand-carts, with seven or more great copper vessels, were being pushed from stand to stand, refilling the great water-jars. All traffic was stopped for the day through the greater part of the city, and I soon {328} had to leave my gharry and continue on foot my way to a house in the Kashmiri Bazaar where a place was being kept for me at a window. At three different places I passed groups of acrobats arranged high in air like a sort of human set piece of six or seven sets of limbs. It looked curious in this country to see them wearing a kind of "tights." In one case all the legs were yellow, in another purple, and in a third black.

Bands of Marsia singers were perambulating the streets. At length I found my window, or rather balcony, and from it for hour after hour I had an excellent view of all that passed. The procession of "Tasias," which did in fact take seven hours to go by, seemed as if it would never end. Stoppages were frequent, and sometimes there would be a wait of ten minutes or even a quarter of an hour. Of every material imaginable, the common denominator was a square base with two carrier poles making four handles and a series of stages diminishing vertically except at the very top where, in some instances, there was a kind of horizontal windmill or other device for movement. Some were of tin, some were gilded, some were silver; some, used year after year, were of intrinsically valuable materials; others, and these the majority, were only built for use on the one occasion, however lavishly and gaily decorated. Several were of {329} green grass, the "Tasia" having been covered with wet cloth smothered in seed like trophies in a cottage garden exhibition, only upon a much larger scale. There were "Tasias" of quite elaborate architecture, covered entirely with flower blossoms. Some sought distinction in exaggerated height, rearing thirteen or twenty stages high in air above the topmost roofs--and these, as may be imagined, were carried with difficulty, the base poles projecting a long way so that many arms could help and cords from the top being used in some cases to steady the toppling pile. There were "Tasias" of coloured paper and "Tasias" of coloured cloths, and with each marched the people to whom it belonged, with drums and stands of old weapons. Buraks of all sizes varied the strange scene, and "Zulfikars" with their "Alams" or tall stands of arms delighted the onlookers by feats of balance during the many stoppages.

Under each "Tasia" and "Burak" was carried a supply of brushwood. For some while I had wondered what the purpose of this could be, but during one of the halts it was made plain. When the drumskins slackened a little, fire was made of some of the brushwood and the drum held over the flames until the skin became quite taut again.

The irregular line of the roofs as well as the balconies of every floor were studded with {330} spectators up and down the street. Only where there were purdah ladies, blinds and curtains hid them from view.

The next morning I was out, just at dawn, stepping across the bodies of sleeping servants along my veranda. I had heard of a curious custom of the Shia sect of Mohammedans and was anxious to see it carried out. Whereas the Sunnis and indeed nearly all the Mohammedans of Agra, would march in a second procession to the Kerbela beyond the city and there bury in the ground the twin biers from within the "Tasias," the Shias would go down to the Jumna banks and bury theirs by the river.

Close to the pontoon bridge I found the Shias very seriously and reverently carrying out their ceremony. They appeared to take the whole matter gravely. Their "Tasias" were not large or very showy, but the burying was conducted like a solemn ritual. At this time of year the river was of course low, and the Shia gentlemen had dug a long trench close to the edge of the water. Out of each "Tasia" the two little biers garlanded with marigolds were lifted carefully under a white covering cloth, laid in the water at the bottom of the trench, and covered in with earth. Then the "Tasia" itself was broken up, the pieces thrown in and covered with more earth as the trench was refilled.

The procession of the previous day had {331} simply been a great march round in order that all "Tasias" might be paraded through all streets of the town. Upon this day, the conclusion of the festival, they were to go to the Kerbela for the biers to be buried there. "_Hai Hassan ham na huai!_" "Oh Hassan!" I heard cried out, "I am very sorry I could not help you at the time of battle."

It was a wild fantastic scene that I beheld when finally after a good deal of persistence I reached the little mosque in the Kerbela, from which some dozen feet above the ground level I was privileged to watch. The whole air was filled with the deafening noise of a thousand drums. Slowly the vast series of "Tasias" advanced into the enclosure, moving them to right or left to carry out the burying where their owners chose or had some right of ground. And there were two among them, taller even than any I had seen on the previous day--so lofty that it was a wonder they could be carried at all without toppling over--bowing and bending now to one side, now to another and then quivering erect for a moment while at the top of one, a peacock turned round and round and round, and at the top of the other a wheel kept revolving. How the children shouted! Many of the grown people were like children those days and shouted too, and the whole air was colour and dust and noise.

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Thus ended for that year one of the greatest religious festivals still observed in the British Empire, a festival which I was privileged to see celebrated with all its ancient pomp and circumstance.

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