Kahnwa baaje ho badhaiya- Shah Turab and his Krishna

“Niki lagat mohe apne pia ki,
Aankh rasili laaj bhari re…”

Farid Ayaz Saab used to recite this kalam with “aankh rasili, aur jadu bhari re.” I had corrected him once over a WhatsApp call, and at the age of 73, he was a curious learner, had accepted it in absolute humility.
Incidentally, today is the 100th year of the Kakori Train Action. Ram Prasad Bismil and Ashfaqulla Khan, both architects of the Kakori Train Action used to perform ‘havan’ and offer ‘namaz’ together, were brothers in arms.
I was in Kakori, three days back, for a completely different reason. Shah Turab Ali Qalandar, an eighteenth-century Sufi poet, and scholar had written the couplet above, in chaste Hindi. I wanted to visit Shah Turab’s grave on a busy morning last week. Crossing the Dubagga fish market and the 1 km road ahead of it took me 45 minutes in an Uber cab, the driver Zeeshan had agreed to accept a return fare in cash from my side, making the trip somehow financially lucrative to him. He has a mother at his Lucknow home who still receives her ‘Sarkari pension’ after she had retired from her job at the health department. Zeeshan’s son hates the city, studied management in a nondescript college in Mumbai and plans to go to ‘phoren’ with his Dadi’s retiral funds (iko paisa kharch mat karna daadijaan, humein ek karor rupaiya chahiye bahar jaane ke liye). We crossed “Sayyara” Veg Biryani stall and took a right turn on a waterlogged traffic intersection.
Soon we were on a highway, crossed Malihabad (the famed mango orchards are situated here) and took a small 4 km detour on the Agra highway. A couple of turns, and I arrived at a small village and a cluster of three mausoleums with beautiful architecture and marble domes.
Shah Kazim Qalandar (1745 – 1806) was a brilliant poet and his couplets on Krishna would put any contemporary poet to shame. I’m quoting one from the website of ‘Sufinama’:
aañkh khol dikhte ‘kāzim’ kaañ (where, kahan?)

uTh gare laago kañvar kanhā.ī

Or a surreal kalaam in Awadhi:

morā manvā laag gailo pyāre soñ
ab ghar mosūñ rahilo nā jaai
jag se nikasat mohinī chhavī vo
dekhat jiih meñ ga.ī samā.ae
man kuuñ hai sukh vaahī ke dekhe
ghar mā khīkī rahe balāy
ko.ū hasai ko.ū kahat bāvrī
jī kī na kaahū jaane haa.e
sudh kab rahat mohan ke dekhat
chit kahāñ Thahrat aañkh lagāy
‘kāzim’ tum bin ko ye jaane
bithā hamārī banāy banāy

I presented a Salaam at Shah Kazim’s grave, next to an elderly gentleman’s Sufi chamber where the villagers came with a complaint for a boy who dopes heavily, or a small girl who needs a medicine for her tumor on her skull. Ziya Mian recited a dua in Farsi for both and blew a secret prayer in a plastic bottle of freshly uncapped Bisleri packaged drinking water. His son, Sadi, teaches at a neighborhood college, was alerted by Suman Mishra, the prolific author and editor of Sufinama, about my visit, arranged a plastic bagful of fresh rose petals for Shah Turab’s grave which I visited a few minutes later. The soil in the approach road was wet from the morning rain, there were at least a dozen other graves with no tombstone in the courtyard. The white marble dome glistened in the weak sun rays. I recited Shah Turab’s poetry while kissing the pillar of his mausoleum. The wooden door creaked. I mumbled,
“shrī varshbhānu kishorī re logo
morī to aañkh turāb so laagī.”
Shah Turab rested here. A madman comes to his tomb every Friday, and ransacks the entire premises, yanks off the chadars from the grave, and vanishes. No one knows about his plight, what exactly it is.
Enamullah had come to the Dargah eights years ago and he stayed back, a thin man with greying beards who accompanied me, is a very warm and friendly person, once belonged to Faizabad, the modern-day Ayodhya, the top religious tourism destination these days. A monkey looked at me quizzically, as if I am an intruder. I entered the sanctum sanctorum. Shah Turab’s grave was covered with a silken chadar and was surrounded by a fence-grill painted in white. I arranged the rose petals evenly toward the saint’s feet and the sirhana. Handed over my phone to Enamullah and started reciting Turab’s kalam:
“kaahe ‘turaab’ Daruu.n kaahuu se
piit karii kaa chorii karii“
Enamullah wanted to record my recitation, he re-recorded the whole thing because of the quality was “utna aacchha nahin aaya pehli baar” according to him.
We closed the door, locked it and slowly took the stairs to the courtyard. Someone came rushing in a speeding motor bike with another bagful of fresh roses, “bhai ne bheja hain, NawabSahab.” I never had a royal identity crisis like this one. We went back to the Dargah, rearranged the flowers and again closed the door. Enamullah had an old burner phone (too much of NetFlix influence for us, the city-dwellers).
I had a couple of meetings coming up in the hotel in Lucknow. I had to bid farewell to the custodian of the tomb and the curious villagers who had gathered to meet the “NawabSahab who just sold of his haveli “ and the tiny grocery shop owner with flowing white beard gave a knowing smile to me and kissed my hand, said with a little sadness in his voice, “Acchha hi hua aap ne woh manhoos (unlucky) haveli nipta diye hain!” I desperately tried to tell all of them that seriously they have mistaken me for someone else. My cab driver too kissed my hand and held doors of his Dzire car which has seen its better days before clocking 200k KM.
The term “privy purse” reflects its historical role in providing financial autonomy to the sovereign, and compensatory payments for former rulers, such as the privy purses paid to Indian princely states until their abolition in 1971 by the 26th. Constitutional Amendment Act. I made a UPI payment to Suman’s friend, the custodian of the Dargah with a small note of thanks, he replied with a flower emoji.
My wallet had no currency notes that day, the last 500 rupees currency was spent on buying flowers at the grave of my favorite musician Begum Akhtar, the legendary Ghazal Singer’s gave in Pasand Bag, tucked in to a serpentine lane of old Lucknow. I had earlier received a large gift box of freshly baked cakes and cookies after my talk at the IHM Lucknow, the box went straight to the children playing around the grave.
“Sikandar khush nahin loot kar daulat zamane ki,
Luta kar sab kuchh Qalandar raqs karta hai.“
This means: “Sikandar is not happy amassing the world’s wealth, but the Qalandar, having given everything away, dances in ecstasy.” It highlights the Sufi belief that true happiness lies not in accumulating wealth (like a conqueror such as Sikandar) but in renouncing it for spiritual fulfillment.
The line encapsulates the essence of Sufi mysticism: liberation through detachment and finding joy in divine connection rather than material gain.
How I wish Begum Sahiba would have sung Shah Turab’s sublime poetry, especially the following one:

“morii bithaa sun kaa.nh kahat hai.n
mai.n torii baat par kaan na dehau.n
aan baan hamrii hai yaahii
chhak ke daras kab.huu.n aan na dehau.n
jaan ke mose vah jaan kahat hai
kaise kahuu.n phir jaan na dehau.n
vaaruu.ngii jaan ‘turaab’ piyaa par
jaan dehau.n par jaan na dehau.n“

“Vaaruungii Jaan” surely would have had a “patti”, the signature melodious voice break on the top note. I would have composed the couplet in Raaga Manjh Khamaj. Taal – Deepchandi.