PIYA HAJI ALI

Over 800 people congregate 500 yards into the sea at 9:30 pm on the 17th night of the month (as per the Muslim calendar) at the Haji Ali Dargah. These people dressed in clothes as different as a t-shirt and pair of jeans may be from a pathani collect at Hazrat Pir Haji Ali Shah Bukhari's tomb from distant locations, some well beyond Mumbai. Two stories surround the tomb's location. While one claims this is the spot where the Pir drowned, another insists that Haji Ali had instructed his followers to set his coffin adrift in the sea (instead of burial), to be buried by people where found – and this shore was where the coffin emerged. Whichever of these incidents occurred, "the date of Baba Haji Ali's death anniversary determines today's festival of Naach Sharif," Sohail Khandwani, trustee of the Haji Ali Trust informs us. "Held on the 17 th 'shab' or 'night' of every month to mark that day." A belief often voiced about saints who devote their lives to Allah is that they continue to live on after death. A multitude of Muslim and non-Muslim believers, praying cramped around the silver frame marking the Pir's tomb, dwarfed by the domed ceiling flaunting magnificent multi-hued glass in kaleidoscopic pattern, stand testimony to this belief.

The two hour prayer service, conducted with the men and women standing in separate sections, begins with salaams read in praise of Allah and the Prophet Mohammed. After this comes praises sung and read for a series of saints the service honours, including Pir Haji Ali. These salaams, where not taken from ancient texts, have been written through the ages till now by Muftis. The service ends with a Fateha, Dua and finally the distribution of niyaz – mostly sweetmeats, which tonight is peras and khajas. "Our prayers at such a saint's tomb is eventually to Allah," Khandwani tells us, explaining the underlying essence of the service. Such pious saints, he explains, are seen as mediums between man and god.

While the dargah as first built in 1431, the complex and the causeway leading to it has seen re-construction, renovation and additions, undertaken by the Haji Ali trust – founded by members of the Kutchi Memon community – through the 1940s down to the 90s. Now the trustees with their trust fund fed by donations – estimated at anything from Rs 5 lakhs to Rs 30 lakhs a month – are working to re-build the direly-in-need-of-repair structure in white marble, making it as one pilgrim puts it: "Even better and sturdier than the Taj Mahal." There are also plans of the trustees setting up a hospital, servicing people of every caste, creed and religion, and furthering educational causes.

But the faith displayed by masses thronging the tomb tonight, or greeting friends at the courtyard's refreshment stalls transcends any fear of being within a collapsible structure… or any hope for medical aid and schooling. "Since two generations before me, our family has been attending this festival… almost every month," says a Hanif Memon, a vehicle horn manufacturer in Chor Bazaar, who reserves "at least one day a month for helping out at the dargah". His example of belief – that's "handed down through generations, as well as newly re-inforced" – is replicated many fold in most of the families here. Fahad Sheikh, an Andheri software programmer, believes this is "an especially auspicious day for mannats". 'Faith' for each of tonight's visitors arises from an extremely personal set of experiences. But what seems to lend this room – reverberating with salaams being repeated in unison – it's queer aura is perhaps what another regular (not wishing to be named) summarized simply: "the collective experience of hundreds, rising beyond the negative trivialities of their daily chores in two hours" … of positive chorus.