The city of Headdresses
Located in the Nasik district of Maharashtra, Manmad houses the largest grain storage warehouses in Asia, administered by FCI (Food Corporation of India) and its railway junction is an important station for all south bound trains. A missed train at midnight was what left me stranded on that very station. Little did I know as I lay on the platform, trying to catch some sleep amidst the stench and rats, that beyond the grimy tracks lay a delightfully mysterious city wrapped in the shroud of anonymity.
At first glimpse Manmad seems to be like any other overcrowded poverty ridden Indian town. Puddles, open drains, walls plastered with peeling movie posters of aberrant local productions, sweaty workmen laboring in and out, shouts and raucous calls from salesmen and hawkers. But well this is the classic and a very well used to scenario around the railway station of any Indian city.
However, distinctiveness of this city emerges out of the petty mundane, as we travel further into the heart of the city. The first things that one notices are the different headdresses bobbing up and down out of the crowd. You see men in Turbans (Synonyms with Sikh religion), Nehru topi (Hindus, particularly the Marathas) and white Skullcaps (Muslims). And the surprising part of all this was that all of these people are mingled and blended harmoniously and peacefully to form the very backbone of Manmad. And that’s what led me to coin the title.
If any Indian knows better, this indeed is a rare sight. Abdul Hamit who owns a small biryani outlet next to a Mosque has seen this city grown from a tiny town to a crowded city. Scratching his unruly beard, he recalls that his ancestors have been here since the time of the Mughal ruler Aurangzeb and when he shifted his capital from Delhi to Aurangabad to upsurp the Marathas. The looming threat of inter-religious conflicts was ever present, however unlike the everywhere else, the town of Manmad did not succumb to it. And that sensibility of those age old people is what kept Manmad alive and thriving.
Within 500 metre radius of the railway station there are two Mosques, one very old and famous Gurudwara, a Hanuman temple and a Ganesh temple. And although hard to believe, all these people of different religious sects dwell in one city without any boundaries drawn. There has been reported clashes between them in the past that has led to the slight uncomfortable atmosphere which could be sensed as one walks down the streets, nevertheless there is an absence of open hostility between the sects which comes a sigh of relief.
Abdul Hamit has to go for his namaaz and is shutting his shop down till he concludes his prayers, however it does not deter him from mentioning a pivotal point at the very end: Thousand of devotees of almost every religious sect, from across India visit Shirdi to pay homage to Sai Baba, whose teachings have been inspired from a combination of elements belonging to both Hindu and Muslim teachings. As Abdul Hamit pointed out, miracle man: Sai Baba and Manmad’s close proximity to Shirdi (1 hour drive from Manmad) could have been the reason that peace and harmony has percolated down into the very bloodstreams of the natives here.
With no tourist attraction, no Industries apart from the recently established offices of petroleum companies, Manmad has nothing to boast about. Manmad also faces severe water crisis. Supposedly in summers, water supply comes in after 20-25 days, which has forced people to bore deep and draw out the hard water from the ground. But that seems to be the least of the unspoken problem that the 1 lakh 25 thousand citizens of Manmad have on their mind.
Rafiq Shiekh owns and runs a small cigarette stall near the railway station. An old yet a spry fellow, he points at the huge abundance of ugly political party posters: large, unsettling faces of political figures plastered on walls, hanging from brackets, nailed to a pole, defacing the façade of the local architecture. Rafiq Shiekh quotes in Hindi with a touch of understandable use of subtle abuse: “These political parties and leader are only trying to divide us people to get their own ends. They care only about their vote banks and for that they are willing to poison us against you (me being a Hindu). “
He did have good point over there and following that I had a similar conversation with a Jain shopkeeper and a coolie on the railways station and their few words about the matter were enough to understand the degrading plight of the originally peaceful communities living here. This divide and rule ball game has been played in India since forever. But in a world, where today we talk about peace, unity, equality, and religious harmony, The City of Headdresses stands a living example of thus.
Sushant Sharma
Also published in:
http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/united-in-diversity/article4443092.ece