A Visit to My Hometown Kakori in Lucknow

I have often visited Kakori, the town rendered historical by the famous train dacoity engineered during the independence movement, for the simple reason that it is my hometown.

Situated barely fifteen kilometers from Lucknow, the town is as much known for its fine variety of mangoes and kebabs as for the anciently grand mosques and havelis that dot it and the hordes of litterateurs and writers it has produced. However, one thing that makes is singularly renowned the world over is the fact that it is the seat of one of the oldest and most revered Sufi orders in the country-the Qadria silsila.

When I reached Kakori on a chilling morning recently, after having passed through the screeching maze of traffic that is Lucknow, I involuntarily experienced the same peaceful and relaxing feeling that I have always experienced on reaching this beautiful haven. At this moment, I would have never thought that end of my weeklong stay, I would come to look upon Kakori, the place I have known as long as I have lived and the culture it symbolizes, with a new eye.

What triggered the change in my perception I cannot say, but I started noticing it when I came out of the local mosque the same evening after offering the Maghrib prayers. I noticed a number of Hindu women in their trademark long ghunghats waiting at the mosque gate with some ailing children and elders. Then a process, so well remembered from childhood commenced. The women were asking the Namazis to blow air from their mouth on the foreheads of the ailing. The tradition runs long. The rural folk from the neighbouring villages such as Mohaan and Gurdin Kheda have a strong belief that a phoonk by the pious muslims can cure illness of their kin. Passage of time had dimmed by memory of the routine on the mosque gate and on this wind-blown evening, I suddenly saw a new dimension to the tradition, that was continuing unabated in a region considered communally turbulent in the wake of the Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid dispute and the consequent violence.

It was time for family reunion for me. Taking a stroll past the town in the evening I met many an old people, friends and acquaintances and once again registered the historic, cultural and social significance of the place. The culture of Lucknow and Oudh is considered incomplete sans Kakori, which sired sons like Mohsin Kakorvi, greatest poet of naatiya genre and Nurul Hasan Nayyar who compiled Nurul Lughat dictionary. However, the most glaring thing, probably gone unnoticed, about the township is the fact that it is a typical example of the rich Ganga-Jamunee culture and communal amity.

No surprise that walking down the streets and passing through mango groves it is more of Meer and Majaz you hear than politics, which is second life to most of UP. Along with my child hood friends I meandered aimlessly across the outskirts of the town and chatted for hours at our favourite location-the embankment on the river Behta built by Raja Tikat Rai, I found that the feeling, which germinated in my heart on the steps of the mosque had started growing.

The hollowness of human relationships and the growing disrespect for mutual beliefs in places considered more civilized became apparent to me as I noticed the frenzy for moon sighting for Eid among the Kakorians, irrespective of their faith. My cup of sentiments overflowed when septuagenarian Dalla Ram walked down from a village 15 km away, just to see me. He had worked on the fields of my grandfather before partition and tears rolled down his cheeks as he sat there speaking to me in the Purbi dialect laced with Urdu, an innocent attempt at making me understand his feelings.

The ecstasy in the countenance of our newspaper hawker Pandit Ji (whose name I have never dared enquire) when he saw me pore over Sahafat (Urdu daily from Lucknow), just because I was maintaining the tradition of the region, was another revealation to me.

As expected I faced a continuous stream of advices, suggestions and even chiding regarding wrong timings of visiting the hometown - after all the hundreds of delicious varieties of mangoes, particularly the Tukhmi fruit in the summer- and missing the events such as the annual Urs, Diwali or Eid.

At the end of the stay I promised myself that I would try to come to Kakori more often, not only to enjoy the mangoes or the festivals but to remind myself that for each place that burns with communal hatred, there are thousands of Kakoris all over India, spreading its message of love, amity and brotherhood silently and much more effectively.