The boy took a lock out of his pocket, fixed it to the grill and turned the key. He closed his eyes, prayed and left. “He has relinquished all his troubles here,” said Nawaz, the khadim-e-dargah (caretaker). “The Pir will now take care of them.” He added that people also consigned ill health and those possessed by spirits to the locks. Everything was possible in the saint’s durbar. All you need is faith.
Faith is what drove Bahadur Khan, the Killedar of the Bangalore Fort, to defend it with his life on March 21, 1791, during the Third Anglo-Mysore War. Like his fellow soldiers, the fort Commandant fought for Mysore and its freedom.
The former Faujdar of the Krishnagiri Fort had been recently shifted to Bangalore under Tipu Sultan’s orders. Tipu himself was busy fighting a determined and desperate General Lord Cornwallis. He trusted that Bahadur Khan, assisted by Muhammad Khan Bakshi and Sayyid Hamid, would be an able protector of the oval Bangalore Fort. The ancient mud structure had been reinforced in stone around 1761 by its erstwhile Killedar, Hazrat Ibrahim Khan, Hyder Ali’s maternal uncle and a Sufi pir of the Shuttari order.
Close to midnight, the English army stealthily attacked the fort. They crept along its walls (now busy KR Road), scaled its ramparts and cut soldiers down quietly by moonlight. A popular conspiracy theory whispers that the Mysorean army was betrayed from within and that the breach blown through earlier by English cannons was deliberately left unguarded. Bahadur Khan and a handful of soldiers fought fiercely till he died of a gunshot through the head. His body was stabbed repeatedly by bayonets.
Approximately 2,000 men lost their lives that night. The prosperous town of Bangalore had been laid siege to earlier, and now the fort had fallen. A victorious Lord Cornwallis commended his bravery and wrote to Tipu asking him where his noble Killedar should be buried. Tipu is said to have wept publicly, and replied that a soldier must be buried where he fell. He requested that the Killedar be handed over to the Muslim population of Bangalore who would ensure that his last rites were attended to appropriately
Bahadur Khan was buried near what is now the KR Market flyover. Flags flutter high over his green domed mausoleum at the corner of Avenue Road and SJP Road. It is revered by local populations and also called ‘The Lock and Key Dargah’ of Hazrath Mir Bahadur Shah Al-Maroof Syed Pacha Shaheed. Other warrior-saints sleep inside the Pete’s labrynthine streets. They create a sacred landscape that is interwoven with this densely commercial area.
The seventy-year-old Killedar was described by historians as a majestic figure, “a tall robust man… with a white beard descending to his middle.” The prophet-like reference only adds to the shrine’s reputation. People of all faiths walk in and out all day. They petition the saint and pray quietly amidst jasmine flowers and incense sticks, while buses ply and frantic commuters run to and fro outside. At dawn, the shrine is surrounded by roses in buckets, as wholesalers from KR Market squat outside its door. Sometimes, I find musicians with harmoniums and percussion instruments singing devotional songs as offerings. There is no courtyard or wall. Its doors remain open for the busy world to take refuge within. The custodian of Bangalore’s historic fortress continues to watch over the city’s population, centuries later.
The writer is a cultural documentarian and blogs at aturquoisecloud.wordpress.com
source: http://www.bangaloremirror.com / Bangalore Mirror / Home> Columns> Other / by Aliyeh Rizvi, Bangalore Mirror Bureau / August 03rd, 2014
The new team of Mysore Round Table-21 was installed at the AGM held on July 26 at the Pavillion in Windflower Resort and Spa.
(Left:) Vice-Chairman Tr. Murthaza Ali, Secretary Tr. Viren Ranjan, Chairman Tr. Tharun Giri, Immediate Past Chairman Tr. Pulikeshi Wari and Treasurer Tr. Mayur B. Shah.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / August 05th, 2014
The Telangana government appointed Ahmed Nadeem as the chairman and managing director of Telangana Transco. Ahmed Nadeem, a 1997 batch IAS officer, will have the full additional charge of Transco. He is currently serving as the commissioner of prohibition and excise.
He will replace Syed Ali Murtaza Rizvi, who has been placed at the disposal of the Government of India for appointment as director in the Cabinet Secretariat under the central staffing scheme, for a period of five years, on Central Deputation.
source: http://www.deccanchronicle.com / Deccan Chronicle / Home> Nation> Current Affairs / DC Correspondent / August 11th, 2014
Khasim Raza conquers Mt. Elbrus, wants to climb all ‘Seven Summits’ by 2017. Though the ascent to the base camp which is at an elevation of 10,000 ft by chairlift is easy, it took nine days for his five-member team and guide to scale the mountain.
Vijayawada-born Khasim Raza made big news in the city when he climbed the Khilimanjaro, the highest free-standing mountain in the world. Now he is back in the limelight by conquering Mt. Elbrus the highest mountain in Europe. He plans to climb all ‘Seven Summits’ of the world by 2017.
It is the dream of every mountaineer to climb all seven mountains on the list. Mount Everest is the highest peak with an elevation of 29,020 feet. It is followed by Aconcagua (22,838 ft), McKinley (20,322 ft), Kilimanjaro (19,341 ft), Elbrus (18,510 ft), Vinson (16,050), Puncak Jaya (16,050 ft) and Kosciuszko (7,310). (The names of eight mountains are listed because there are two different lists of the Seven Summits. Mountaineer Bass lists Kosciuszko in his list, but mountaineer Messner lists Puncak Jaya in his list.)
Mr Raza did his schooling in N.S.M. Public School here and went on to become a British citizen.
He now operates with Dubai has his base. His father, owner of Metro Opticals in Gandhi Nagar, is one of the first opticians of the town. Mr Raza’s sights are trained next on Aconcagua, the second highest peak in the list, located in South America.
“Every mountain teaches you something. Kili (the affectionate way he refers to the mountain) taught me how to deal with wind speeds and high altitude, Elbrus taught me about cold. It is all snow and ice there,” he said.
Though the ascent to the base camp which is at an elevation of 10,000 ft by chairlift is easy, it took nine days for his five-member team and guide to scale the mountain. “We lived in accommodation that is similar to a container used for shipping goods. Every alternate day we went out on acclimatisation climbs. Unlike in Kili, the gradients on Elbrus are very steep,” he said. He says the view from the mountain slopes were really breathtaking.
Besides mountaineering, Mr Raza is every inch an adventure junkie. Just a couple of months ago he and some friends went on a cross-country cycling expedition in Cyprus. “I want to share my experiences to inspire youngsters to become more adventures and pursue challenges,” he said.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Cities> Vijayawada / by G. Venkataramana Rao / Vijayawada – August 09th, 2014
Municipal Commissioner Harikiran inaugurating the sub junior rapid chess tournament at Vijayawada on Sunday. / The Hindu
Municipal Commissioner Harikiran on Sunday exhorted parents to encourage their wards in taking up sports and games for the overall development of their personality
Speaking at the inaugural function of the sub junior rapid chess tournament, organised by Global Chess Academy at Fun Times here, he said top universities world-over preferred students with overall skills and sports and games played a crucial role in youngsters getting seats in prestigious educational institutions.
“It is imperative that students along with academics pursued their interests in sports, cultural and literary activities. Vijayawada has produced many talented sportspersons, and you should emulate them and bring laurels to the Andhra Pradesh and the country,” he added. As many as 77 players from the district took part in the event, which was held in six rounds. Fun Times secretary Ajit Babu said that the club was always at the forefront of organising sports events. “We are regularly conducting badminton and chess tournaments. We will continue to support chess in a big way,” he promised.
Global Chess Academy secretary Sk. Khasim, Fun Times treasurer Krishna Rao, committee member V. Sambasiva Rao and Fun Times chess coach Basheer were present in the inaugural function.
source: http://www.thehindu.com / The Hindu / Home> News> Vijayawada / by J. R. Sridharan / Vijayawada – August 04th, 2014
Alhaj Taj Pasha (64), retired Assistant Engineer of KEB, resident of Shubhash Nagar in city, passed away at 5.30 pm yesterday at BGS Apollo Hospital after a brief illness. He is survived by wife, a son and four daughters.
He was also the former Director of Muslim Co-Operative Bank Ltd. and former President of KEB Muslim Employees’ Welfare Association.
Namaz-e-Janaza were held today afternoon after Namaz-e-Zohar at Masjid-e-Hayath Sab in Mandi Mohalla.
Mahboob Unnisa (73), wife of Syed Abdul Wajid alias Saleem, former State football player, passed away this morning at her residence in N.R. Mohalla following brief illness.
She leaves behind her husband, a son, two daughters and a host of relatives and friends.
Namaz-e-Janaza will be held at Mubeen Masjid in N.R. Mohalla at 5 pm today followed by the burial at Muslim Burial Grounds near Tippu Circle.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> General News / August 04th, 2014
The University of Mysore has awarded Ph.D in Anthropology to Jalal Jafarpour Bijarboneh for his thesis ‘The Socio-Economic Study among the Shia Muslims in Mysore City’ submitted under the guidance of Dr. H.M. Maralusiddaiah.
K.G. Ramesha has been awarded Ph.D in Anthropology by UoM for his thesis ‘Malekudiya Budakattu Samudayada Kaleda Aaru Dashakagala Samajika mattu Arthika Badalavane’ submitted under the guidance of Dr. Maralusiddaiah.
source: http://www.starofmysore.com / Star of Mysore / Home> In Brief / August 03rd, 2014
This innovator made a kit that frees women in many parts of the world of the threat of infection during childbirth.
Zubaida Bai at the production facility of ayzh, 30km from Chennai. Photo: Nathan G/Mint
Freedom from risky childbirth | Zubaida Bai
Growing up in Chennai, a young Zubaida Bai wanted to study further after completing class XII. A reasonable request, except that in her family, nobody—male or female—had made it to college. The women in her family were usually married in their teens. Plus, Zubaida’s father did not have the finances to put her through college.
Undeterred, she decided to fight fate.
At 33, Zubaida Bai was the founder-CEO of ayzh (pronounced “eyes”), a low-cost women’s healthcare company based in Chennai and Colorado, US. Her biggest achievement: JANMA, a birthing kit sold and distributed through non-governmental organizations and healthcare companies.
JANMA (birth in Hindi) kits consist of six things: an apron, a sheet, a hand sanitizer, an antiseptic soap, a cord clip and a surgical blade. They meet the World Health Organization (WHO) guidelines of “six cleans” during childbirth—clean hands of the attendant, clean surface, clean blade, clean cord tie, clean towels to dry the baby and wrap it, and clean cloth to wrap the mother. A jute purse in five colours contains the kit and and it can be used as a purse after delivery.
From mundane struggles with a traditional Muslim family to being a successful innovator, Zubaida Bai’s journey has been one about exercising the right to free choice although that involved selling her jewellery to get ayzh off the ground.
Soon after school, Zubaida took a year off, selling retail banking services door-to-door for ABN Amro, cold-calling customers and earning her first pay cheque when she was 17. Soon she was in college, studying mechanical engineering, and went on to become the first graduate in her entire family. After graduation, she dreamt of designing cars, but ended up at auto-parts company Sundram Fasteners. “I was the only girl on the entire floor, all I did every day was change the dimensions on a CAD design or take printouts. I was getting fat from all the thayir saadam (curd rice),” she recalls.
She was soon planning her escape. Scouring the Internet for a master’s degree, she secretly applied to various universities. After an acceptance letter for a fully funded scholarship to an M.Tech programme at Dalarna University, Sweden, arrived, she told her parents. Her father thought this was one of those infamous scams that promised you a job and ended up hiring you as domestic labour. But finally, Zubaida left home.
In the summer of her first semester in college, she took a road trip, was part of a students’ exchange programme, visited Poland and, during a period of self-discovery, she decided to start wearing the hijab, though no one in her family did.
Back in Chennai before her second semester ended and coaxed to meet a potential suitor, Habib Anwar, she feared the worst. “(But) he said that he was looking for an educated girl, who he would like to work rather than sit at home and squabble with his relatives,” says Zubaida.
Anwar supported Zubaida’s plan to study further as well. Soon they were married. Much later, he would be instrumental in providing the necessary support to make ayzh a success.
In 2006, Zubaida gave birth to the first of her three sons, Yasin. It was a painful experience. She needed surgery, was forced to rest for two months and took close to a year to recover fully. In her childhood, she had witnessed the lack of healthcare facilities for her mother, close relatives and community, and the lack of financial resources to pay for these if they did happen to be available.
Sometime in 2009, as part of a master’s in business administration in global social and sustainable enterprises at the University of Colorado, US, Zubaida came to India to research ideas that could be developed into products. She worked with Chennai-based non-profit Rural Innovations Network (RIN), making the JS Milker, a vacuum-driven cow-milking machine, low-cost and commercially viable. In Rajasthan, she met a village dai (midwife) who had just delivered a baby with a grass-cutting sickle.
This was her a-ha moment. She started reading up on institutional childbirth. She stumbled upon a clean birth kit (CBK) while attending a tech event in Denver, US, promoted by the non-profit healthcare organization PATH. The kit had a plastic sheet, a Topaz blade, a piece of thread, a small square of soap, and a plastic coin. All this was wrapped in a box with instructions. She then travelled halfway across the world to Nepal, where a group of women was assembling the kit.
Unimpressed with the quality of the kit, she searched for more samples, but found none that matched her expectations. But she knew she was on to something, and started building her own improved version, using off-the-shelf components and assembling them.
By 2010, she had put together a rudimentary clean birthing kit called JANMA, which she tested in Bangalore, through her gynaecologist. The innovation won the Global Social Venture Competition for business plans at the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad in March 2010, and followed it up by topping the Camino Real Venture Competition at the University of Texas at El Paso, US, later that month.
Zubaida Bai also received a 2010-11 fellowship related to maternal health from Ashoka, an organization which identifies and invests in social entrepreneurs. At one event, she met the who’s who of the world of maternal health. “They were folks who were shaping the future of maternal health. These are people I would have found impossible to meet, especially Wendy Graham, who does research on how clean birth kits prevent infections,” she says. Her interactions confirmed her belief that a product such as JANMA would have a market.
By 2011, they had sold 2,000-3,000 JANMA kits, priced at $2-5 (now around Rs.120-300), in India and had made some inroads into the US.
After the initial success, though, Zubaida Bai hit a wall. Ayzh needed funds for operating costs, scaling up and distribution channels. Forced to return to India after completing her course at the University of Colorado, Zubaida and Anwar had two MBAs and two children between them, and no jobs. Those were trying times.
Even as friends and family advised one of them to get a job, Zubaida and Anwar calculated that they needed $300,000 for one-and-a-half years for ayzh to get off the ground. A social impact firm assured them of $50,000 if they could raise $100,000 and $20,000 if they raised nothing. Everything hung in the balance till the end of 2012, when they were awarded the $80,000 Echoing Green fellowship. They also got a Canadian government grant for another $100,000, while an individual investor put in another $100,000.
This was the turning point. In 2013, they clocked $100,000 in revenue, and sold 50,000 kits in India, Haiti, Laos, Afghanistan and Africa.
The JANMA kit’s relevance is irrefutable. According to the UN, India’s maternal mortality ratio per 100,000 live births reduced by 65%, from 560 in 1990 to 190 in 2013. But that still means 50,000 women die every year in India while giving birth. Seventeen per cent of the women die from preventable infections. More than 300,000 infants in India die the day they are born, according to the report “Ending Newborn Deaths, Ensuring Every Baby Survives”, by the non-profit Save the Children and Joy Lawn, professor at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK.
Zubaida’s goal for ayzh is three-pronged. She wants women to have power over their health by introducing new products for post-partum haemorrhage, a new-born kit, maternity pad and other innovations in reproductive health and family planning. Instead of creating products from scratch she wants to leverage the ayzh distribution platform to aggregate and sell products already available in the market. And, finally, she wants to launch an innovation lab for low-cost healthcare products, so that an entrepreneur with an idea does not have to go through the same grind that they did.
To realize this ambition they are currently in the process of raising $3 million in funding—a huge sum for a social enterprise selling low-cost products to bottom-of-the-pyramid customers—from social impact investors.
“We want to build a corporate entity, with a group of companies that will focus on women’s health and empowerment. Habib saw his mother struggle doing sewing and embroidery and I saw my mother struggle as well. They always brought in money, but were not appreciated and treated as an asset,” says Zubaida.
Nelson Vinod Moses is a Bangalore-based freelance journalist who writes on social entrepreneurship.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal / Home> Lounge> Business of Life> Indulge / Home – Leisure / by Nelson Vinod Moses / Saturday – August 09th, 2014
For 30 years, the face of Dastkar has worked with craftspeople, documenting their art and preparing them for an urban clientele
Laila Tyabji at Kisan Haat, New Delhi. Photo: Priyanka Parashar/Mint
Freedom to use skills | Laila Tyabji In 1949, a two-year-old girl came to Bombay from Belgium, where her father had served as India’s first ambassador. She was pale-skinned, cute, funny and only spoke French. “I was such a joke in India,” recalls Laila Tyabji. She promised herself that she would never be laughed at again, lost her French and became the Indian child she was. Tyabji was born a few months before the metaphorical midnight into a Sulaimani Bohra Muslim family of Delhi in 1947.
In 2012, Tyabji was honoured with the Padma Shri Award for her long and inspiring contribution to India’s crafts sector as a co-founder, and now the chairperson, of Dastkar—a society for crafts and craftspeople. Her only regret receiving it was that it was given by Pratibha Patil, who Tyabji felt was an inappropriate choice as president. “Especially as the attempt was to tell us that her appointment was a triumph for women,” she adds.
Clarity of thought and commitment to larger goals in life distinguish her from the six purposeful women who founded Dastkar in 1981. The other five founding members moved on with goals of their own, while Tyabji stayed on and became the face of Dastkar and its Nature Bazaars held all over India. Despite a large, well-delegated team, people only want to speak to Tyabji when they call the office. Even if it is just to ask for directions to Kisan Haat, now the permanent venue for the bazaars in Delhi. Tyabji spent years trying to get a permanent venue.
As a young student at the Welham Girls’ School in Dehradun who would later study art in Vadodara and go on to work with Japanese artist Toshi Yoshida in Tokyo, her perseverance has never deserted her. Spirited and outspoken, Tyabji rode motorcycles in the 1970s before feminism gained momentum in India. Tyabji remembers feminist activist Kamla Bhasin telling her many years ago that it was because she painted her toenails that she saw her as a social butterfly. That was till Bhasin saw her working assiduously in the villages of Bihar and yet fitting in perfectly in south Delhi’s drawing rooms.
In the late 1970s, Tyabji got a three-month assignment from the Gujarat State Handloom & Handicrafts Development Corporation Ltd’s Gurjari outlet, to go to Kutch as a visiting designer. Her belongings in a steel trunk, she drove through villages, documenting the work of craftspeople, finding things for Gurjari, preparing them for an urban clientele. “Three months became six. I would sit with the women to do the embroideries and the patchwork. The only way to teach is with personal intervention, that’s how you can hone skill,” she says.
Kutch became the hotbed of work and inspiration for her, its crafts evoking a lifelong quest; its craftspeople, her friends and protégés. “Beyond her image as a sophisticated and stylish woman, Laila could make and hold a bridge with craftspeople. She has been there for them through calamity and crisis; from teaching them how to price their products to valuing themselves. The respect and affection they have for her is rare,” says Archana Shah, founder of the chain of Bandhej stores and author of Shifting Sands, Kutch: Textiles, Traditions, Transformations, launched by Tyabji in New Delhi earlier this year.
“I would sit with the women to do the embroideries and the patchwork. The only way to teach is with personal intervention, that’s how you can hone skill.”
After returning from Kutch, Tyabji, whose personal style then was about motorbike helmets and textiles, worked as a buyer and merchandiser for Taj Khazana, the store known for finely curated Indian arts and crafts, at New Delhi’s Taj Hotel on Man Singh Road. “A small logistics issue about the Assam state emporium not being able to supply handmade cane baskets to the city-based Taj Khazana propelled the Dastkar idea. That rural craftspeople needed new and commercially viable markets and a bridge to meet their customers and sell directly to them,” she says. The first Dastkar crafts bazaar was held at the Triveni Kala Sangam in New Delhi in 1981.
Mapping the personal and creative direction for craftspeople, forming a link between them and their city buyers, and doggedly working on design issues, pricing, sizing and policy changes for the evolution of the crafts sector as a business model could sum up Tyabji’s work at Dastkar. “They are skilled professionals and should not be treated as downtrodden or as relics as they often are,” insists Tyabji, who has also been associated with Sewa (the Self Employed Women’s Association) of Lucknow. Designer Aneeth Arora of péro, who has been following Tyabji’s work for the last 10 years, says this assimilation of crafts and textiles at Nature Bazaars helps her tremendously as a designer keen on textile exploration and use. The bazaars, feels Arora, are research centres to understand innovation and locate weavers to work with from different regions.
Tyabji’s path, though, is not always well-paved. Craftspeople are deeply conservative, averse to experimentation, nervous about newness. They don’t understand fast colours, form or financial management, she explains. “When you begin you are cocky and romantic, but craftspeople can also start misbehaving. Sometimes you put in so much work but what comes out is a mouse.”
That’s why she has always been a hands-on mentor. Till Tyabji turned 50 and decided to cut her hair short and only wear saris, thus creating the lasting image we have of her, she only wore clothes she had hand-stitched and hand-embroidered. In her closet hangs a fine collection of pherans, anarkalis and a variety of long kurtas with Lambani, Kutchi and Chikankari embroidery done by Tyabji—each piece stunning.
She still paints her toenails. And still hand-embroiders in her free time. She stopped wearing a watch 25 years ago, when she realized that being chronically punctual while working in rural India, where time was a flexible concept, was stressful. She is more nonchalantly stylish than ever before. Short, salted hair, handloom saris, Kolhapuri chappals, kohl-lined eyes, jewellery that is distinctive but never too craftsy, Tyabji cuts a tall figure on India’s “most stylish” lists.
“Laila is knowledge-oriented, decisive and endlessly patient without using her personal influence to change the tide of things,” says Shelly Jain, personnel and programme head at Dastkar and Tyabji’s colleague of 17 years. Her home mirrors her; it is modern Indian without ethnic monstrosities for artefacts. And as its mistress, the only daughter among four siblings, she cooks, bakes, knits and sews enviably.
She admits she came close to getting married a few times but “shrank back” because she was never sure how she would feel 15 years down the line. She shrugs in her characteristic way even as her god-daughter Urvashi Kumari Singh comes up to hug her amma. “She is a fair, cool and sometimes irritable mom,” says Singh.
Is there a retirement age when the trajectory of Dastkar and its chairperson might move in different directions? “I have been trying to retire for the last five years, but haven’t been successful so far,” says Tyabji. That’s when a little emotion wells up—who on earth wants her to retire anyway.
“You can’t imagine Dastkar without Laila,” as Jain says.
source: http://www.livemint.com / Live Mint & The Wall Street Journal / Home> Lounge> Business of Life> Indulge / Home – Leisure / by Shefalee Vasudev / Saturday – Augut 09th, 2014
Mohammad Abdul Yaseen has engraved tombstones for Mumbai’s dwindling Jewish community for over forty years. / Photo: Sameer Khan
EARLY ON A BRIGHT FEBRUARY MORNING, under a small shed in a corner of the Jewish cemetery in Worli, Mumbai, 74-year-old Mohammad Abdul Yaseen chipped away at a grey stone slab using a large hammer and chisel. The graveyard was small and solemn, and tombstones stood in neat lines, bearing the Star of David alongside inscriptions in various combinations of Hebrew, Marathi and English. Yaseen chiselled Hebrew characters into the stone, intent on his work.
Yaseen, a devout Muslim, is the only expert engraver of Jewish tombstones in Maharashtra today. He has practiced his trade for over forty years, and is fluent in Hebrew. Beside him stood another man, who introduced himself as Daniel Bamnolkar, the cemetery’s caretaker and a member of Mumbai’s Bene Israel community. The Bene Israel are Jews who have lived along the Konkan Coast for two millennia, adopting local customs and languages while retaining a distinct cultural identity. Their population in India peaked at about twenty thousand in the late 1940s, but many subsequently emigrated, mostly to Israel. Today they number only about five thousand in Mumbai, with a couple thousand more in Pune. It is this population that Yaseen serves, alongside Mumbai’s small handful of Baghdadi Jews, who are descendedants of mid-nineteenth-century immigrants from West Asia.
Yaseen arrived in Mumbai from Uttar Pradesh in 1968 as a young man looking for work. He was introduced to Aaron Menashe, a respected Bene Israeli who made tombstones for the community, whom he started to assist. Menashe passed his skills on to Yaseen, and also taught him to read and write Hebrew. When Menashe and his family moved to Israel in 1971, Yaseen took up his mentor’s work, both in Mumbai and across Maharashtra.
Such close ties between a Muslim and a Jew were not surprising in Mumbai. For centuries, Jews have lived in peace, and built their synagogues, in the city’s Muslim neighbourhoods. For instance, the Gate of Mercy, Mumbai’s oldest remaining synagogue, was built in its present location in the predominantly Muslim area of Bhendi Bazaar, close to the Masjid commuter railway station, in 1860. Few realise that the station is actually named after the synagogue, and not a mosque; the Bene Israel call their synagogues “masjids,” and the Gate of Mercy is also known as Juni Masjid. Other Mumbai synagogues are also located in Muslim localities, such as Byculla, Madanpura and Jacob Circle.
We were soon joined by Mohammad Islam, Yaseen’s fifty-year-old son. Islam spoke fondly of “uncle Aaron Menashe,” who was the family’s “greatest pillar of strength when my father arrived in Mumbai.” Yaseen is teaching his trade to his son, but there seems little chance that the family business will survive in future generations. The job is arduous, and does not pay very well; “each tombstone takes approximately fifteen days,” Yaseen said, and the dwindling Jewish population means there are no more than two or three orders every month. Islam told me his father was “used to living within his modest means,” but that his children “had bigger ambitions.” “Both my sons are educated as engineers,” he said, “and the eldest is working in Saudi Arabia.”
Yaseen saw nothing unusual in being a Muslim working with the Jewish community. “I just adore the love and affection showered upon me,” he said. Whenever old friends who moved abroad come back to visit, Yaseen said, after paying their respects to their ancestors they make it a point to introduce their families to “Yaseen chacha”—uncle Yaseen. Many have invited him to Israel, where they say his expertise would guarantee a lucrative career. But Yaseen has declined all invitations, preferring to enjoy the twilight of his life with his family, working in the cemetery where he spent his best years, “among the Jewish people.” “I never bothered about money,” he added, “and god always blessed me with a simple, honest living.”
