THE CALL OF FAITH
Nawabuddin, the oldest town crier of Delhi’s Walled City, roams the streets at night during Ramzan to wake devotees for the predawn meal and to reconnect with his neighbours and the community
At 2.30 am, more than two dozen two-wheelers have been pushed aside to make space for a cricket match being played under halogen floodlights in a boundaried compound in Old Delhi’s Sheesh Mahal area. Its audience: women from balconies of cramped flats overlooking the compound. And some street dogs. The match will continue for the next hour but will break as the boys retreat for sehri (the pre-dawn meal), followed by namaaz.
Nawabuddin, 75, or ‘Peer ji’ doesn’t intend to acknowledge the game, or the young men performing stunts on motorbikes in the next street, the overcrowded tea stalls or the flea market that is still serving its last customers.
For him to do his job as a town crier— that of waking people up for sehri in the month of Ramzan — he has to indulge in a minor self-delusion, be oblivious to the fact that the Walled City is actually awake.
Wearing a white Pathani suit, skull cap and a keffiyeh spread across his left shoulder, all Peer ji can see in the darkness is a maze of matchbox-like buildings. He limps to each structure, carrying a wooden stick which he lifts to bang on the doors. “Rozedarooo, uth jao (Those fasting, awake),” his hoarse, throaty call encircles the street.
Peer ji is perhaps the last generation of Old Delhi’s town criers. Intrinsic to Muslim culture around the world, people like him are known by various titles –– Nafar (in Morocco), Musarati ( Egypt), Hil hiwai (UAE) and Seher Khan (Srinagar). In most of these regions, they roam the neighbourhood donning traditional attire, blowing trumpets or beating drums to draw people’s attention. In Delhi’s Walled City, they don’t have any such name and they don’t carry musical instruments.
Peer ji knows the occupants of most houses by name or profession. “Doctor sahab”…“Master ji”… “Vakeel sahab,” he calls out. Standing beneath tenements in closed alleys, he positions himself in certain areas that are most likely to echo his call, rather than go to each house.
Who is awake at this hour? “The men are either in deep sleep or are idling away their time when I do the rounds. It is the women who usually pray at this time,” he says, making his way through the labyrinth of passages. Men hardly respond to his call, he says. But those who do, are usually not welcoming. “You don’t have to be so loud. Kids are sleeping,” a voice shouts back, leaving Peer ji despondent for a moment.
ALTHOUGH THE JOB SEEMS SIMPLE, THE TOWN CRIER DOES FOLLOW A PROTOCOL. PEER JI NEVER CALLS OUT THE NAMES OF THOSE WHO ARE DEAD