A midnight call that ‘woke’ him up!
LUCKNOW: It was a mid-August dark night in 2012. Overnight rainfall had inundated several parts of the already floodravaged Uttarakhand and people were hoping that there would be no more cloudburst when a telephone ring around 3am woke Harmindar Singh ‘Titu’ up.
Fearing the worst, Harmindar Singh jumped out of his bed to take the call. “Sardar Buta Singh, manager of Gurudwara Shri Hemkunt Sahib Joshimath, was at the other end. In a wavering voice he told me that around 800-odd Muslims had approached the gurudwara and were seeking permission to offer namaz,” Harmindar told Hindustan Times in an exclusive chat.
“At first it didn’t make sense. But slowly I gathered that the men wanted to offer Eid namaz, falling the next day on August 22, 2012, at the gurudwara, as the traditional namaz ground - the Gandhi Maidan - was covered with slush following overnight rainfall,” Singh recollected.
Born and brought up in Lucknow, the land of Nawabs, Harmindar had shared several lighter moments with his Muslim friends at his native place. But the ‘proposition’ that came at an uncanny hour unsettled the trustee of Shri Hemkunt Sahib Gurudwara.
“Several questions sped across my mind. ‘Will it be accepted by my community’, ‘will it be in conformity to the traditions of the religion’, ‘what will happen if I say no’ — these questions plagued me for some time,” he said.
“While weighing the odds it suddenly dawned on me that when our gurus never discriminated between human beings, then who am I. With this realisation, all my doubts ebbed away and I decided to grant permission to my Muslim brethren to offer namaz inside Gurudwara Shri Hemkunt Sahib,” he added.
The next morning, around 9.30am the Joshimath gurudwara created history as over 500 devotees offered Eid namaz. The modest, but heart-warming gesture was followed by a little teapakora treat as the Sikhs and Muslims hugged each other in joy. “A crisis brought the two communities together,” Harmindar said (sighing), adding: “The crisis also changed something within. I think I have become a better human being.”