Fr Jeremy Clarke SJ was in the
Shrine of Data Ganj Baksh in Lahore just hours before two suicide bombers attacked
the complex. Here, he recounts his day in the Pakistani city - where human
beings strive for beauty and peace under the constant threat of violence.
I
seem to end up doing things when I travel that I'd never normally do. Sure,
there's the not uncommon experience of going in-for-a-penny, in-for-a-pound
when it comes to local food. Straddling a motorbike without wearing a helmet on
Lahore's city streets, however, did seem to be one of those ‘what on earth am I
doing?' moments. Even so, my foolishness did mean I got a great view of the
city.
Sadly,
what is immediately noticeable about Lahore is the amount of armed police about
the place. There are sandbagged sentry posts, gun-toting guards, barbed wire
fencing and solid concrete blockades - and that's just in front of the General
Post Office. Near police stations, especially the one on Fatimah Jinnah
(Queen's) Rd (not far from the Jesuit community), there are even more
heightened levels of security on display. Clearly Lahore and its citizens live
with a constant sense of threat, one that is real and apparent in the mementoes
of past attacks pock-marking city walls and in the strain on people's faces.
And
yet, people also get on with their lives and locals certainly encouraged me to
get out and experience their truly beautiful city. So, after mass and breakfast
with the Sisters of Jesus and Mary at the girls' school their religious
predecessors founded in the late 1870s, that's what I chose to do - this time,
however, by walking and motor rickshaw and not by leaning in and out of flying
corners.
Given
that it was a Thursday, and guided by Lonely Planet's advice, I decided to go
and hear some qawwali singing at the
Shrine of Data Ganj Baksh, near the old city, to the north of The Mall and west
of Bhatti Gate. I'd never known what qawwali
singing was prior to coming to Pakistan, although years earlier I had been
entranced by the work of one of its famed stars, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan, on the
soundtrack of the movie Dead Man Walking.
The rhythmic drumming on tablas, the sound of a harmonium and the accompanying
ethereal singing were striking throughout that haunting film and thus I was
looking forward to hearing the music live and seeing the performers in the
flesh.
Lonely
Planet gets it right more often than not - although I still haven't forgiven
them for saying that Nanchang, China was basically a hole - but on this
instance they'd got the performance times wrong. Their noon kick-off was a good
two hours too early and so I had a number of hours to pass before settling down
in the Shrine's basement, where the groups of singers performed. I spent part
of this wandering around the shrine, which celebrates an eleventh-century Sufi
author and preacher, whose name means ‘the bestower of treasures', in
recognition of his great generosity to the less fortunate. All manner of people
visited the shrine, although of course I was in the male-only section, and
during the middle of the day when I was present, there had to be several
thousand people inside the precinct's walls. I passed groups of men having
their lunch, sharing among themselves. Elsewhere, in a basement section, people
were performing their ritual ablutions around an elegant marble fountain and
elsewhere again others were lying on matting and small rugs, catching up on
some sleep. There was hubbub and quiet, prayer and conversation.
Eventually
the time came for the qawwali singing,
so I made my way to the shrine's basement. I stayed for about 90 minutes,
delighting in the sounds and talents of the musicians, and regretting that I
couldn't understand a single lyric. Apparently qawwali is Sufi devotional music that sings of God's goodness, and
the singers seek to create a conversation among themselves and the instruments,
using both rhythm and melody to vary the pace and the passion of the telling.
Around me sat fathers and sons, the elderly and the middle-aged, the fit and
the well-fed, while further back in the cavernous space several men of the
streets lay face down on the marble, resting from the hot afternoon's embrace.
I struggled my way to my feet, beat some sensation back into my legs, got my
shoes back - exchanging smiles for smiles with the guards - and then made for
the Jesuit community, having had a thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable time.
The
next morning, I woke up to newspaper reports that, at about the time I was
going to bed, two suicide bombers had exploded devices in the Shrine of Data
Ganj Baksh. One was in the basement where people performed their ceremonial
ablutions and one in the main section of the shrine, where hours before I'd
walked by people praying. At first count, these bombers had killed around 40
people and perhaps injured around 170 more. Did this include the kind man who
minded my shoes, the exhausted bloke sleeping on the floor, the old man from outer
town lost in his meditations, the guy trying to sell me a skull cap? Were they
safe - the weary and the young, the folk singers and the police, the street
vendors and the children holding their fathers' hands? In this Islamic shrine
that had resounded to qawwali singing
earlier there was now only grief and outrage, and the wonder that such
senseless, shameless killing continues.
I
leave Lahore tomorrow for a retreat with the Sisters of Jesus and Mary, but
leave something of my heart here, too: for those ordinary Pakistanis who keep
on living their lives, knowing not when the next bomb comes, nor where - at a
shrine, a library, a post-office or a hospital - and yet praying that the
madness stops. I can only join my prayers to theirs, hoping that such acts
cease, resolved to do what I can to assist in building a just world, a world
where everyone's day can end in peace.
By Fr Jeremy Clarke SJ
Jeremy Clarke is an Australian
Province Jesuit who is visiting Pakistan during the course of his tertianship, the
final stage of Jesuit training, in order to assist the Sisters of Jesus and
Mary through the ministry of retreat giving.
Photo: Stock image from sxc.hu