aaj rang hai

A few days back, there was a gang of kids on my door demanding donation for a dargah on the occasion of holi. My usual answer to all these religious requests is that I dont believe and hence wont donate. I tried giving that this time, but all the qawwalis I love floated in my head even as I was trying to explain atheism. The Nizammudin dargah in Delhi is the closest I have come to getting a sense of what spirituality could be about.

So I put some money in that basket covered with green chunari, justifying to myself that since I have occasionally given into cute or pesky kids in the name of an akhand path or a jagran, and in my student days got bulldozed by my communist comrades to contributing to durga puja as well, the 'pir' also deserves a share.

The other 'chanda' collectors however have no use for your soul, once the money disappears into their donation box. These kids however wanted me to get some more notes, close my eyes and hold them against the basket, and then spend this blessed money on myself. They went on condescendingly explaining and re-explaining the importance of this act, reading my refusal as an inability to understand the ritual. The qawwalis stopped playing, Nusrat's voice switched off, I was back from Nizamuddin to my doorstep and buzzed them off.