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Ahmedabad may get a new name, but Sherbhai's shehnai will not let it forget the founder

Amidst the reported moves to change the name of the commercial capital of Gujarat to its 'original' one, Karnavati, there is one place in the heart of Ahmedabad, where a shehnai mourns at the tomb of the city's founder Sultan Ahmed Shah I every day and night, for the last 555 years.

Banubhai Sherbhai, who plays the instrument with his sons at the mazar of the sultan, inherited the art from his ancestors. He plays the same ''original'' shehnai, accompanied by nakkaras (drums), which are being played since 1442. Time has stood still for him and his clan.

Indeed, Badshah Ka Hazira, as the tomb is known, is one of the countless such mazars that dot the country, especially the areas once ruled by Muslim rulers.

But this was, perhaps, the only one where generations of the local people in the surrounding areas have slept or woken up to the melodious, even if mournful, tunes of shehnai and drums since Ahmedabad came on the map of India in the 15th century.

And Banubhai could pass off as an ordinary Muslim unless one discovers the timeless tradition his forefathers have weaved around the tomb. For the last 555 years, his family had shouldered this responsibility of paying homage to the late sultan uninterruptedly and faithfully.

Much water has flowed during the last six centuries down the now polluted Sabarmati river, that divides the present city of Ahmedabad roughly into two halves. But the tomb of the sultan and his queen, located opposite it, have witnessed a continuous tradition of annual urs also.

The tombs, as also the adjacent Jami Masjid, the biggest in Ahmedabad, have changed little all these centuries. Manek Chowk, where the monuments are located in the heart of Ahmedabad, continues to hum the same, old melodious tunes day in and day out.

The only thing that has changed is the hustle-bustle of the market outside the mazar -mosque complex. Plus the electricity in the complex.

It is difficult to understand what has stood the test of time better: the stone monuments or the Banubhai clan. Both seem to be competing with each other in timelessness and continuity amid change.

A stone plaque outside the mazar says the majestic monument of Badshah Ka Hazira (built between 1411 and 1442) was constructed on a raised platform in a square plan. It consists of a central hall with four small chambers at the corners and pillared portico.

The central hall is covered by a massive dome and contains the graves of Sultan Ahmed Shah I (who died in 1442), his son Muhammed Shah II (death 1451) and grandson Qutubuddin Ahmed Shah (death 1458), the plaque says.

Built in the lifetime of the sultan himself, along with the adjacent Jama Masjid, the tomb was repaired in 1537. The inscription in Persian was the creation of a poet Yahya, it says.

According to the Jama Masjid's Mufti Shabbir Ahmed, nearly 10,000 workers, artisans and craftsmen toiled hard for three decades to create the monument.

But more than the agelessness of stones, it is the family of Banubhai Sherbhai that make the monument an island of continuity in a turbulent ocean of changes, witnessed by Ahmedabad.

Without fail, Banubhai and his two sons Amirbhai and Sherbhai, religiously climb up the Nakkarkhan located on the main gate of the tomb, twice a day, at 0800 hours and 2300 hours.

There, the father plays his shehnai for half-an-hour as his sons accompany him on drums. Neither they, nor their forefathers, have ever sought or waited for any audience, of course.

On the holy days -- Thursday and Friday -- they perform regularly five times a day, close to the times of offering prayers at 0900, 1200,1500, 2000 and 2300 hours. For their labour, the Sunni Muslim Waqf Committee, custodian of the tombs and the mosque, pays an honorarium of Rs 468 per month to the father and Rs 462 to each of the sons, Banubhai said.

Asked how he managed to make the ends meet with this meagre salary, he said he was merely continuing a tradition of his forefathers. He is illiterate and his sons were also school dropouts.

The man in his early fifties looks much older than his age, while the monument around him still looks ageless.

UNI

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