Festival of lights: 40 per cent of women visiting the urs accompanied by men of the family

LAHORE:

“I bring my daughters to the urs every year on the third day,” said Mrs Waseem, one of the visitors to Madhu Lal-Hussain urs on Monday.

The third day of the festival is traditionally set aside for women and families.

“By bringing my daughters here, I relive the time when my grandfather used to bring to the urs. Our spiritual connection to Shah Hussain is three generations old,” she said. Only women were allowed to enter the main hall of the shrine. About 40 per cent of them were accompanied by men.

The security personnel deployed at the shrine were also women. Their male colleagues stood at pickets outside the shrine and in the surrounding area. They said that many women visitors insisted on taking the men from their families inside the shrine along with them, but there were strict orders not to let any man in. Compared to the first two days of the festival, the security personnel said the crowd was thinner and more manageable.

After the Maghrib prayers, special prayers were led by Allama Muhammad Ramazan, the prayer leader of the mosque close to the shrine. He prayed for Allah’s forgiveness and the sufi’s blessings for the visitors.

Zaree Rehman, another visitor said, “Luckily the weather was pleasant today and there were fewer people.” She said she had also come on the second day but could not get inside the shrine due to the massive crowd swarming the gates. Officially the urs ended on the third day, but devotees will be visiting the shrine for another week, a spokesperson for the Auqaf Department said. The department also distributed food among the women visitors.

Allah Bakhsh, who had a jewellery stall outside the shrine said, “I had more customers today as the visitors were relaxed unlike the first two days.” He said the first two days had been a mess. The visitors, he said, had rushed by him in the first two days.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 29^th, 2011.