Hajj 2011: More than a prayer needed for Hajji camp, once the hub for pilgrimage preparations

Flights from other cities and private agencies mean fewer people need the annual market.

KARACHI:

Troubled thoughts run through Mohammad Saleem’s head as he sits with his staff in the energy-saver lit strip of their Hajji camp stall that he has run for 35 years.

“Things have really deteriorated over the last five years, even more so over the last two,” he says. His stall, one of 14, is well stocked with the material required for the annual Hajj pilgrimage. Fifty varieties of jewel-toned tasbeehs or rosaries form a shimmering curtain.

The stock expands into white cloth Ehrams, skull caps, scarves, small suitcases, trolley bags and even chemical-free hygiene shampoos. According to Saleem, each pilgrim would spend at least Rs8,000 on all their essentials but now they are lucky if someone comes in to spend a few hundred rupees.

But now with flights going directly to Saudi Arabia from other cities in Pakistan, Karachi is no longer the hub it once was. As a result, its annual Hajji camp has been slowly edged to the margins of the whirlwind activity.

“This year we only made sales worth 25% of our revenue last year, which was 50% less than the year before that,” Saleem said.

He began minding this stall with his father after he arrived from their village. “It was during Bhutto’s era that this place used to light up like a mela because people from all over Pakistan would come to Hajji camp.”

As the airlines diversified, the number of private travel agencies grew. And since they take care of their clients’ needs, the importance of the Hajji camp further shrunk. Today, its function has been whittled down to that of a pitstop where intending pilgrims can get an official seal on prescribed medication.

“Previously they would have to come here to get their vaccinations,” Saleem recalled. “They would then walk over to the stalls and buy whatever they needed. But with private agencies handling everything now, pilgrims even get their vaccinations done elsewhere.”

One of Saleem’s ‘lost’ customers is Siddikeh Jafar who left for Hajj Thursday. She applied through a no-profit no-loss private agency which supplied her everything she would require to perform the holy pilgrimage. There were 125 people in her group with identical standard size suitcase differentiated only by a numeric code on the side. Most of the people brought their own Ehram and the other items such as prayer mats and tasbeehs were optional. It cost them Rs290,000 including the flight, room and board at all locations.

As Saleem has claimed, Jafar did not have to go to Hajji camp for her vaccinations which the agency arranged. The essential vaccinations included those for the flu, meningitis and polio.

Saleem was not the only one in a glum mood. J, who did not want to share his full name, sets up a slipper stall and right next door is Faheem who is well stocked with small scarves, pins, small flash lights and other items. Both of them echoed Saleem’s sentiments on the drastic decline in sales. “I am thinking I won’t set up a stall next year,” J said. “I have to be here all day and most of the night for 45 days but the revenue in return is not enough to sustain me and my family. I might as well make the most of it this year.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 14^th, 2011.