Tuesday December 6 was the 10th of Muharram, the day of Husayn’s martyrdom and the culmination of the ten-day period of mourning for 12er Shi‘ites, and so I went with Ilse, Anja and Gloria in the late afternoon to the Old City to witness the procession of self-flagellants. Some of the participants cut their heads with knives or beat their chests holding razor blades between their fingers.
Some razor blades left on the street
Anja was repulsed by the bloody self-flagellants and soon went back to HMI, while I stayed on with the others at the house where we had attended the majlis session on December 2. That private house is near the end of the procession route and is one of the places where the elephant bearing the main processional standard stops.
The elephant in the house courtyard
A few over-achievers whip their backs with especially nasty sets of blades, while a larger number of particpants beat themselves less rigorously.
The over-achievers
The next day Wednesday December 7 I went into the city and met Ashok, a photographer who writes coffee table photo books about India. That evening Shobha, the HMI academic program coordinator, invited me for dinner at her apartment near HMI. Varghese, a staff member and former student of mine who recently left HMI, was also there and we talked at length about developments at HMI.
The next day Thursday December 8 I spent at HMI. That evening Ilse, Anja and I took an overnight train to Visakhapatnam to start our archaeological survey project.
No comments:
Post a Comment