The spirit of Moharram.

Freshly whitewashed brick walls, black banners suspended over them. Black flags fluttering in the wind. Red soil brought in carts and spread over the ground, sprinkled with water a few times a day. Quicklime mixed with pesticides poured along the pavements. The scent of freshly burnt frankincense fills the air. Flood lights set up in dark alleys and wide roads alike. Kiosks distributing water and food. The sound of beating chests from a distance to the sorrowful tunes of vernacular poems. And this marks the beginning of Moharram for us in Hyderabad.

The ashurkhanas bring out their old metal trunks that had been stowed away a year back. These rusting metal trunks contain brass and copper alloy standards and to go with them colorful banners laced in gold and silver threads. These standards called alams are installed on high wooden platforms. And the process of readying houses and ashurkhanas, bringing the banners, the flags and the trunks out, cleaning them and installing these is a process every person of the house is involved in.

The children, men and women of all ages now dress in black. The spirited younger ones move in groups from one house to the other. Reciting the sorrowful poems without the slightest of slip. Beating their chests in perfect military sync, not a single beat off. The elderly move with melancholic look on their faces and lowered gaze. The young mothers teaching their offspring the customs associated with these days.

The analogy that the present generation are like lamps that light the next set of lamps that would commemorate the sacrifice of the Prophet’s (pbuh) grandson is instilled deep. There is no purpose of life better than mourning those who showed the perfect defiance against tyranny. And such convictions inculcated right from the early age makes anticipting this holy month a task in itself.

Moharram isn’t a month to most, it is an emotion. The very onset of this brings in the pensive sadness, deeply roots in the sorrow of those who were killed 14 centuries earlier. There’s a deep connect with those martyrs every young and old alike feel. This is about mourning and in equal measure also about honoring the Hero who made an epochal last stand.