Keeping the Faith

The Dargah Sharif and its surrounding bazaar teem with thousands of pilgrims every day.  While mostly Hindus and Muslims occupy the city of Ajmer, Christians, Buddhists, Parsis, and Sikhs flock from around the globe to descend upon this sacred site, the holiest shrine of Sufi Islam in India.

As my van made an abrupt stop at the gateway to the bazaar, I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.  I swept the dust from the window to view the scene outside.  The international devotees to the Dargah Sharif were beginning to crawl toward the epicenter before five in the morning, or perhaps they had never left.  By eight o’clock, the place heaved with sweaty customers, rival solicitations, and wilting goods.  By noon, luggage, religious offerings, and people were being carried by the tanned crowd, simultaneously shoving its way into the gateway of the shrine, out toward the shops, and up away from the stench of the streets.  I had persuaded Sara and Asim, our two photographic mentors, to let me brave this electrified landscape alone.  They had given me one caveat:  do not tell anyone that I was Jewish.  If an alternate identity was my receipt to such a thrilling exploration, I was willing to pay the price.

I believed that price would be a small one to endure.  Despite the obvious dominance of religion as a matter in and around the shrine, I did not expect that my faith would be called out of the shadows or into judgment.  So I donned my headscarf, practiced my Hindi, and unabashedly marched into the shrine with my camera and notepad.

I had arranged to meet with Anas Kaptan, a young, liberal khadim who presided over the spiritual practice of a number of pilgrims to the shrine.  We stood on the balcony of his guesthouse in the steaming mid-morning air while he answered my questions and corrected my assumptions about the Sufi faith.  The conversation paused for a moment while I made a photograph of the slick white marble of the shrine below.  “Why have you come to Ajmer?  Are you seeking prayer at the shrine?” he asked suddenly.  His tone was in no way interrogating or incriminating, but I felt unprepared and apprehensive as I fumbled for the appropriate answer.  I explained that I was merely a student and a photojournalist.  And a Christian.  He had not compelled me to state my religious identity and had in fact emphasized the tolerant values of Sufism, but somehow the words were tugged from my throat.  That was the first time I had ever lied about my Judaism.

Unaware of my deception, Anas invited me to join him and his mother the next day for lunch and continued discussion.  I relied on my limited Hindi to steer me through the meandering alleyways of the Dargah bazaar, and within ten minutes, I arrived at Anas’ home.  The servant showed me upstairs.  I entered a carpeted room with austere pink walls and a small square window.  The room was empty save for a middle-aged woman kneeling on the ground, her forehead nearly touching the ground.  Tears streamed down her face as her lips moved in silent meditation.  Her fingers twitched melodically, uniting her prayer with her rosary.  I stared at her hands, desperately trying to keep pace with the beads shifting rapidly from right to left, three at a time.  She smiled for a moment as she realized my presence, but seemed completely unaltered in her state of tranquil emotion.  She stood up with her eyes pressed closed and bowed toward the wall.  Her knees bent resolutely as she lowered herself to the ground once more.  I was a voyeur to an intimate and powerful prayer.  I wanted desperately to give her a glimpse into my form of prayer, my mode of worship, but I had promised to conceal my faith.

Suddenly, the clicking of the rosary stopped, and the woman looked up at me.  She spoke a few words of Urdu before realizing my lack of recognition and proclaimed “Hello!” with a toothy grin.  “Mother,” she said, pointing at her chest.  The young servant opened the door, but did not walk in.  She gazed at me with keen interest.  I welcomed the curiosity of the girl and felt comforted by the mutual desire to understand the culture and customs of the other.  Anas’ mother called for two cups of chai, and the servant rushed toward the kitchen.  I was suddenly lonely without the girl’s inquisitive presence, and I feared minutes of uneasy silence with the middle-aged woman.

Despite my concern, the ensuing conversation transcended our clumsy attempts at verbal communication.  Even without a comprehensive vocabulary, she described her long-distance relationship with her son and daughter who both resided in the States.  Anas was her youngest and only child left at home in Ajmer, the chosen one to sustain the patriarchal responsibilities of the hereditary khadim.  But Anas was also her only child without legal access to the States by means of a green card or visa.  The conversation intensified as she begged me for help.  I insisted that there was little I could do as a student in America.  She persisted, but our discussion had clearly exceeded the limited of our verbal ability.  Suddenly, she picked up two statuettes and held them together in a little dance, peering at me mischievously.  A set of doves and a bride and groom stood on little white pedestals, but before Anas’ mother could propose the marriage plans, Anas walked into the room.  His mother simply winked as we sipped our chai.

In the next week, Anas and I spent an afternoon viewing photos from his cousin’s wedding and discussing our first crushes.  He promised me a ride on the back of his new cobalt blue motorcycle before I departed.  We swapped numbers and email addresses, and he gave me a box of chocolates.  For me, the relationship was by no means a crush or even a logical interest, but more of an intense curiosity.  I began to wonder genuinely if in some alternate universe a devout Sufi khadim could ever end up with a liberal American Jew.  What would happen if I exposed my identity?  Would Anas be horrified at my Jewish heritage?  Would he condemn me for my lie?  Would our shared love of dancing and music and our mutual belief in pluralism and faith bridge the stigmas, stereotypes, and cultural divides?  My questions were merely rhetorical, an intellectual exercise, but they transformed the joke into a profound exploration of the limits of tolerance and exchange.

I returned to the Dargah for my last day of work, filled with the confidence of cultural immersion and new photographic prowess.  I happened upon a refuge from the anarchic and cacophonous setting of the shrine, a little cemetery where a pilgrim was placing flower petals on the tiny tombs.  I trailed the ancient man in his quiet act of devotion, compelling myself to trace his exact steps, adopt his state of focused piety, and observe every delicate movement of his dry, wrinkled hands.  A khadim sat cross-legged on a carpeted perch to the edge of the graves.  “What is your religion sister?” he called to me.  The voice seemed to me an echo, jolting me out of my shared moment with the old pilgrim.  The question registered, and I responded hastily, “I am Christian.”  “Very good.  It does not matter your religion.  We have here Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, Yehudis,” he announced.

Yehudis.  Jews.  Instantaneously, I desperately regretted my lie.  My self-denial was clawing at my insides, and I felt the words pounding on my lips and teeth.  I wanted to shout, “I am a Yehudi!  I am one of them.  I represent those people!”  Instead, I remained silent.  The cost of my silence amassed with the vengeance of my questions.  Was this espousal of tolerance merely a canned value unearthed for the benefit of spectators?  Was it a practiced truth tested daily by the constant flux of diverse pilgrims?  Was it a test of identity and personal integrity?

A week after my departure from Ajmer, I received a request from Anas to become friends on Facebook.  My profile lists my religious views as “Jewish.”  No denial.  I was paying the debt to my identity, embracing it unapologetically.  But somehow, I was still concerned about Anas’ reaction.  Days passed before I finally clicked on “Accept Friend Request.”  Perhaps Anas never saw my proclamation of identity.  Perhaps he saw it, but had suspected it all along.  Perhaps he saw it and was shocked.  Whatever his response, he never said a word.

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