Urs of Baba Bulleh Shah held in Mussoorie

MUSSOORIE, 30 Oct: An Urs and Qawwali programme were held in memory of Baba Bulleh Shah at his symbolic tomb near Bala Hissar in Mussoorie, organised by the Baba Bullehshah Committee, today.
The celebration began with the “Chaddar Ceremony”, in which members of the committee and the devotees gathered from far and wide to the ‘chaddar’ on the tomb of the Baba as a mark of gratitude and to seek his blessings.
Following this, Qawwali in Sufi style was performed by Saajan Babu Ghoongroowale, who mesmerised the devotees and forced them to whirl to the renderings. The Qawwals sang from the verses of Baba Bulleh Shah and other noted Sufi saints from around the world. Through their music the Qawwals communicated the message of unity and spiritual oneness, the mainstay of Sufi teaching.
The congregation consisted of people from all religions, castes and creeds. The devotees were distributed Langar organised by the committee.
Harbhajan Thakral, the Vice President of the committee said on the occasion that the ration for the langar was donated by the residents of Mussoorie for the festival. He also said that this was one of those special places where devotees belonging to any religion were free to visit and seek blessings.
According to High Court Advocate A Rab, President of the Committee, Bulleh Shah is believed to have been born in 1680 in the small village of Uch Bahawalpur, Punjab, now in Pakistan. His ancestors had migrated from Bukhara in modern Uzbekistan. His father, Shah Muhammad Darwaish, was a preacher in the village mosque and a teacher. His father, later, got a job in Pandoke, about 50 miles southeast of Kasur. Bulleh Shah received his early schooling in Pandoke, and moved to Kasur for higher education, to become a student of the prominent professor, Ghulam Murtaza. He also received education from Maulana Mohiyuddin. His spiritual teacher was the eminent Sufi saint, Shah Inayat Qadri. Bulleh Shah was a direct descendant of Muhammad, through the progeny of Shaikh Abdul Qadir Gilani of Baghdad.
Bulleh Shah practiced the Sufi tradition of Punjabi poetry established by poets like Shah Hussain, Sultan Bahu, and Shah Sharaf. Bulleh Shah lived in the same period as the famous Sindhi Sufi poet, Shah Abdul Latif Bhatai. His lifespan also overlapped with the legendary Punjabi poet Waris Shah of Heer Ranjha fame, and the famous Sindhi Sufi poet Abdul Wahad, better known by his pen-name, Sachal Sarmast (“truth seeking leader of the intoxicated ones”). Amongst Urdu poets, Bulleh Shah lived 400 miles away from Mir Taqi Mir of Agra. He died in 1758, and his tomb is located in Kasur, Pakistan. Bulleh Shah’s poetry and philosophy strongly criticises Islamic religious orthodoxy of his day. At the time worldy corruption had been taken over as opposed to the true teachings of Islam. Bulleh Shah maintained that violence was not the answer to violence.
Bulleh Shah’s popularity stretches uniformly across Hindus, Sikhs and Muslims, to the point that much of the written material about this Muslim thinker is from Hindu and Sikh authors. In the 1990s Junoon, Asia's biggest rock band from Pakistan, also rendered such poems as Aleph (Ilmon Bas Kareen O Yaar) and Bullah Ki Jaana. Bulleh Shah's verses have also been adapted and used in Bollywood film songs. In 2004, Rabbi Shergill successfully performed the unlikely feat of turning the abstruse metaphysical poem Bullah Ki Jaana into a Rock/Fusion song, which became hugely popular in India and Pakistan. Baba Bulleh Shah belonged to the Sufi belief system which is considered a  science through which one can know how to travel into the presence of the Divine, purify one’s inner self from filth, and beautify it with a variety of praiseworthy traits.
A Rab is also of the view that teachings of Baba Bulleh Shah are relevant, more so in the present age, where the communal strife is order of the day. Bulleh Shah was for love, compassion and Oneness with the divine. The Baba Bulleh Shah Mazar here plays an important role in preserving the secular culture of the town and maintaining bonhomie among believers of different sects and religions.