Day 7: I left a mosque

Well yes. Not exactly, but yes, in a way I was thrown out of a mosque today.

If you’re wondering why you don’t see any pictures on this post, that was in fact the reason why I found myself in a situation which turned unsavory enough.

For a really long time, I think it’s been like some 7 years since I first came across it, I found the mosque in Defence Colony a very enchanting place. For starters, it is HUGE. To find a structure so big, and belonging to a place of worship in one of the poshest localities of Delhi was something I always felt intrigued about. But then I only stopped by there for the occasional Juma (or Maghreb) prayers while passing the surrounding area, so couldn’t delve into the details either. The original structure of the mosque has a dome which gives out the fact that it has some bit of a medieval historical association, which always added to my curiosity.

Go to this mosque during any off peak hours (read as in between prayers) and you’d see rows of kids poring their heads over the Quran, humming and moving their torsos in harmonic motion as they memorize the book. Yes, the mosque also houses a Madarsa for kids, who are mostly from remote parts of Northern India, sent by their parents who may not exactly be in the best financial position to support their upbringing.

So I was going around with my camera taking pictures. Climbed up the stairs to take pictures of the dome against the sunset, chatted up with a kid who was from a village in Bihar, and who had memorized 18 chapters of the Quran, at the age of what, he looked like ten? Before then, I tried locating the Imam to speak to him and explain why I wanted to take pictures. He was reciting the Quran, so I spent some time waiting for him to get free, and though he did notice me, since he was busy I thought best to leave the talk for later.

Then the inevitable.

I had a feeling all along that there might be some places where cameras may not be as welcome. Which is why I try to be discreet when inside a mosque’s premises with the camera, and try to only take images of the external structure. It was much the same case here till now too, and I would have asked the Imam before taking pictures of the proceedings of the Iftar.

All of a sudden, I see this group of like 8-10 people running all around the mosque compound, while I was getting down the stairs. It didn’t take me much to realize who they were looking for. ‘Yeah, right, and so it begins’, was what immediately came to my mind. Though I still thought that I should be able to explain things and it should be sorted, after all there was nothing wrong in taking pictures of the external structure.

With like five people in my face asking my name, profession, reason for being there, and with me answering all of them, I reached the Imam and sat in front of him. I introduced myself, stated my purpose, why I was there. What followed was something that I would simply say was as good as putting my head inside a millstone.

The Imam simply refused to listen to me.

Hum kya jaanen aap kaun hain, yahaan kya karne aaye hain (how do we know who you are, and what your intentions are). I introduced myself again, someone asked for my ID, I passed on my business card. Now my business card is a plain white card with just my name and contact details, simply because after saying good bye to my ex-corporate avatar, I didn’t feel the need for any flashy logos or fonts on my card which spelt w-e-i-g-h-t. Unsurprisingly, the card just evoked smirks and guffaws from the crowd. Is par toh kuch bhi nahi likha hai!

I was beginning to lose it by then. Which is something that still makes me feel sick in hindsight. Not losing patience as a practice when you are fasting definitely doesn’t come easy in the real world.

I tried to be as polite as I could be, explained what a blog meant, told the Imam that I wanted to talk to him, had come to him earlier if he had noticed, that I wanted to know more about the history of the mosque.

Hum kya jaanen aap kaun hain, kahan se aaye hain. Agar masjid ke baare main aur jaanna hai toh Sir Syed jinhone Muslim University banai thi, unki likhi tareekh main sab hai. (How do we know who you are, etc. And if you want to learn about the mosque, read the history text which was written by Sir Syed who founded the Muslim University).

I told him that I had passed out from the same university he was talking about, and which history text by Sir Syed do I need to refer to? The Imam didn’t pay any attention.

Koi kisi ke ghar main aise ghus kar photo thodi leta hai. Aaj hamare ghar ki photo le rahe hain, kal hamari bahu betiyon ki photo lenge. (Nobody takes pictures like this inside anybody’s house. The next we know is that pictures of our daughters would be getting clicked.)

I just couldn’t make the bahu beti connection. And I felt like asking him whose house was it anyway. If anything, I was part of that house’s admin as much as anybody else.

I calmly told the Imam that I’ve taken pictures at Masjid al Haram, both of them. As usual, the Imam didn’t pay attention.

It just went a bit too far when voices started asking the Imam whether they should break my camera. I had half a mind of telling them, look, this cost me 90 grand, pay up, and you can do whatever you please with it. Didn’t do that, just asked in an assertive tone about the necessity of breaking the camera. Someone asked me to delete the pictures, to which everyone agreed. So yes, in full view, I pulled out each image on the preview screen and deleted every one of them.

Yes, some bit of me also got erased. But I think we are possessed with regenerative powers, so I shouldn’t think much about it.

With those glaring eyes around me, I just didn’t have any reason to have stayed back. Nobody asked me to stay back for Iftar, knowing that I had mentioned specifically that I was there to break my fast. Did it break my heart? To be honest, yes, it did. It became evident when I sat on the boundary wall of the park around Defence Colony market and broke my fast alone.

Now do I blame the Imam for the way he acted? No, and yes.

No, because I do understand that we live in trying times. He might have become scared, there might have been some background to his knee jerk reaction and I may have acted as a trigger. After all, there are numerous stories of clandestine ops being conducted in mosques. But then I didn’t need to carry a full blown DSLR to take pictures if I needed to do that? Wouldn’t I have been subtle if I had another objective?

Yes, because I still don’t understand the way he simply wasn’t looking me in the eyes while talking, and just raising his voice looking towards the mob of people for support in what he said. Because he was just not listening, not wanting to listen to what I was saying, let alone try to understand what I was saying. And as an Imam, I think he is supposed to be more open that that. An Imam, after all, literally means a leader of men. And most of all, even if I was up to something unacceptable, it still doesn’t take away the fact that nobody offered once to make sure I had Iftar when I walked away with like 2 minutes remaining for the due time. And for this, I would want to question the folks there, more than the Imam.

I feel bad, I really do at having had to bare this side of things too. Considering that the past few experiences have been very enjoyable. And I could have chosen not to talk about this. It’s just that this is purely a product of the times we live in, and the times we are building for ourselves by not trying to understand our environment, which is what compelled me.

I’m still going around with my camera to mosques. After all, each one of them is my house too.

And I’m not playing the victim here. The victims were the ones who confronted me at the mosque.