TAZIYA

"It's a sad day" she said,   "Muslims feel sad today".....     "but what are those structures?"

It had taken my rickshaw twice as long to battle its way up O.P. Road.   But it gave me time to gaze in awe, at the endless procession of miniature architectural wonders, on board a flotilla of trucks, with Muslim devotees hanging on and projecting off every angle of the vehicle, drums beating and music blaring out.  The structures were quite beautiful, every one different - white as marble with elaborate domes,  beautifully lit and decorated. www, takes on a new significance as I ask, 'what, what and why'  What were they, what were they made of and why this procession ?

So it has a name ?  The material used in packaging electrical goods ?  That stiff white stuff packed around a new iron or radio....it's called "thermocol" !  The structures looked as if they were cut from marble, but in fact it was thermocol, intricately carved to create beautiful miniature mausolea - each one about 4-5 foot tall, although size varied - some a little larger !

This was the Day of Ashura, 17th December - a day of mourning for Shia Muslims, commemorating the death of the grandson of Mohammed at the Battle of Karbala in the 7th century.  Replicas of his mausoleum, called taziya are carried in the Muharram processions.  Every year thousands of taziyas in various shapes and sizes are created and displayed in this way.

In the chaos of O.P. Road, with its heavy traffic, wandering water buffalo, hooting cars, bicycles and traffic police, this amazing spectacle, causing so much further chaos, seemed to reveal India, with its largely Hindu population, at its best - the ability to accept anything and everything, life ambling on, around and in spite of the obstruction.