NOSTALGIA

Visit to Dargah e Maner Sharif

 When it comes to choose between mind and heart, most often it is better to follow your heart or else with the fleeting time, you're left with that vague sense of uneasiness, restlessness that you risked nothing and so risked everything. Generally we are seen waiting for the opportune time to arrive and they never.....
 For the past 2-3 years there had been that persistent urge in me to visit this site 'The Dargah of Makdum Shah, at Maner Sharif  approx. 24 kms from Patna. I have some nostalgia for this oft visited place while posted at HFC, Barauni. So, packed my water colour kit, camera, sketch pencils etc. and left at 6.10AM this morning. After a bumpy ride here and there, reached at 7.00, parked my car under a shady tree and scanned the whole place at a glance....the place was as green, quiet and unspoiled as it had been... in the last summer 6 years before.and this morning again The Dargah across the pond from the resort looked like The Sleeping Beauty holding back some unshared mystery, a kept out passage to me. Good monsoon rain had added to its lush greenery making the place all the more serene.

The place brought back a flood of memories...those oft and on visits as a break, a detour... from Ara to Barauni. It was a sort of outing, a picnic for us but somehow I had missed entering the Dargah. So, this time I strengthened the bonding with this place by not only visiting the tomb but also water colouring its beauty.

Earlier the place was looked after directly by the Bihar Tourism Department. Later on, it was handed over to some private agency for its proper upkeep by Bihar Tourism. The place is well maintained from inside and this morning it looked so dreamy with its properly mowed lawn still wet with dew drops gleaming and glistening in the morning sun. I could not resist the urge of walking barefooted on the wet grass that gave me a tingling sensation. The intricate designs, the arched doorways are worth seeing. Dust has not gathered over the place. However, the roads need repairing. Took a few snaps of the Dargah but shooting is prohibited inside the tomb wherein lie buried Makdum Shah, his wife and his disciple who built it.

Came back to the Resort and found that the cafeteria was still closed. So, settled down on the upper step of the stairs leading to the pond and started with water colour .An old tree was lying uprooted by the stairs side and the black ants were crawling on the stairs wondering at my trespassing. Some folk, gentry were having a meeting under the tree shade after their morning stroll. They came, stood there  peeping over my shoulder at my unfinished work for some time and then left. A few school going boys   joined as onlookers who sat around me on the steps. I kept on working while talking to them. The manager of the cafeteria arrived but I had finished my water coloured by then . It was 9.50. I collected my things and left the place with a mute promise to keep on renewing the bonding every season esp. the winter.