words do not feel …

So the first ten days of Mah e Muharram came and now, are gone. Last night was Shab-e-Ashoor and tonight we call this night “Shaam-e- GhreebaaN”. Can anyone explain, define relate what exactly a Sham-e-GhreebaaN is? No matter how much we try, we cannot – just cannot know or visualize what happened there !! We read, we hear but they are just words. Only words and words only tell what happened. Words do not feel.

On the tenth day we do not eat or drink almost all day, do not smile or greet any one. We spend the day mourning like someone near and dear had died. Our little girl all grim faced and disheveled tells me that today she would not say salaam to me because on this day there was no ‘salaamti’ on earth – because some bad people killed our Prophet’s grandson.

We cry, grieve, lament but what happened centuries ago, happens again – yes, happens each year over again; and Shaam-e-GhreebaaN arrives when all the male members of the house of the Prophet are lying around killed and mutilated. There is the smell of fire in the air – the tents are burning. Deathly silence reigns.

Then we come home leaving some frightened and scared widows and orphaned children, sitting huddled together on the sands of Karbala …

Sometimes the helpless mind stands stunned, unable to decide what is more heart wrenching! A day of killing and plundering or a night when a bunch of destitute women and children – hungry and thirsty, just sit numbed beyond all imagination!

11/14/2014
(10th Moharram al Haram)

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