KARACHI, Dec 12: Apart from the legends related to saint and wanderer, Sayyid Usman Marwandi better known as Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Sehwan Sharif is made by its faqirs.

Anthropologist and artist, Omar Kasmani, spoke about the linkages between shrines, the saint and how it is all kept together by the ‘freelancing’ or wandering faqirs.

Held at T2F on Thursday evening, Mr Kasmani drew various comparisons between how a shrine is best known through the interpretation of people who live around it.

He said that similar to how a reader would want to visit a shrine after reading about it, what makes Sehwan the place that it is, is because of the way it is spoken about which is mostly with reverence and awe.

Around 280 kilometres north of Karachi, Sehwan Sharif, earlier referred to as Shiv Wahan, is visited by around 30,000 people during a single weekend. The legend of his arrival in Sehwan around the mid of 12th century varies from person to person. Some said he stayed in a district full of prostitutes, while others mentioned that as soon as he came to Sehwan, the entire place shook up. But despite his legendary personality and the fact that it was the most visited place even at that time, Qalandar’s tomb was mentioned 60 years after his death.

During Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s tenure as prime minister in 1974, the area saw development and internal migration. “Which was largely because of the fact that Bhutto himself was a staunch follower of a sajjada nasheen of that time,” said Mr Kasmani. It was also the time of nationalisation, which allowed the state to take over any shrine if it failed to prove direct ascendants. The basic aim behind this nationalisation drive was “to curtail the political influence of sajjada nasheens. The second revolved around the revenue a shrine would generate for the state.” What also helped were the visitors, which were earlier limited to Baloch and Sindhis. But later the national media, or whatever was present at that time, made Sehwan Sharif a trans-local place from a local one.

The architecture of Qalandar’s shrine also changed gradually. From the red bricks and intricate blue tiles of the Talpur era, a new mausoleum modeled on the Iranian shrines emerged during Benazir Bhutto’s term in the 1990s.

Speaking about the faqirs, Mr Kasmani was not once sceptical of the various faqirs found near the shrine, rather said that his main interest was to know the way “these people articulate claim of faqiri.”

He specifically mentioned a woman named Bibi whom he met during his research in Sehwan, who went into a trance while speaking to him. When he asked if she’s alright, she pointed her index finger upward without uttering a word. Later, she told him that it was the time for the ‘makhlooq’ to pass the skies. The journey, she told Mr Kasmani, has to go through Sehwan towards Koh-e-Qaaf. “I can see them. There is a special place, between the earth and the skies, where all of us gather. There is no distinction there at all,” she informed him.

By the end of his talk, a seven-minute video was screened that showed various faqirs speaking about their trance-like state, while a song played in the background, “The evening at Qalandar’s is a passageway to galaxies.”

A transgender faqir, known as Khadra faqir near the shrine, told Mr Kasmani, “Lal brought me to this place. I was not worthy of it all. But I’m extremely close to him as he gave me this respect, which was not given to me otherwise.” By the end of the video, an old faqir told Mr Kasmani, “to overcome bodily desires, is not an easy thing. Only those who understand faqiri can make it work.”

Mentioning a social order of the faqirs, Mr Kasmani added that basically included companions of the Qalandar, then the clan overlooking the shrine whose head was usually male and mostly a Sayyid. Then there are the ‘freelance faqirs’.

Mr Kasmani was of the opinion that these people didn’t need anyone to take ownership of them. “They come and go as they please and wait for that dream from the Qalandar to change their life. Basically, it is that dream which validates their faqiri.”