Thuds, tambourines, and a voice vanishing into Warasigudda

I woke up to the thuds. Someone was softly knocking on a tin can. There was the faint sound of ghungroos too. It was about 3:30 a.m. I lay still and heard a man call out something in a strange melody. Was this a dream?

The next evening, the grandma from downstairs sent up some melt-in-the-mouth chicken haleem. It was just one serving. She knew the rest at home were vegetarian. A few evenings ago, she had warmly pulled me in for iftar when I returned from work. I lapped up the food and answered her many questions about my family, caught in a haleem-induced trance. It made me uncomfortable later—the amount of information she sought. Since that iftar, whenever she invited me, I made excuses and rushed past. That’s when the haleem was brought up by her granddaughter. I smiled at her warm gesture, ate it for dinner, and slept soundly—only to wake up briefly to the thudding and calling. Not even heavy, rich, heavenly haleem-induced sleep could ignore this haunting, otherworldly call.

For many nights, I kept waking at about 3:30 a.m. to the beats and calls of this man walking around the locality, gently waking up all rozedaars. Our home was at a corner where the Padmarao Nagar bungalows and builder flats of Tamil and Telugu Hindus gave way to the bustle of Warasigudda, with homes of predominantly Telangana and Andhra Muslims. We were a family of a Malayali Christian and two Kutchi Hindus, living at this very corner, above a line of shops. There were dargahs, mosques, a church or three, and temples all within a 1.5 km radius. He walked beating a big tin can on his cycle and his voice caressed this corner, just touching Padmarao Nagar, before vanishing into the depths of Warasigudda. Leaving a trail of mystery behind.

Sketch by Savvy Soumya

Folks at home didn’t believe me at first and may have been a little concerned to see me progress (?) —from talking to myself to hearing voices in my head! Thankfully, in a day or two, they heard him too. He’d repeat a few lines while thudding on a tin can with a piece of wood. Some bell-like sounds accompanied this. I couldn’t figure out much of what he said, but it sounded like:

“Ramazan ke rozedaar suno... Roti bajaare ki aur kurma (something something) Sehri.”

After the faithful had woken up, he’d fall silent.

The call was mildly haunting, and the thudding sounds made me restless. Some days, I’d head to the balcony in the dark and spot him coming from the right, and on others, he would come from directly ahead. Beard, waistcoat, lungi, and turban. Thin, long face. A mystic-like voice and presence—instilling a strange fear and thrill.

On the morning of that Eid in 2012 or 2013, the upstairs neighbour’s boy came bounding down the stairs and tried to hand my mother-in-law (Mummy) some raw mutton. She wanted to be polite, but seeing the meat, her body revolted. She put her hand on his head and said, “Jeete raho beta! ……..Bas ek minute, main aiee,” (Blessings and BRB) and stumbled inside, incoherently mumbling something to me. I took the meat and placed it in the fridge. All three of us, including Mummy, had tummy-crushing laughs about how she ran! Ab kya karein? Cooking mutton at home would prove too much for her, plus I wasn’t any good at preparing it! It would be a waste.

So off I went to my hi-hello friend at the bakery across the road. I had seen her studying the Bible on many occasions; surely, she ate mutton. I gave her the story and asked if she would take the mutton from me and not tell my neighbour. She thought for a bit and said, “Tum shop bandh karne ke time pe la lo. Ache se pack karku laana, please. Church waale mana karte Eid ka mutton khane se, bolte jaadu tona hota usme. Par mai chupke se le leti!” (Bring it when I close the shop, pack it well, please. Church people forbid Eid mutton, but I’ll take it secretly!). The church was diagonally across from her shop.

I went back home, relieved that there was plan inplace for the mutton and hung out on the balcony hoping to see the Sehriwala (I later learned of this reference).

He was soon there: black shortish lungi, kurta, a waistcoat, a green turban, and many beaded necklaces and peacock feathers. He was talking to the folks in the barbershop downstairs. I looked down at the top of his turbaned head from my second-floor balcony. Just as I grew confident in my staring, he turned up to look directly at me as though I had called out to him. “Haan bolo,” his ashy grey eyes seemed to say. Embarrassed, I backed away.

An hour later, after I made sure he wasn’t around, I was hanging clothes to dry. I was also deeply disappointed that I might not see or hear the Sehriwala again. Before I could complete the thought, I heard the jingle of bells (it was a tambourine!) and turned to see him peer at me through our grill gate and nod as he stared directly. His fingers curled around the grill, ashy eyes, long, dusty hair framing his face. With my heart in my mouth, for the second time that day, I backed away, alarmed at how he knocked the breath out of me. Soon, I was repentant and rushed up and down the stairs to see if he was around and to ask him why he was there, but it was too late. He was nowhere to be found.

The next Ramzan, I tried to stay up to hear him. He came late. Finally, when he was back, we heard him for a week. He sounded different—maybe it was someone else this time. I recorded his song. I don’t know whether he saw me or remembered the crazy woman from the year before. But after the first week or ten days of Ramzan, he fell silent.

The khadoos auto-wale bhaisahabs at the stand below our home agreed with me that it had been a few days since he was heard. “Sahi bol rahe... Aaj kal nahi aatey unu. Sab ke pass mobile hai, toh ab unki zaroorat nahi hai.” (You’re right... These days, he doesn’t come anymore. Everyone has a mobile phone now, so they don’t need him anymore) Another auto driver assured me, “Par aate woh, last week main aatey zaroor.” (But he will come in the last week of Ramzan).

I had more questions. They were happy to talk. They shared that many localities had the tradition of being woken up like this. Someone went around the locality waking people up for sehri. They had their own songs and styles of singing or calling. On Eid, each household passed on wheat and pulses to their Sehriwala—7.5 kgs per member.

“Yeh log alag jagah se aate aur Eid par unko aadhe saal ka raashan mil jaata sab se. Sab bahut pyar se dete.” (They come from different places, and on Eid, they get provisions for half a year for their services. Everyone gives with a lot of love.)

Eid came and went. He hadn’t returned. I left Warasigudda in the years that followed too and then finally changed cities. I send him dher saara pyaar and apologies whenever I think of Ramazan in Secunderabad.

Thank you

Savvy Soumya

for remembering this piece was sitting in drafts forever, and for making this sketch !