Introduction to Ajmer

This is going to be a short post that's all about context. While you heard a fair amount while I was in Punjab of all the Sikh historical gurdwaras and holy places I visited, my research of devotional and classical music also had a multi-religious aspect. My visit to the Tibetan buddhist capital of Dharamsala was documented on here, as well as several un-affiliated or multi-affiliated ashrams. Christi, Kirsten and I witnessed the evening arti ceremony on the Ganges at Haridwar and visited hilltop Hindu temples there (where it was impossible to get away from hearing all the Hindu bhajans, songs, that too-closely resembled Bollywood heartthrob soundtracks). I also was in Pushkar, which contains a lake that is a major pilgrimage place for Hindus, on the festival of Holi.

But one place that struck me as much as any other, even with all the time I spent at the Golden Temple and witnessed the major Vaisakhi festival, was the "dargah sharif" at Ajmer. Ajmer, and the dargah, are located in the middle of the state of Rajasthan, which is primarily arid with spiny hills. The famed palaces of Udaipur and Jaipur are a few hours on either side of Ajmer, and it is a major transit point, largely because of the dargah and the close proximity to Pushkar. In case you don't know, a dargah refers to the shrine around the tomb of a Sufi saint. I say complex because most of them have grown to include, in addition to the main tomb, the tombs of many (many, many, many...) followers and descendants of the main saint, as well as usually several mosques, stalls selling flowers for offering at the shrine, a langgar kitchen, and large marble courtyards in which people can gather. These are just the more noticeable features of a dargah, though, and I have found them to be endlessly intriguing and evolving places, containing many different spaces for different people within, like a whole city to itself.

What drew me to the Sufi shrines is the practice of Qawwali singing (more on that later), but what particularly drew me to Ajmer was the contact information of this gentleman. He is one of the khadims, the name for the ONE family who was held the keys to the shrine for the last, oh let's see...800 years! Now there are several thousand of them, of course, and they pursue other interests besides just the opening of the door. Many study abroad, or are interested in business or scholarship. My contact, in particular, has studied Sufi art and music. He has written about the so-called "sama'" debate in Islam and Sufism (more on that later, also).

I hardly knew anything about dargahs to begin with, however. I visited an associated shrine, much smaller, in Delhi during my first week. I posted some videos of that Qawwali, which I had also studied a little at Harvard in my courses, but after that I was absorbed into the world of the Sikhs in Punjab for some weeks. So, thinking I only needed a change of atmosphere (and religious fashion and hairstyle) I sent an email to my contact and departed south from Amritsar, via Jaipur, to arrive in Ajmer. Only later did I learn what people in many circles say about Ajmer: that one should only go when she or he has been 'called'. As I continue to talk about it in other posts, you can try to discern whether I had been truly 'called' or whether I went in defiance of this adage.