Hazrat Babajan was a Baloch Muslim saint. Considered by her followers as a "Sadguru" or a "Qutub", she was from Afghanistan but lived the final 25 years of her life in Pune. The earliest recorded account of Hazrat Babajan, who was named at birth Gulrukh, “Face like a Rose”, states that she “is the daughter of one of the ministers of the Amir of Afghanistan”. Later accounts report that Babajan “hails from Afghanistan … and was the daughter of a well-to-do Afghan of noble lineage”; “born to a royal Muslim family" of Baluchistan. Following the conventions of Afghan nobility, Babajan was reared under the strict purdah tradition, in which women were secluded from the outside world, and also subservient to a custom of arranged marriages. She opposed an unwelcome marriage planned for her, and ran away from home on her wedding day at the age of eighteen. Disguised in her burqa, she journeyed to Peshawar, the frontier city at the foot of the Khyber Pass. It was in or near Peshawar that she eventually came into contact with a Hindu sadguru. Following instruction from the guru, “she went into seclusion in a nearby mountain outside Rawalpindi and underwent very severe [riyazat] (spiritual austerities) for nearly seventeen months. Thereafter she came down to [the] Punjab and stayed a few months in Multan. It was in Multan, while [Babajan] was 37 years of age, she contacted a Muslim saint … who put end to her spiritual struggle by giving her God-realisation.” After that experience she returned to Rawalpindi to reconnect with the Hindu guru who, after several years, helped her return to normal consciousness. By 1905 Babajan arrived in Pune, where she established her final residence. In 1930, several months before Babajan died, then journalist Paul Brunton visited her. He wrote, “She lies, in full view of passers-by, upon a low divan. . . Her head is propped by pillows. The lustrous whiteness of her silky hair offers sad contrast to the heavily wrinkled face and seamed brow.” The meeting was brief. Yet Brunton was clearly emotionally affected, and afterwards, in his hotel room, he reflected: “That some deep psychological attainment really resides in the depths of her being, I am certain.” On September 18, 1931, one of Babajan’s fingers was operated on at Sassoon Hospital, but afterwards she did not appear to be recovering. According to one version, a few days before she died, Babajan muttered, “It is time … time for me to leave now. The work is over … I must close the shop.” One of the devotees pleaded, “Do not say such things Babajan, we need you with us.” But she cryptically replied, “Nobody, nobody wants my wares. Nobody can afford the price. I have turned my goods over to the Proprietor.” Hazrat Babajan died in the Char Bawdi section of Pune on September 21, 1931. On Wednesday, September 23, The Evening News of India reported her death. The newspaper article informed that the “Muslim community in [Pune] has been greatly moved by the death of the famous saint…. Her funeral yesterday … was very largely attended with thousands of people both Muslims and Hindus taking part in the procession.” The white marble dargah (shrine) of Babajan was built alongside the neem tree under which she had sat for so many years, by the roadside which is now a busy thoroughfare. “It is a small one roomed dargah with the turbat [grave] placed under a tree. The trunk of the tree emerges through the rooftop.” Her dargah is frequented by people of all religions.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Jul 2013 13:32:44 +0000