When 1984 dawned many feared the portents foretold by George Orwell in his famous book. There was a flurry of religious activity, which involved people of all religions. The street-hectors of Jama Masjid gave up shoplifting, knife fights and eve-teasing to repent for past actions and offered namaz at least twice a day.
Their evenings were not spent in front of local cinema houses but at the shrines of four saints – Bhure Shah, right under the walls of the Red Fort; Kalimullah Sahib, just across the road; the twin mazars of Hare Bhare and Sarmad, and Shaheed below the steps of the Jama Masjid. Their fear was goaded by the mistaken belief that humankind was going to be enslaved so that the devil could get even with God.
However, their newly-acquired pieties encouraged others too, as the Imam Sahib reported improved attendance at all the five namaz offered at his mosque. How the juvenile delinquents got to know of Orwell and his book was never reasonably explained. But one version was that it had been inspired by a conversation between one of them and a student of a school near More Sarai Church. The girl had predicted dire happenings and the message had spread by word of mouth.
But on Seema Sharma, who lived in Bengali market, and her classmates in Jesus & Mary College, Orwell's prophecy had a milder reaction. She accompanied her parents to Vaishno Devi on a trip that became memorable because of two narrow escapes, one on the road to the shrine and the other one while trekking to the holy cave. On their way back the pilgrims visited Har-Ki-Pauri in Haridwar and watched the Ganga aarti , which made Seema's hair stand on end with ecstasy.
When she rejoined college her Catholic friends told her that they had planned to observe the vigil of St. Agnes, the patron saint of unmarried girls. Seema, in turn, told her mother about it, who replied there was no problem in observing the vigil provided she observed one for the Devi also. After that was over, Seema was free for the other vigil.
Now this one is observed every year on January 20 when winter is at its severest. The next day is the feast or martyrdom day of St. Agnes, a virgin saint who was killed by the Romans in 200 A.D. So on the 20th, Seema and her five friends met at the house of their English Literature classmate Sheila D'cruz and spent the day fasting and reading about the life of St. Agnes (as described by Keats in his famous poem).
They prayed that through her intercession they might dream that night of their future husbands. It was 9 o'clock when the friends left for their homes. They had to retire to bed “supper-less”, as per the ritual. They feigned a headache or tummy ache to miss dinner and off they went to sleep.
The next morning when they met in college they asked each other if anyone had dreamt as believed. Only two of them had – and in both cases it was of film actors famous in those days. They had a hearty laugh, shaking their heads in disbelief. But Sheila came out with the best answer; probably their intentions were not as pious as they should have been.
It all happened 26 years ago but my new neighbour, Seema, has not forgotten about the two vigils she had kept – one for the Devi and the other for the virgin saint. She disclosed this last week at a wedding reception on the cold evening of January 20 at a banquet hall in Beriwala Bagh.
Incidentally, Ali the leader of the Jama Masijd gang, after working as a mechanic for several years, went back to his native village in Bihar, some 100km from Motihari, where plans are underway to renovate the ancestral house of George Orwell, author of “1984”.
