Holy Land

We moved to Mumbai in 2001. We lived in an apartment building located down a narrow road from Santacruz railway station. There were about 20 flats in the apartment. In the evenings, kids would hang out within the rectangular perimeter around the apartment block. It was spacious enough for the younger kids to run around without bothering us teenagers who would sit around and talk, pretending to be grown-up.

There was a mosque opposite our apartment. Its loudspeaker faced our bedroom window. The azaan was startlingly loud when we first moved into that apartment. Over time I got so used to it that I could sleep through the call to morning prayers.

On Friday afternoons, devotees would take over the apartment grounds to offer namaz. This was a long-standing arrangement between the mosque and the apartment’s mostly Hindu residents. The mosque was too small and the road was too narrow to accommodate all those who came to pray. So, for about three hours every Friday afternoon they sat down and prayed within the boundaries of our apartment block.

In February 2002, religious riots broke out in Gujarat. Mumbai had seen violent Hindu-Muslim riots in 1992 and following the events in Gujarat, a tense, watchful atmosphere enveloped Mumbai. Schools were closed and those who could stayed home fearing a spillover of violence from the neighboring state.

Our apartments’ residents’ association met with representatives from the mosque, a meeting most likely facilitated by the neighborhood residents' committee. The maulvi assured them “yeh hamare liye pak zameen hai, aap befikr rahein”…don’t worry [about safety], your apartment is holy land for us.

Mumbai remained largely peaceful in 2002 and there was no violence in our neighborhood. The city exhaled and returned to its regular pace and our apartment continued to offer its grounds for Friday prayers.

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This memory resurfaced after I read a news report about a Gurudwara committee that offered space for namaz to the Muslim community in Gurugram.