Islamic Mosque and tombs

Religion drop off. Three of us head to Nizamuddin which is an Islamic Sufi burial site. Getting out of the car we head down a narrow alley way that’s capped off. It felt like going back in time. Everyone was dressed in religious garb, beggars everywhere with some pretty horrific disfigurements—one guy looked like he picked up a landmine, missing an eye, fingers, and a foot. We gave a donation of a 100 rupees (the equivalent of about two dollars) to a food serving station and that alone was able to feed 10 homeless beggars. When we made it through the alley way we reached the burial site. Women weren’t allowed in but could view the tomb from the outside through the slits. I was the only one who went inside and paid my dues to this Sufi saint who died in the renaissance by tossing on these brilliant purple redish flowers on his tomb and while myself and others did this several men replaced the blankets which the flowers fell on in some sort of cycle out of respect. Lots of guys kissed the tomb and everyone prayed. Definitely had some good energy, the tomb was small and Guy-ji (our british physician, proclaimed atheist and husband of our professor, his name is just “Guy” but”ji” is added to the end of everyone’s name as a sign of respect in India) even commented on how powerful the area is, noting it is his favorite spiritual site in deli. I met back with the two girls who waited outside and then two sufi men who worked at the site brought us over with guy-ji to this “office” which was a small dwelling with books that look to be over a thousand years old but probably just appear that way due to how they’ve been treated.

This was cool as hell. They sat us down and told us all about the sufi sect of Islam, the site, the tombs, their beliefs, and other cool shit that was totally out of this world. Other than their cell phones and the discussion of their website if you took this scene back two thousand years ago you wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between now and then—crazy. After privately talking with these guys for about 25 minutes we visited the second tomb and then headed out. I saw a homeless lady wearing heavy ass rusted chains on her ankles and wrists with giant padlocks—intense. On the way back we were flooded with child beggars and they followed us for something like a hundred yards. We rode over in a jeep with a foot step and by the time we all got in the car there were about four kids on both sides with their faces up against the glass. As we rode back, people were selling random crap in the streets. One kid was selling tiny glass bongs that looked like crack pipes for smoking cigarettes, Guy-ji said that was a first for him as well.