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Rashid proves perfect fit for Iskcon

 

 

REUTERS [ MONDAY, JULY 15, 2002 12:06:20 PM ]

 

MUMBAI: Every day, just after dawn, Abdul Rashid walks to a grand Hindu

temple in suburban Mumbai to start a full day's work.

 

 

This isn't just another daily ritual of faith in a country where religion

dominates people's lives: Rashid is a Muslim tailor whose creations adorn

the statues of a worldwide chain of temples belonging to the International

Society of Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon), dedicated to Lord Krishna.

 

 

Nothing -- not even the recent religious carnage in Gujarat in which more

than 1,000 people, mostly Muslims, died -- has deterred Rashid.

 

 

He and his team of 20 are now working hard to assemble a line of

tinsel-and-sequin clothes for a grand festival on Krishna's birthday in

August.

 

 

"It brings me pain when people fight in the name of religion," said

52-year-old Rashid as he put finishing touches to a coat spun of gold thread

in the tailoring room of the temple in Mumbai.

 

 

"Why do we identify anyone as being a Hindu or a Muslim? We belong to one

country and we have to learn to live together."

 

 

Iskcon's saffron-clad devotees who shave their heads, but for a tiny

ponytail, believe in the scriptures found in one of the important holy

books, the Bhagwad Gita -- a philosophical treatise in verse in which

Krishna advises the warrior Arjuna on the battlefield.

 

 

The group, which started out 35 years ago with one temple in New York, now

has nearly 300 around the world, mainly in the United States, Britain,

Australia and India.

 

 

Silk and satin: Just weeks before the festival, Rashid and his team are hard

at work -- cutting and sewing silk and satin to make long skirts, blouses,

sarongs, shawls and halos for Krishna idols and those of several other Hindu

gods found in the Iskcon temples.

 

 

After 27 years in this line, Rashid said he had made thousands of dresses,

including the five grand outfits he sews every year for each of the 10 main

marble idols in the temple in Mumbai.

 

 

Each grand outfit, embellished with gold cords and artificial pearls, costs

about 30,000 rupees.

 

 

Temple authorities say Rashid sometimes worked all night to meet deadlines

before festivals, when the kohl-eyed idols are dressed in their finest

clothes.

 

 

On other days, the deities are dressed in simpler but nevertheless rich

attire. At night, they change into plainer "nightwear".

 

 

Rashid is married to a Hindu and both religions find expression in his home:

Posters depicting Krishna hang on the walls while the Koran, rests on a

table.

 

 

His parents and brothers, who live in Uttar Pradesh, were worried when he

migrated to Mumbai and took up the job many years ago.

 

 

"I assured them that my faith in this work was stronger. Nothing could go

wrong," he said.

 

 

"Call it a gift of God, Allah or Krishna. I feel in this job there's

honesty, a lot of satisfaction. It's a form of worship."

 

 

Working in harmony: Although it is common for Muslims and Hindus to work

together or run joint businesses in India, relations between the two

communities are sometimes tense, often erupting in clashes and killings.

 

 

Rashid blamed such events on "uneducated people with selfish motives up to

mischief".

 

 

"They create problems. If we behave responsibly there can never be trouble."

 

 

Devotees at the temple said they could never have got a better tailor to

outfit their idols.

 

 

"Rashid is like any of us. So what if he is a Muslim?" asked Swami

Ramarupadas, head "pujari" or priest, of Iskcon's Mumbai temple.

 

 

"He is a dedicated worker. He makes the finest embroidered clothes."

 

 

Despite the recent violence in Gujarat, India is has syncretic culture, said

Asghar Ali Engineer, a Muslim reformist who runs the Mumbai-based Centre for

Study of Society and Secularism.

 

 

"In most villages you can see that both communities are rooted in the same

culture, follow similar traditions and rituals," he said.