Will It Be Filter Or Non-Filter?

Long queues outside a dargah or temple, for instance, is not an uncommon sight. But waiting outside a cemetery? Well, come any Thur­sday, on the outskirts of Lucknow, an unusual sight occurs: hordes of people waiting to get into the cemetery and to the grave of a British army officer. The said army captain, Fredrick Wale, was slain in the uprising of 1857-58 by revolting Indian sepoys in a skirmish near Moosa Bagh, a country home used by the British on the banks of the Gomati river. The 23-year-old was buried there, an epitaph put on his cemetery in a remote corner of the Moosa Bagh palace. The palace is now in ruins, but over the years, Wale has begun to be referred to as ‘Gora Baba’, the one who has answers to people’s problems.

Gora Baba, however, is offered none of the usual—its cigarettes and whisky that rule here. “I have been coming to this ‘mazaar’ every Thursday for over two years now. He cured my aunt of an ailment that was described as incurable by top medical experts,” says 32-year-old Gaurav Gupta, who offered two cigarettes at the grave a few Thursdays ago. He inserted the cigarettes in a crack on the 8x8 ft structure that forms the tomb. “Smoking here is a different experience and I feel ecstatic when I take a few puffs before offering my cigarette on this mazaar.” His aunt, now fully well, has turned a believer too, and is also a regular visitor.

Forty-year-old Phoolmati is another in the tribe. “I owe my teenage son’s life to Gora Baba, who brought him back from the jaws of death after he came under the spell of an evil spirit.” The woman isn’t a smoker, but doesn’t hesitate in lighting a cigarette before offering it to the late army captain. Once a month, she even shells out dosh for a quart of liquor. “It makes Gora Baba happy, after all he was an armyman,” she adds with a chuckle.

According to 75-year-old Kesri Khalifa, self-proclaimed manager of the cemetery, “This place draws men, women and children of all ages, cutting across caste and creed.” Like 67-year-old Ramesh Chan­dra Sharma, a retired railway employee, who travels 20 km to visit the grave every Thursday. “Gora Baba bailed me out of a serious mess I had got into during my days as a technician in the railway workshop,” he says. Gora Baba zindabad, we say.