A 'mazaar' for Valentines in Varanasi

Varanasi, Feb 13: The city famous for its mystical charm also houses a 'mazaar' (tomb) that blesses eternal love to valentines grappling to overcome hurdles on the road of romance.

Come Valentine Day tomorrow and ''love-birds'' will visit 'Ashiq-Mashooq' mazaar in Siddhgiri Bag locality here with red roses and white 'barfis' (sweets) to offer prayers at the remains of a couple revered as icons of unflinching love among Muslims of the city.

''Most devout coming to this 350-year-old mazaar are youth seeking heavenly intervention to save their love from the vagaries of society,'' opined Mohd Farid Shah (35), the caretaker of the Ashiq-Mashooq mazaar cum mosque, housing the graves of Mohd Yusuf Shah and his beloved Mariam.

While other mazaars in the city are frequented by devout to address diverse problems, those coming to this tomb largely consider it as the last resort to salvage their troubled love life, he added.

Be it Soni-Javed, Pradip-Simran or Sunil-Zahida whose 'arzis' (requests) for marital bliss to their love life dangles through the porch covering the graves or girls and boys already engaged and praying for blissful wedding life to even love-lorn couples seeking resuscitation of their nuptial bond, this is one place which holds promise of eternal love to romantic at hearts.

But what makes love doves assured about the fulfillment of their romantic 'mannat'. History of the tomb seems to hold the answer.

Three and half decades ago, Mohd Yusuf Shah, the strapping son of an Iranian merchant came to the holy city and at a monsoon fair fell in love with Mariam, a local blue-eyed lass, narrated Farid, the tomb caretaker.

Mariam's relatives, however, intercepted the scent of love and subsequently she was forced to a relative's house at Ramnagar across the Ganga river.

Distraught by Mariam's absence, Yusuf took to Ramnagar and while stepping down from the boat at the riverside he spotted Mariam's housemaid, who jocularly told that one of Mariam's prized 'jootis had somehow strayed in the river and if the Iranian hunk truly loved her he would certainly bring it back.

The joke, however, turned to be a command for Yusuf who swiftly jumped into the river for her beloved's jooti, but drowned in the mighty Ganga. Hearing about her lover's fatality, Mariam broke all barriers to plunge into the same river only to undergo the deadly fate.

Days later, the Ashiq-Mashooq were found dead but nestled with each other near the world famous Ramnagar Fort housing the royal family of Banaras, summed up Farid with a glint of reverence for the love legends in his eyes.

The duo were buried at this very graveyard which later became a heaven for love doves, as forecasted by Yusuf's merchant father whose couplets in Persian, describing Yusuf-Mariam as the greatest lovers of Banaras seems as fresh as the roses adorning the twin graves.

Every eleventh day of lunar calendar 'egyarahwafat' marks the 'urs' of the romantic icons worshipped by valentines carrying roses and white barfis -- cherished most by the eternal Ashiq and Mashooq, whose 'roohs' (sould) are believed to meet here every night.

UNI