KARACHI: “What happened in Orangi on Sunday is sad but that doesn’t mean that we should stop giving niaz during Muharram. Life and death is in the hands of God,” said Rizwan Iqbal, who stood near several boiling haleem cauldrons in Saddar on Monday night.

“Is the wood moist? Why is all this smoke?” Someone called out from behind him and another volunteer came forward to check the heat and pull out a few logs in order to lower the fire under the cauldrons.

The haleem is cooked every year on the 9th and 10th of Muharram to be distributed for free in the name of God. As in several neighbourhoods all over the city, and even the country for that matter, many people are involved in the practice.

Know more: A dying tradition

“As little children, we used to go around the neighbourhood with a chador spread out for donations for our sabeel from where we used to offer refreshments to passers-by. Now we go around collecting for the Ashura haleem,” the young man smiled and said.

“There are various people in the neighbourhood who always donate. Some shop owners and other business owners here also give us money for the purpose. That with our own efforts has made it possible for us to prepare a dozen cauldrons of haleem today. The cook of a hotel nearby is supervising the cooking as we assist him,” his friend Saquib Javed said.

The men were paying Rs900 rent per cauldron and the wood they said they bought in Lines Area for about Rs700 per 40kg. “The total expenditure is about Rs150,000,” said Mr Iqbal.

“When the haleem is ready, the imam of Memon Masjid, the nearby mosque, will come over to offer Fateha in the morning after which we will start distributing the niaz, Inshallah!” said Mr Javed.

Meanwhile although it is said that haleem is the most common niaz offered during the Muharram days as it is in the tradition of Hazrat Imam Hussain, who is said to have mixed all the food available with various people at Karbala to make a sort of kichhra (rice and lentils dish), not all prepare haleem today.

Kamran Quraishi and his family and friends were making preparations for a spicy beef biryani. “Well, we thought that biryani is easier to prepare than haleem so we have been cooking and giving away biryani each year for some 22 years now,” said the gentleman, who had just finished peeling potatoes with a few kids for some 19 cauldrons of the rice dish before tossing them into a big steel tub full of water.

A big fat bull stood tied to a streetlight pole at the end of the street. “That’s where the beef is coming from,” Mr Quraishi gestured towards the animal which at the moment was getting a lot of loving attention from the children around it.

The biryani cook who introduced himself as Lal Mohammad had been specially called in from Lyari. “We’ll slaughter the bull at around 11pm tonight and the biryani should be ready around noon tomorrow,” the cook said.

“Our total expenditure is around Rs125,000 and we didn’t have to go door to door for donations as we do this from our own pocket,” Mr Quraishi said.

All the men busy preparing the food and supervising said that they belonged to the Sunni sect. “Well, usually it is the Sunnis doing all this roadside niaz as most Shias are too busy in their religious activities and majalis.

“But what we cook is offered to everyone never mind what sect he or she belongs to. We also have a couple of Hindu neighbours and several Christian families here who simply relish our biryani,” pointed out Mr Quraishi.

Asked if anyone around had decided to give up the idea of cooking niaz after the cracker attack on a haleem party in Orangi Town on Sunday that left some 17 people wounded, Mr Quraishi only shook his head. “Leave alone this, you cannot do anything in life if you are deterred or scared by such little efforts of ill will by a bunch of cowards.”

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2014