A Shrine of Hazrat Shah Kamal Awlia beside my Village

Video Taken and Written by Mohtarimun Nahar [Bipa]
Video Edited by Tarun Falia

There is a Shrine of Hazrat Shah Kamal Awlia [Awlia -- Muslim Saint] beside my village. The Shrine is situated in the Garohill District of Meghalaya Province in India. The name of the area is Dorgarpar. My village and Dorgarpar are thoroughly with the Bangladesh-India border. My village name is Digrirchor. It is situated in the Dewangonj Thana of Jamalpur District. You knew and saw pictures about my village in my previous article ‘Some Pictures of my Village’.

From my childhood I heard that --- many years ago twelve Muslim Saints came to India for proclaiming the Islam Religion from Yemen. Hazrat Shah Kamal Awlia is one of them. They used to proclaim Islam in different places of India.

The Shrine

All kinds of religious Bangladeshi people come to pray here. There is a prohibition by the both Governments to cross the border for both areas’ people. That’s why Bangladeshi people are to say their prayers from Bangladeshi area. They come in every Sunday and Thursday. In this time the poor people are given meals, cloths etc.

The place where Bangladeshi people come to say prayers, that is our land. People are allowed to use our land to see the Shrine from far and pray. Some villagers make another shrine here.

In every year from the second Sunday of Boisakh month [the first month of Bengali month] a Boisakhi fair is arranged in Dorgarpar. It stays for three Sunday. But there is a prohibition by the both Governments to cross the border. That’s why at a time another Boisakhi fair is arranged in Bangladesh on our land by the permission of the local administrators. It also stays for three Sunday from the second Sunday of Boisakh month. Both sides’ people hold this festival with a lot of enjoyment.

People come to pray for many reasons. Some pray for good result, some pray for getting cure from any disease etc. They get a mental pleased that their prayer may be granted and fulfilled. People believe it for many days.

I also heard that some times wild elephants come to eat crops in Bangladeshi area from the hill. Then they destroy many lands, houses etc. A very few people were killed by the wild elephants. The funny thing is that those elephants never destroyed those areas which are beside the Shrine. And good qualities of crops grow on those lands. People believe that it happens only for being the shrine.

At present a very skilful direction by a good local committee of our area, the extent of the shrine is increasing day by day. In future the committee will try to give good service on our land. Different kinds of religious people come to pray here. There should be a good arrangement of seats, rooms, toilet etc.