'Dastaan' of Karbala binds all with grief

LUCKNOW: The Lakhnau where Hindus joined Muslims in Muharram rituals. The Avadh where a Hindu paan-wala would avoid using catechu on Ashura day lest on the mourning day mouths get coloured red.The Lucknow where more than 50 Hindu marsiya-nigars (poets who write elegies on Imam Husain and the tragedy of Karbala) were born were all brought back on Sunday evening at the Imambara Sibtainabad in the presence of people of all faiths.
As Lucknow's first modern dastaango (story-teller) Himanshu Bajpai started reciting the sacrifice of Imam Husain's son, Janab-e-Ali-Akbar's martyrdom from excerpts of Ismat Chughtai's novel `Ek Qatra Khoon` interspersed with verses of Meer Anis's marsiya as `Bayan-eShahadat-e-Ali Akbar', even the Hindu patrons were aggrieved by the tragedy of Karbala.
“I had never understood why people cried over an incident that took place centuries ago but now, I can feel the emotions,“ said Saumya Kumar, clinical psychologist, for whom it was the first time to be a part of a congregation on Karbala.