Akram Nabi shooed away the children who crowded around him as they did every evening during Ramzan. They grinned and clapped and teased him as he ran after them,now and then glancing at the minarets of the Jama Masjid,where the signal would soon be waved. Thats when Nabi would light the two 50-gram explosives stationed on the ground. Thousand wait for himin the large courtyard of the mosque with food in front of them,on the steps,and in their balconies,their ears straining to hear the boom. At 6:55 p.m.,the flag is waved. Nabi strikes the match,and the children back off. With the agility of a much younger man,the 65-year-old leaps to the golas,lights them,and with his ears covered,runs towards the trees. The light bulbs on the minarets come on. The muezzin calls out to the faithful to break their daylong fast. The hour has struck,the moon has shifted,and the golas have burst. From the smoke,the children emerge,coughing and dancing. Nabi emerges too,and walks tall,impressed with the boom that shook the rusty iron gates,and sent ripples through the puddles of rainwater. For 25 years,Nabi,electrician and chowkidar at the Jama Masjid,has been lighting the golas,a job that has earned him respect in his neighbourhood. Thousands wait for the sound of the cannons to break their fast. They rely on me, he says. Not everyone can do it. His son offered to do it once. But after one attempt,he gave up. Nabi himself has suffered injuries thrice while lighting the explosives. Ten years ago,when shards from the bomb hurt his left eye,he had to be rushed to hospital,bleeding. Then,he hurt his back and his right leg. When you light the gola,you need to get away within seconds,Nabi explains. Actually,in a wink, he says. Nabi lights the two explosives twice a daybefore sunrise,when Muslims observing the fast can have their meal,called saher,and at sundown before the iftar meal. When it rains,Nabi covers the golas in polythene bags and lights them. With the din of city life all around,the boom can now be heard in the lanes of Ballimaran and adjoining areas only in the quiet of the morning. This is why,in the 1940s,the Masjid committee started lighting bulbs at the prescribed moment on the tall minarets so people could see these from a distance and break their fast in the evening. The tradition of cannon fire during the month of Ramzan started during the reign of Shah Jahan. In those days,a cannon was stationed on the grounds surrounding the Masjid and the noise it made rang through miles. During British rule,during Bahadur Shah Zafars reign,the cannon was done away with. The tradition continued with explosives,but down the years,the size of the bombs got smaller. Shahi Imam Syed Ahmed Bukhari remembers visiting the mosque as a child,when a servant would take him to the lawns to watch the explosives go off. He would hold our hands,not letting us run free. We would cover our ears and sometimes get scared, he says. It is a tradition that has been passed on down the centuries. It is my responsibility to keep it alive now, says Nabi,walking towards the Masjid,as the beggars open their little packets of morsels on the steps.
