The Sufi dargah is situated just behind the premises of the crafts museum in New Delhi. Over 800 years old, the shrine belongs to the Qalander silsila of Sufism. It predates the shrine of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, who, it is believed, came to pay respects to the saint Hazrat Sheikh Abu Bakr Tulshi Haideri Kalandari Rahmatullah, buried at this shrine. According to the present head caretaker of Hazrat Nizamuddin, Khwaja Hasan Nizami Sani, the maintenance of the shrine was supervised by the Nizamuddin shrine until the 20th century.

The shrine of Matka Pir stands atop a small hillock. At the entrance leading to the hill, there are shops selling offerings, especially matkas. Earthen clay water pitchers hang on tall keekar tress.

For my walks, I make it a point to invite Pir Mohammed Naseem, the caretaker of the shrine as an ‘actor’ in the production—he takes great pride in narrating oral history. He is usually surrounded by large number of ‘patients’, who come to him for barkat—blessings—for solutions to their worldly problems and to exorcise evil djinns, which he does by giving them verses to chant, or talismans to wear.

The Pir begins his narrative in a theatrical fashion, “A traveller suffering from an incurable skin disease came to the baba, asking for water and blessings. Soon after, he returned to the dargah, completely cured. People started thronging the dargah to seek the blessings of the Pir to solve their problems. Sultan Balban was keen to test the powers of the Pir. He sent him a platter full of iron balls and mud. The Pir covered the plate and started praying. After a while when he lifted the cover, he found that the iron balls had turned into roasted gram and the mud into gur (jaggery). The baba then mixed part of the gur with gram and water (which then changed into sweet milk). Even today the ritual offerings include roasted chanas, gur and milk in matkas. The baba came to be known as Baba Matka.”

Sufi Khwaja Hasan Nizami Sani of Hazrat Nizamuddin, the head caretaker of the Nizamuddin shrine, told me that his father advised the caretaker of the shrine to hang the pots on the keekar trees to deal with the huge number of matkas left in the premises. A scheme for waste management was transformed into a sacred ritual for wish fulfillment.

Khwaja Hasan Nizami Sani told me yet another anecdote of oral history. The year 1912 was marked by the Delhi-Lahore conspiracy case in which an attempt was made to assassinate Viceroy Lord Hardinge on the occasion of the transfer of the capital of the British from Calcutta to New Delhi. Luckily, the Viceroy who was sitting on an elephant, escaped unhurt but his mahout was killed.

A few weeks ago before the attempt, his father Khwaja Hasan Nizami, acting on sheer intuition had written an article in a newspaper, warning of a threat to Hardinge’s life. Khwaja Sahib was arrested on suspicion of involvement in the conspiracy but was later released. Lady Hardinge came personally to the Khwaja for his forewarning and sought his blessings. In return she was instrumental in preventing the demolition of the shrine of Matka Pir when a road was built.