With the outset of the holy month of Ramadan, the month of the abundant blessings and devotion and to vigil the candle of blessings on set. In the quiet of the night, a Sahar Khawan hits the streets, beating his drum. He breaks the silence of the night, waking up the faithful to take their pre-dawn meals and keep the fast. The traditional way of waking up the faithful, sleepy people from their warm beds. In Kashmir, where everyonesuffered whether its art aspect or any else. Be in the same boat “SaharKhawan” (One who beats a drum and breaks the silence of the night). As we witnessed the scenario of the past few decades, psychological failure is common in Kashmir. It is a Saharkhawan who burns the candle of light for a long time in late night in the holy month of fasting Ramadan. One who works wholeheartedly in the evening, who tries to kill two birds with one stone? Two birds with one stone in the sense that one side it is a matter of good deed and sweeping the virtue board would be rewarded on the day of resurrection, and on another side, it is he, who puts his shoulder under the wheel for bread and butter.
Now a days , because of the invention of well developed instruments, equipment’s ,now it is difficult for SaharKhawans to keep body and soul together. The livelihood of these drum beaters is in a fix dilemma. Due to the weakness of faith and the advancement in the technology, the place of Sahar Khawans replaced and occupied by this day today gadgets like Mobile phones, ringing and electronic gadgets too. Let’s see the waking perspective by both ways I;e Gadgets and Drum beating. We can say a person who wakes up after an alarm can fall in sleep again but when a drum beats it is impossible to fall in sleep again. To cope with the dilemma, to comprehend the problem, to preserve the tradition, we must come together in favour and support of such tradition equally. We just need to change the mind-set of the next generation, then the old tradition of beating drums and wholeheartedly passion of “Dare-Devil” can be preserved.
(The author is currently a student of Mass Communication at Govt Degree College BaRAmulla . Views are his own [email protected])
