{"id":4202,"date":"2020-05-22T15:15:20","date_gmt":"2020-05-22T09:45:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/?p=4202"},"modified":"2020-05-22T15:17:10","modified_gmt":"2020-05-22T09:47:10","slug":"children-fundraisers-of-kashmir","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/point-of-view\/kashmir-talk\/children-fundraisers-of-kashmir\/","title":{"rendered":"Children Fundraisers Of Kashmir"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/fb:like>\n

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Author<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stories about the thirties, in our childhood, were not that\nold. Every elder in the family had a story to tell about one or the other\nmartyr of July 31,  1931, buried just\nthree hundred yards from our house. They remembered stories of the movement\nagainst the Maharaja like textbook lessons. \nEven an old small earthen pitcher painted green had a story to tell\nabout fundraising for the movement against the monarchy its discriminatory rule.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The pitcher often made my mother nostalgic; she remembered\nhow every day she used to put a fistful of rice in it and at month\u2019s end, Abdul\nAziz, a volunteer of the Muslim Conference, collected it from our home and\nother homes in our Mohalla. This unique method of fundraising not only helped\nin sustaining the political movement but also strengthened people\u2019s\nparticipation in it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many other elders in our Mohalla had their own stories to\ntell about collecting donations for the movement on all religious festivals.\nSome political workers boasted of collecting bagsful of copper coins and silver\nrupee coins with King Edward\u2019s image embossed on them on two Eids in the Eidgah\nor during Urs-Nabi, celebrations on the birth anniversary of Prophet Mohammad\nat the Hazratbal.    In our childhood\nalso, organizations like the Plebiscite Front launched a door-to-door campaign\nfor raising funds for their organization- those were truly people\u2019s movements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Looking back, I remember in our childhood we also got our\nquota of training in fundraising that helped us as young men in launching\nstudent and other organizations. I see the tradition of Hupa-Hupa, that was at\nits best during our childhood as our first training in raising funds. I have no\nidea about the history of this tradition. Nonetheless,  tradition does have some resemblance with\nHalloween a yearly celebration observed in many Europe countries and America.\nIt cannot be said with certainty if like some other children game like\nhopscotch this tradition has also come to Kashmir along with travellers. \u2018On\nthe holy nights of Shab-i-Barat and Shaba-i-Qaadar we used to go from door to\ndoor crying full throat Hupa-Hupa Tumuli-Shupa- slogan asking a winnower full\nof rice. The robust amongst the boys carried a gunny bag on their back and\ncollected rice in them.\u2019 The boys were at their poetic best in coining slogans\nfor raising money for nightlong celebrations. Some of the slogans like \u2018Onien-ta-Onien Asi Ga\u2019chi Chonan\u2019,\nOupa-ta-oupa Asi Ga\u2019chi Double Rupa\u2019<\/em>, decades after these unique slogans\nfor collecting coins of four annas and one rupee denominations continue to live\nin my memory. Many of us had mastered the art of persuading the rich and poor\nto cough up good money as donations for our nightlong celebrations. After\ncollecting money first big task for all children were buying earthen lamps from\npotters at Khanyar locality, then making wicks from small rolls of cotton and\nputting oil in the lamps. I remember, we equidistantly placed these lamps on\nthe walls of the Masjids and hospices in our Mohalla and lighted them at night.\nAt night, we also cooked food in big cauldrons, besides eating ourselves we\ndistributed it amongst the devotees visiting various hospices and astanas\nduring the holy nights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This training in fundraising as children later in life\nhelped my friends and me in setting up a study circle and a library in our\nlocality. I remember, four or five of us in our late teens sitting on a shop\nfront and listening film songs from the \u2018halqa radio\u2019, as the radio sets with\nloudspeakers installed by the pro one day decided to set up a study circle in\nour Mohalla and raising funds for it. Next day, going from shop to shop we\nstarted fundraising- and within a few days, we were able to set up a library in\nour locality\u2026.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n<\/fb:like><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author<\/p>\n

Stories about the thirties, in our childhood, were not that
\nold. Every elder in the family had a story to tell about one or the other
\nmartyr of July 31,  1931, buried just
\nthree hundred yards from our house. They remembered stories of the movement
\nagainst the Maharaja like textbook lessons. 
\nEven an old small earthen pitcher painted green had a story to tell
\nabout fundraising for the movement against the monarchy its discriminatory rule.<\/p>\n

The pitcher often made my mother nostalgic; she remembered
\nhow every day she used to put a fistful of rice in it and at month\u2019s end, Abdul
\nAziz, a volunteer of the Muslim Conference, collected it from our home and
\nother homes in our Mohalla. This unique method of fundraising not only helped
\nin sustaining the political movement but also strengthened people\u2019s
\nparticipation in it. <\/p>\n

Many other elders in our Mohalla had their own stories to
\ntell about collecting donations for the movement on all religious festivals.
\nSome political …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2930,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[5,319],"tags":[382,163,381],"class_list":["post-4202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-kashmir-talk","category-memeiors","tag-children-of-resistance","tag-z-g-muhamamd","tag-zgmkashmir-children"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4202"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4203,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4202\/revisions\/4203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peacewatchkashmir.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}