KURUMBAWADA:  People of Kurumbawada, a village in Maharashtra, less than 5 km from Belagavi district in Karnataka, grew up celebrating Hindu and Muslim festivals with the same enthusiasm. The village has over 150 Muslim families and 200 Hindu families.

Haridas Koli and Javed Kalamba claim that they were surprised when they were told that they followed different religions simultaneously. They did not believe when they were told that Ganesha Chaturthi is a Hindu festival and Muharram is considered a sacred month only by Muslims.

“We keep the idol in Muharram Khana, a place which is used by the Muslims during Muharram. If a Muslim is conducting the aarti, he also chants the Hindu shlokas. Even we know verses from the Quran,” says Haridas, who is a farmer by profession.| Javed says that every religion propagates peace and brotherhood and that his village is a model that shows that people of different religions can live without any quarrels. The people of the village celebrate most of the Hindu and Muslim festivals together, and they are gearing up for Bakrid, which falls a day after the day of the mahaprasad.

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SHIVRAJPUR: Aneesh Quereshi, his wife and three children have been performing the puja of the elephant-headed deity for last five years at their Shivrajpur village home in Gujarat’s Panchmahal district.

Shivrajpur village sarpanch Kanubhai Soni said, “This has set up a unique example of brotherhood and communal amity. The Hindu people staying in the village visit Quereshi’s home for darshan at the time of aarti and puja of the idol.”

Deputy sarpanch Satish Sharma said the celebration has been going on in their village, having a population of nearly 5,000, with a lot of camaraderie between the two communities. Almost whole of the village participates along with Quereshi in the immersion of idol in Dhadhar river every year, he added.

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RAJASTHAN: A three-day festival is organised at the Dargah of Narhar – also known as Dargah of Sharif Hazrat Hajib Shakarbar – situated near Chirawa in Jhunjhunu district, about 200 km from Jaipur. “This festival is being organised here for the last 300-400 years and people of all communities come here. A main aim of this celebration is to promote Hindu-Muslim brotherhood,” said dargah secretary Usman Ali Pathan.

People from many states including Maharashtra, Bihar, Delhi, Haryana, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh visit the dargah during the festival. “Thousands of Hindus come here and offer flowers, chadar, coconut and sweets in the shrine,” he said. Over 400 shops come up in the vicinity during the festival time. Qawalis, skits and dance dramas are organised on the night of Janmashtami, similar to the ones held in temples.

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India is a land of festivals, where often people from different communities and religions come together to celebrate festivities irrespective of their faith or community. Spreading love, compassion and harmony — the festive season can often be the force that brings people closer beyond faith, and this year – like many others – we have witnessed some beautiful examples.

Muslims around the world and in India celebrated the important Eid al-Adha on Saturday. But when heavy rainfall stalled Eid celebrations in Uttarakhand, people from the Sikh community came forward. The Muslims in Joshimath were unable to offer namaz on the holy day at Gandhi Maidan in town, instead, so they prayed inside a gurudwara instead.

Mumbai Police too shared another heartwarming image of Hindu-Muslim communities celebrating two festivals – Eid and Ganesh Chaturthi – together in the city. Tweeting out a photo of Muslim devotees offering namaz in a Ganpati mandap, they highlighted “the essence of Mumbai” at Ganesh Murti Nagar, Cuffe Parade.

A similar scene was noticed in Gujarat. To spread the message of communal harmony, for the first time a Ganpati pandal was erected next to Bala Pir Shrine near Udhna Darwaja at Navsari Bazar in Surat. Members of the Hindu community celebrating the Ganesh Chaturthi were seen wishing Eid Mubarak to their Muslim brethren on Bakrid.

On the holy occasion of Bakrid, a few Muslim women were seen performing aarti at a Ganpati mandap in Mumbai. To celebrate the Supreme Court’s historic ruling on Triple Talaq, the women from Sion Koliwada offered obeisance to Lord Ganesha.

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Iftar held in Hindu temple

KERALA: The Lakshmi Narasimhamurthy Vishnu Temple, in Punnathala, invited Muslims for a vegetarian iftar party. Some 500 Muslims, including men women and children from the area, attended the iftar. As unusual as it sounds, the temple authorities held the iftar as a token of appreciation to the members of the Muslim community, who had contributed to the restoration of the century-old temple. The Iftar was a part of the week-long Punaprathishta (restoration) of the idol and Naveekarana Kalasham (renovation) at the temple. The restoration ceremony which began on Monday will conclude on Sunday.

Cherusseri Unnikrishnan, the temple committee president said that the people of the village live like a family and religion has never come between as a dividing factor.He also recalled that not just financial contribution, youths from Muslim community had joined hands with the Hindus during the restoration works.

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Kush & Faizal, roomates of different faiths

DELHI: Kush Kumar Singh, a doctor by profession, is Faizal’s flatmate. Strangers to each other until a few years ago, the two have been sharing the space for the last three years. In Gaffar Manzil, a predominately Muslim colony, Faizal underlined, “There is only one Kush, one Hindu resident. So most people know about him.”

There is also a larger reality that Faizal pointed out – Hindus and Muslims may form the two largest constituents of the country’s citizenry, but they rarely live as neighbours, let alone sharing a roof. This is particularly true in North India.

“Living in a Muslim colony for the last three years,” he said, “has not made me less of a Hindu but it has certainly made me open up to Muslims. It helped my neighbours to open up too. Just as I have never lived among Muslims, they also have never lived with a Hindu. So there are perceived notions about each other.”

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Muslims organize Hindu funeral procession

MALDA: A group of Muslim youths took the body of Biswajit Rajak, 35, a Hindu who died on Monday, to the crematorium and even chanted the name of Hari (equivalent of Ram Naam Satya Hai) following the Hindu tradition. They carried his body on their shoulders for a distance of 3 kms to the crematorium, and performed all the traditional Hindu rituals including consigning the ashes to the nearby river and taking a dip in the river after the cremation.

Rajak’s family is are so poor that they could not pay the crematorium and associated charges. When his family could not arrange his cremation on Tuesday, villagers gathered at his house and requested Biswajit’s father Nagen Rajak to allow them to cremate his son. Even the moulavi of the local mosque also went to the crematorium. The Muslim neighbors paid the money necessary for his last rites. The Rajaks are one of the two Hindu families in the village of about 6,000 residents.

“The common people are not really bothered. Helping a family in distress and chanting some Hindu names can’t take away my religion,” said Ayesh Ali, a villager who participated in the last rites. The Muslim neighbours of Rajak also paid for his treatment and arranged to send him to a hospital in Kolkata.

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Mandir abhishekam

JAMMU & KASHMIR: From Muslims cleaning up and organising puja at a temple to 1,000 specially-designed ‘Herath’ greeting cards, this Shivratri Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims bonded and reached out to each other, with social media providing a rare platform to relive past memories.

“We have decided to clean up the premises of the temple for the Pandits. We want them to perform puja with all reverence and without any sense of insecurity,” said Rashid Dar, a local.

“I miss water-soaked walnuts that Pandits would offer to Muslims in neighbourhood. For ‘salam’, I would visit Pandits the next day after herath,” recalled Ashraf Kishoo on Facebook.

“Around 1,000 greeting cards were delivered to Pandit families. The card highlights the poetry of Lal Ded, equally revered by Muslims and Pandits. It carries the picture of a stone temple of Mansbal that was restored with the help of locals. The idea is highlight the rich culture the State has nurtured for centuries,” Works Minister and government spokesman Nayeem Akhtar said.

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Amarnath, a sacred site that draws large numbers of Hindus

AMARNATH: Defying curfew restrictions on Wednesday, local Muslims risked their lives to rescue the Amarnath Yatra pilgrims injured in a road accident on Jammu-Srinagar National Highway No.1 A and carried them to hospitals.

The driver of the mini-bus carrying the pilgrims died of injuries after the vehicle met an accident near Bijbehara town in Anantnag district.

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