Cauvery Basin: The healing powers of Nagore Dargah

I set off to the town of Nagore excited about seeing the funeral shrine (dargah) of Hazrat Shahul Hamid (1491-1570) which is so famed for its healing powers that Indians of all religions come and are made welcome. Tamil biographies of the Muslim saint's life are filled with miracles that occurred both during and after his lifetime. When I arrived at the once famous port it had unseasonably poured with rain in the night. The streets were rivers which the pilgrims had to wade through and the five white minarets were grey from the downpour.

The tomb, with beautiful domed arches and doors covered in sheets of embossed silver and gold, was built with money from the Maratha rulers of Thanjavur and prominent Muslims of Nagapattinam. The land was given to the saint during his life time by Shevappa Nayaka in gratitude for curing his son. Inside the bare pillared room of the shrine the smell hit me, a sharp odour of medicinal disinfectant and the stale breath of the sick. Then I heard the children crying and under it were the sobs of adults, along with the repetitive pleas of the prayers being sung.

At the back was a corridor with glass frames hung on the walls in which were assortments of broken glass, hair, and rusty nails with a name and date underneath. A man told me "This is what we have taken out. The bad spirits that were making them sick." Obvious really, if I had thought about it, that the saint's fame for healing would summon, not just the devout, but the desperate.