For 70 year old Mustaq Ahmed and his 60 year old wife, Sunday was Allah’s blessing as they were about to leave for their first Haj Yatra. “Had my elder son not suggested and supported us financially, it was impossible to think of turning my once in a lifetime Haj tour in reality,” Mustaq said.
The aged couple who reached Haj House on Sunday afternoon from Koderma were among the 234 passengers departing for the first round trip to Saudi Arabia’s Jeddah city from Ranchi. At around 11:15pm, the airbus of White Airways left with these pilgrims for Jeddah. After reaching Jeddah in six and half hours, passengers will be taken to Mecca (the holy shrine of Islam religion) within two and half hours.
Haj is the largest gathering of people in the world every year and one of the five pillars of Islam, a religious duty that must be carried out by every able-bodied Muslim who can afford to do so at least once in his or her lifetime.
like Ahmed and his wife, 61 year old MD Ilias Ansari with his 51 year old spouse Kaniz Fatma from Dhanbad also gathered at Haj House. Ansari retired from Damodar Valley Corporation last year. Since then, he had been saving money for this religious experience. His three well-educated young daughters and son had come all the way from Dhanbad to bid them goodbye.
Sharing the satisfaction of children’s company in this journey, Kaniz said, “My youngest daughter after doing her graduation in Computer Engineering was working at a private firm in Chennai. But, resigned from her job when she heard of our plan to visit Mecca as there would be no one to look after the home affairs until we comeback. Inspite of our advices for not quitting the job, she preferred coming here. We are proud to have such a loyal daughter.”
The same joy was seen on the face of this couple’s children as well. “We are glad that our parents can abide the responsibility of being a true Islam with this once in a lifetime holy visit. There is nothing more pleasing than bringing smiles to their faces at this age of life,” said N Rehman, the son of this Ansari family.
Adding more to this offspring encouragement to parents for Haj, Dhanbad based retired school teacher MD Ishaq accompanied by his wife Fareeda Khatun who too left for this tour were in happy mood as their lifelong savings was finally invested for a noble deed. Ishaq’s son Parvez Alam, a first year engineering student who came to drop his parents here proudly said, “Dil mei Jasba hona chahiye agar Haj par jana hain toh (You should be refilled with enthusiasm if you want to go for Haj).”
From Haj House these people were brought to the Birsa Munda airport by 7pm where Chief Minister Hemant Soren waved them bye. After checking in and other required formalities at the airport, the first flight left safely for Jeddah. State Haj Committee members were also present.
Most of the passengers praised this year’s accommodation facilities at Haj House. Officials of Bombay Merchantile Co-operative Bank, the official banker for this entire Haj tour from Ranchi are offering additional travel quota of Rs 45,000 that could be converted in Riyal (the currency of Saudi Arabia) for those pilgrims who are interested in keeping extra money.
Notably, 3355 passengers including 1343 women and 2022 men have registered from Jharkhand for Haj this year of which most belong to Ranchi district. 55 volunteers are deployed to help the Haj passengers in the airport right from boarding to departing.