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The legend declared that
,nine hundred years ago
Shah Yusef Gardezi came
riding into Multan on a lion ,
with alive snake for a
whip and with a pair of pigeons
fluttering over his head
.he had ridden his lion all the way
from gardaz in Afghanistan,and
he had broght with him the
teaching of the Twelve
Imam branch of the shi ah sect of
Islam(the3 form of shi,ism
that ,today,is the nationnal religion of Persia).Thiswhole quarter of the
city is now occupied by the
houses of the gardezis
and the gardezis'cousins'cousins.
Asfor the pigeons,thay
live on the gardezis'roof and cluster,
in force,on the gardezis'saintly
ancestor's tomb. The tomb is
cased in blue tiles,dating
from the reign of the mughal emperor
humayun,and at intervels
there are apertures inthe tile-work ,
opening into cavities
specially prrovided to give the pigeons a
lodging as close as possible
to the spot where the saint's
body lies.It is a pretty
sight to see them poking in and out,
for all the worldas
if the tomb had been build
solely for their benefit.
The pigeons flutter here
below. The kites soar there,up aloft,
at what looks almost like
jet-plane altitude when one lifts up one's
eyes towards the sky.Since
this is the indian sub-continent,
the kites do not make
the pigeons their prey.Thay take their
cue from the locel human
beings and leave the pigeons alone.
Nine hundred years of
unbroken fimily history,what a
sheet-anchor for the furtunate
Gardezis in this swiftly
changing word.
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