Writer
Nur N. Ibrahim
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More than the Status Quo: Encouraging Diversity in the UC
Fixing gender disparities in the college sphere will have an impact on who we are and how we interact with others when we leave Harvard.
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The most fervent devotees of Baba Bulleh Shah wear rings gifted to them by followers of saints from other shrines in other provinces of Pakistan.
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Maddat Ali, a devotee of Baba Bulleh Shah, visits the shrine every day and recieves alms from other visitors. His rings, he claims, were sent from another shrine in Sindh.
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Rose and marigold petals decorate the grave of one of the many qawwals who sang praises of the saint Baba Bulleh Shah.
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A qawwal sits outside the shrine playing the harmonium and singing praises of Bulleh Shah's religious devotion. While preaching acceptance and love, Bulleh Shah also used traditional Punjabi love stories like Heer Ranjha, equatable to The Punjabi Romeo and Juliet. He implied universal and divine love, rejecting set notions of rituals and divisive practices: "'When I learned the lesson of love, I got scared of the mosque/I ran into the Hindu seminary where several horns are blown/ There Heer and Ranjha became one/ Heer was mistakenly searching for Ranjha in the jungle while he was right in her lap/ I lost all [worldly] awareness."
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Streamers, flowers and cloth with Quranic verses printed on them, hang in shops outside Baba Bulleh Shah's shrine in Kasur, Pakistan. Pilgrims normally buy these to hang on trees outside the shrine when they pay their respects to the revered saint.
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Devotees tie colored threads around the tree branches in the shrine's courtyard asking the saint to grant their "Mannat". Each thread signifies unfulfilled wishes.
