It is all that is left of Mohammad Shahid’s childhood; a hulking arc of rusting metal, jutting out of a sea of weeds and cracked bricks. It was once a home that was flourishing; a home with a courtyard; the home of an important man — the last imam of the Babri Masjid, Haji Abdul Gaffar Khan, Shahid’s grandfather. Today, there is only a crumbling wall that separates it from the road, overrun by creepers and time, and the skeletal frame of a charred window.Shahid remembers looking out that window, 32 years ago, petrified. He remembers the communal frenzy that blanketed Ayodhya, and the mob that began to assemble. He remembers sprinting breathlessly behind his father Mohammad Sabir, weaving one way and then the other, as menacing crowds marched through the streets. The family had been preparing for a wedding and the courtyard was festive. But the riots didn’t spare his father and uncle. Then 21, Shahid fled town with his mother Taibunnisa Begum. By the time they returned, their home had been set ablaze. The only constant in the neighbourhood since then has been a thicket of police barricades.For three decades, the house has held its breath. Every anniversary of the razing of the Babri Masjid has meant a return to fear. Shahid would send his family away to Gonda. Hostilities choked the city’s economy, incomes dried up, and Shahid’s three brothers moved abroad. Their wages helped steady the ship a little, but peace was elusive. “Now, I hope we can end all this strife. The Ram Temple is opening, and we hope it brings peace and development to the city,” said Shahid. “We have little left, but want to see our children grow up in safety.”Across the road, the land slopes downward towards the house of Iqbal Ansari, the son of the original litigant of the title suit, Hashim Ansari. Sitting in his carpeted living room, Ansari is busy preparing for the January 22 ceremony, having accepted an invitation last week. Behind his chair is a framed photograph of a whitewashed Babri Masjid from the early 20th century. “Every Muslim here welcomes the Ram Temple. We want development and peace. After all, who suffered the most when violence rocked Ayodhya? It is us,” he explained.Yet, little has moved. The cavernous plot is empty, save for a discoloured signboard slapped with a poster of the initial design of the mosque – a futuristic glass-topped dome with carved spires – that has since been abandoned. The new design, approved at a meeting in Mumbai last year, is more traditional with four minarets framing the white proposed building. Planners propose the mosque be named after Prophet Mohammed-Bin-Abdullah but only one billboard-size poster of it exists till now, pasted on a whitewashed wall of the only building that stands on the plot – a decades-old sufi shrine.One misty morning in January, Sohrab Khan and his friend Mohammad Akbar are patrolling the tree-lined plot bifurcated by a dry canal now filling up with brown carcasses of leaves. “The trust is planning big. Yes, things have been delayed but see all the things (planned) – a cancer hospital, a law college, a medical college and community kitchen,” said Khan. The only time In the villages that ring the plot, the initial burst of hope that their locality will be catapulted into national recognition has since ebbed due to the many false starts. “It’s too slow, something should have come up by now. We had a lot of hope when people first came and measured the plot, but there was no movement,” said Mohammad Gufran. A worker at a footwear factory in Lucknow, Gufran has been looking for a job closer home, and hoped that if the mosque came up, it would attract investment – in much the same way that the government envisions the Ram Temple will for the broader region. “And maybe I could get a job at an industrial area nearby,” he said. the sleepyBut something else is bothering him – the slow simmer of religious disputes in Mathura and Varanasi, where over the last two years, Hindu petitioners have asked courts to remove well-known mosques abutting temples. For Mahboob, their argument – that the mosques were built after demolishing temples centuries ago, and therefore need to either be removed, or given worshipping rights – has echoes of the Babri dispute. “Whether Mathura or Varanasi, the things that are happening are wrong. It will hurt the nation,” he rued. It is all that is left of Mohammad Shahid’s childhood; a hulking arc of rusting metal, jutting out of a sea of weeds and cracked bricks. It was once a home that was flourishing; a home with a courtyard; the home of an important man — the last imam of the Babri Masjid, Haji Abdul Gaffar Khan, Shahid’s grandfather. Today, there is only a crumbling wall that separates it from the road, overrun by creepers and time, and the skeletal frame of a charred window.Shahid remembers looking out that window, 32 years ago, petrified. He remembers the communal frenzy that blanketed Ayodhya, and the mob that began to assemble. He remembers sprinting breathlessly behind his father Mohammad Sabir, weaving one way and then the other, as menacing crowds marched through the streets. The family had been preparing for a wedding and the courtyard was festive. But the riots didn’t spare his father and uncle. Then 21, Shahid fled town with his mother Taibunnisa Begum. By the time they returned, their home had been set ablaze. The only constant in the neighbourhood since then has been a thicket of police barricades.For three decades, the house has held its breath. Every anniversary of the razing of the Babri Masjid has meant a return to fear. Shahid would send his family away to Gonda. Hostilities choked the city’s economy, incomes dried up, and Shahid’s three brothers moved abroad. Their wages helped steady the ship a little, but peace was elusive. “Now, I hope we can end all this strife. The Ram Temple is opening, and we hope it brings peace and development to the city,” said Shahid. “We have little left, but want to see our children grow up in safety.”Across the road, the land slopes downward towards the house of Iqbal Ansari, the son of the original litigant of the title suit, Hashim Ansari. Sitting in his carpeted living room, Ansari is busy preparing for the January 22 ceremony, having accepted an invitation last week. Behind his chair is a framed photograph of a whitewashed Babri Masjid from the early 20th century. “Every Muslim here welcomes the Ram Temple. We want development and peace. After all, who suffered the most when violence rocked Ayodhya? It is us,” he explained.Yet, little has moved. The cavernous plot is empty, save for a discoloured signboard slapped with a poster of the initial design of the mosque – a futuristic glass-topped dome with carved spires – that has since been abandoned. The new design, approved at a meeting in Mumbai last year, is more traditional with four minarets framing the white proposed building. Planners propose the mosque be named after Prophet Mohammed-Bin-Abdullah but only one billboard-size poster of it exists till now, pasted on a whitewashed wall of the only building that stands on the plot – a decades-old sufi shrine.One misty morning in January, Sohrab Khan and his friend Mohammad Akbar are patrolling the tree-lined plot bifurcated by a dry canal now filling up with brown carcasses of leaves. “The trust is planning big. Yes, things have been delayed but see all the things (planned) – a cancer hospital, a law college, a medical college and community kitchen,” said Khan. The only time In the villages that ring the plot, the initial burst of hope that their locality will be catapulted into national recognition has since ebbed due to the many false starts. “It’s too slow, something should have come up by now. We had a lot of hope when people first came and measured the plot, but there was no movement,” said Mohammad Gufran. A worker at a footwear factory in Lucknow, Gufran has been looking for a job closer home, and hoped that if the mosque came up, it would attract investment – in much the same way that the government envisions the Ram Temple will for the broader region. “And maybe I could get a job at an industrial area nearby,” he said. the sleepyBut something else is bothering him – the slow simmer of religious disputes in Mathura and Varanasi, where over the last two years, Hindu petitioners have asked courts to remove well-known mosques abutting temples. For Mahboob, their argument – that the mosques were built after demolishing temples centuries ago, and therefore need to either be removed, or given worshipping rights – has echoes of the Babri dispute. “Whether Mathura or Varanasi, the things that are happening are wrong. It will hurt the nation,” he rued. Submit