One morning, around two and a half weeks before Jalsa, I got a text from my mum saying “can you and the girls come over to help?” My daughter and I had already volunteered to help them get down their bedding so we got ready and went over. We found it was not only the bedding to unpack but some cooking as well.
So we made a chain and passed down pillows and quilts to air in the garden and after a good bake in the hot 30° sun the girls carefully folded the quilts and placed them with the pillows in the garage ready for covers to be put on them.
Meanwhile my mum had just baked a cake, plain with a hint of cardamom, which was cooling ready to slice and dry in the oven which I did. Once cooled it would be boxed up ready to take out when the guests arrived.
Then we made a batch of ‘namak paray’ or salty kites, as my daughter named them, little crispy bites of salt and pepper flavoured pastry. We rolled the dough, cut into pieces and fried leaving us with a large boxful ready for Jalsa.
While three of us were thus occupied my mum suggested that since the oil was hot we should make pakoras for lunch so my youngest set to work chopping potatoes and onions and mixing with fresh spinach, coriander and spices which we fried afterwards as a treat.
Mum had also made a mixture ready to fry of ‘bare’ mix for ‘dahi bare’ which is yoghurt with spicy lentil balls. This was for the Jalsa Saturday when family traditionally have dinner at my parents. Usually most of the guests eat breakfast and go to Jalsa not returning until after dinner and Salat but because there are family members at who meet infrequently my parents have a dinner, sort of a reunion, to which other close family members who are not staying can also come and have a catch-up. Many is the time we have sat enthralled listening to our elders’ stories of past Jalsa in Rabwah and even Qadian.
This year my parents are expecting twenty-seven guests starting the Sunday before Jalsa, from USA, Pakistan, Germany and Manchester and on Jalsa nights the women and small children will take the upstairs rooms while the men and boys sleep on matresses laid in a row across the lounge. My dad often sleeps on the treadmill and once, when the house was really bursting, my mum slept in the conservatory.
This is how Jalsa has been since we moved close to Islamabad in 1990 and on the year Jalsa was cancelled due to the spread of foot and mouth in the UK there was such a feeling of desolation and of something missing.
The girls and I have always helped prepare for Jalsa, even when we moved to our own house and had our guests, and living close to Islamabad we’ve often helped look after guests there as well. Now there are no longer guests at Islamabad but two of my daughters work in Hadeeqatul Mahdi accommodation and are looking forward to working there from the Wednesday before Jalsa to the Monday after.
Jalsa has so many blessings and the chance to look after the guests of the Promised Messiah is one which we all enjoy doing, gaining the benefit along the way of the skills of hospitality and organisation while enjoying the experience.
Preparations are underway and the Jalsa feeling has well and truly begun!
quillandinkandparchment 