Lighting incense sticks or offering flowers at gravestones to remember the departed is not the norm here. Raining blows on a tomb with shoes and slippers instead, is.
According to a report. Etawah’s “Chugalkhor ka Maqbara” or the grave of the snitcher is not where people come to pay their respects in the traditional form.
Reportedly, travelers along the Etawah-Farrukhabad-Bareilly highway stop by to hit the 500-year-old grave of one Bholu Saeed who was a courtier with the King of Etawah. According to legend, after the king of Etawah found out that Saeed was responsible for a war his kingdom fought with the ruler of Atteri, he asked for Saeed to be beaten with shoes until his death. The practice still prevails.
Iqbal, a local resident, told the newspaper that he was on his way to Bareilly and had stopped by to hit the grave five times for good luck. Bilal, another local, says that he had never seen anyone offer their respects by offering ‘chadars’ or the like at the grave which has no caretaker either.
“Passengers request the driver to stop, and pay obeisance to Bholu by hitting his grave with slippers”, Ravi, a taxi-driver told the newspape
