Fakir Shah Hussain and Madho Lal

Context (IE): The story of Sufi saint Fakir Shah Hussain, who fell in love with a Brahmin boy named Madho Lal, is celebrated during Pride month.

Hussain (1538-1599) faithfully followed Orthodox Islam but later shifted to believing that the world is an ephemeral playground.
Their name is taken as “Madho Lal Hussein“, inspired by the Sufi principle of fana.

The Sufi principle of fana involves a profound love for God, which merges the individual self with the Divine so that the lover and the Beloved become one.

Naved Alam (penned the Verses of “Madho Lal Hussein”) refers to them as “the Donysius of Punjab”.
However, scholars disagree on whether the relationship between the two was a spiritual bond of a Murshid (spiritual guide) and Murid (novice seeking enlightenment) or “transgressed” beyond it.
Hussain supported Rai Abdullah Khan Bhatti (Dulla Bhatti), who fought the oppressive tax imposed on peasants and was hanged by Emperor Akbar.
Many versions claim that Hussain’s sayings were compiled in a secret book, “Baharia,” which is now lost.
Some scholars suggest he encouraged scandalous rumours because he followed the Malamati tradition of seeking opprobrium.

In ancient Greek religion and myth, Dionysus is the god of wine-making, orchards and fruit, vegetation, fertility, festivity, insanity, ritual madness, religious ecstasy, and theatre.

Practitioners of Malamati tradition of opprobrium go out of their way to become disreputable and eschew the hubris that accompanies fame & acclaim and serves as a barrier between them & the Divine.

Love and folklore

Hussain’s poems, which remain popular in eastern and western Punjab, use a feminine voice, Heer.
He identifies as Heer, one-half of the star-crossed lovers of Heer-Ranjha.
His mention of Ranjhan referring to the Divine or Madho is open to interpretation.

Mela Chiraghan is an annual Urs (death anniversary) celebrated in March at the Saint’s shrine near the Shalimar Gardens of Lahore.
Mela Chiraghan was patronised by the Mughals, the British, and even the Sikh emperor Maharaja Ranjit Singh, who famously merged the saint’s Urs with the festival of Basant.
The festival was said to be celebrated by people coming from Amritsar to Lahore, singing some vulgar verses called ‘Sakhnia’. Traditionally, the final day of the three-day festival was reserved for women.
The three-day festival attracts large crowds where devotees sing and dance (called dhamaal) around a fire in red robes, evoking the image of a Sufi saint as a moth attracted to a Candle’s flame.
The popularity of the festival declined after Pakistan’s former president Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq banned the playing of dhol and the use of phallic symbols during the celebration.