Published by
Al-Araby
Al-Araby
As the hands of the clock tick at three in the morning in the city of Srinagar in Jammu and Kashmir, Mohammad Yousuf Pathan gets ready. He hangs his drum over his shoulders and with two drumsticks in his hands and makes his way outside to follow the month-long ritual of waking the local Muslim population up for suhoor, the pre-dawn meal for the holy month of Ramadan. “Our childhood was incomplete without the Sahr Khans and the sound of their drums” He walks the empty streets of Habba Kadal and fills the silent night with his melodious voice, reciting Quranic verses and naats (poetry in praise …