Even in the times of intolerance and religious extremism, Motibar Rahman stands out as a Muslim. He looks after a Hindu shrine, as his family has done for centuries, on the orders of Lord Shiva himself.
Like his forefathers, Rahman cleans the Burha Gosair the shrine every morning and lights candles in the evening for Shiva, one of Hinduism’s foremost deities, who many believe resides inside.
“Before me, my father used to do this work and his father before him. Our family has been the keepers of this holy shrine for the past 500 years,” the 73-year old revealed.
He added, The first man in our family is Borhansa. Lord Shiva came to Borhansa and told him, ‘I want to live in this place. From now on it will be the responsibility of your family to keep this place. I shall accept service from your family only and no one else’.”
Notably, the shrine is in Assam state, part of India’s far-flung northeast, long a melting pot of ethnic groups and religions sandwiched between Muslim-majority Bangladesh and mostly Buddhist Myanmar.