The ‘Miracle’ Stones?

Last week, I visited the Qamar Ali Darvesh shrine at Shivpuri, just off the Bombay-Bangalore Highway. The shrine houses the grave of a Moslem saint, Mr. Qamar Ali, I presume. However, its actual claim to fame has a distinctly petrous nature - a levitating stone!

In the courtyard in front of the shrine lies a rather innocuous looking spherical rock, about a foot in diameter - a little larger than a soccer ball. I would estimate its weight to be about 100-120 pounds. According to the script, the stone can be raised by nine or eleven people, using only one index finger each. The lifters are supposed to yell out “Qamar Ali Darvesh!” as they are lifting the stone.

In classical Islamic fashion, women are barred from performing the levitation. Since the group I had gone with had only one other individual exhibiting an XY sex chromosome (my Mom’s brother), it was obvious that we were going to have to enlist a few more willing hands. There were a decent number of tourists around, all Moslem-looking and seeming like they had come more to pray than for the ‘touristy’ part. I went around asking them, but none of them evinced even a modicum of interest in the task at hand.

There was also, a herd of mendicants sitting under a banyan tree outside the shrine’s precincts; and I approached them next. They seemed even more loth than the people I had asked before that, with some of them bordering on what could be termed as churlish. The reason was soon obvious - labor in this country rarely comes for free, and raising a stone (even a supposedly magic one) is, after all, labor!

After promising them some rupees, their reluctance slowly started to melt, and soon we had ourselves a group of almost-merry men around the stone. My uncle and I were given quick instructions on how to place our fingers under the stone. We were also told to shout out the phrase - “Qamar Ali Darvesh” - while lifting the stone.

As we all bent down to insert our fingers under the stone, my nostrils were buffeted by a particularly unsavory stench emanating from the guys around me! Taking a shower obviously doesn’t rank very high on a mendicant’s daily or even weekly list of activities!

“One, two, three!”, one of the men counted down in Hindi. We all lifted - and I didn’t say the words. I had excepted the stone to be raised slowly, with only one finger of each person in contact with it. Surely, that would be a miracle worth witnessing! However, what the men did was hurl it upward in a quick continuous motion. Since I was much slower than the rest, the stone fell toward my side and almost crushed my feet! The fact that I hadn’t said the phrase loudly enough and that the stone fell toward me meant that I was immediately subjected to a severe lambasting from one of the mendicants in Urdu and expelled from the second attempt!

This time I chose to man the video camera instead. Once again they all placed their fingers under the stone and hurled it upward! And once again it almost fell on one of the guys heads! We paid the mendicants and after shooting some more footage of the place, we left.

So what exactly had we witnessed? Was it some sort of miracle? Of course not! It was a huge fraud. I was certain the mendicants weren’t using only one finger! Once their hands are under the stone, it’s impossible to see just how much contact they have with the stone - they could use their entire palms for all the difference it would make to a viewer! When I looked at the video footage yesterday, it just confirmed what I had always believed. Most of the guys were using more than just a single finger. We were about 10 men, each therefore only having to lift about 12-15 pounds. Certainly no big deal, if you’re using more than a finger. Besides, contrary to what I thought, the stone wasn’t raised slowly. It was just hurled upward!

The reason for the entire fraud? Like most other things in life, the incentives are monetary. The entire area around the shrine is filled with small stores selling all sorts of religious knickknacks. The stones make the shrine famous and bring these people more customers. Even the shrine itself is undoubtedly funded by donations from people who visit the place because of the stones.

It’s surprising though, just how many people will actually fall for it! Just come up with a story that sounds interesting and add a dash of religious flavor to it, and you’ll get takers fer sure!