Midnight tryst with hope & miracles at ‘Praja Durbar’

HYDERABAD: It’s 2:30am and hope drives sublime patience in the vast multitude of burqa-clad women, waiting till the dew of dawn for an elusive miracle at ‘Darul Aman’.
A traumatic twist of fate, a debilitating disease, mounting hospital bills, acute poverty or social discrimination brings scores to the labyrinths of Chanchalguda for a catharsis in crisis, if not a prayer answered in the middle of life’s throng and press.
And the midnight buzz at the bustling ‘praja durbar’ on a sprawling courtyard of Majlis Bachao Tehreek’s (MBT) office-cum-residence gives a surreal touch to night-time Hyderabad, where women in long black abayas clutch onto their faith, while smashing the myth of harsh curbs on their mobility.
The clock ticks into the dead of night, but they steadfastly dig in their heels till they share a moment with MBT spokesperson Amjed Ullah Khan, who has successfully steered the durbar for over 1,000 days now with an incredible crowdfunding mechanism and swift, zealous response to SOS calls even at unearthly hours. He also holds aloft Hyderabad’s Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb with most of those who anonymously respond to his crowdfunding pleas being Hindus and many in the swelling crowds constituting non-Muslims.

Daughter of an auto driver, Sadiya Khanam, 19, had lost hope of pursuing her dreams till she came calling at the ‘praja durbar’. She lives with her parents and four siblings in a crammed room near Charminar that doubles up as kitchen and washroom, but that didn’t stifle her zest for becoming a doctor. After failing to crack NEET, she enrolled in a top coaching institute, but couldn’t afford the steep fee. Then a miracle happened. An anonymous donor responded to Amjed Ullah Khan’s appeal for aid on social media and within 3 hours the money was disbursed in her account.
Zeenat Sultan, 25, a mother of two daughters, is suffering from blood cancer. She needs regular transfusions and a bone marrow transplant to survive and the treatment comes at an abominably high cost. Tears welling in her eyes, she pleads for help. Yasmeen, 30, mother of four daughters and resident of Chandrayangutta, has no money for her daughter’s back-to-back surgeries and is waiting for succour at the ‘praja durbar’. Mohammad Saleem Khan, 52, has come all the way from Nagpur in search of a miracle for his daughter. A mutawalli at the Hazrat Tajuddin dargah, he needs Rs 3lakh for his daughter’s brain surgery.
Two-year-old Jayansh, who’s the son of a petrol bunk employee at Banjara Hills, has a hole in his heart. Even after crowdfunding helped foot the hospital bills for his surgery, the child needs costly medicines to survive. And a Good Samaritan has offered to fund the monthly medical expenses.
And there are others like Zeenat Siddiqui (name changed), who’s hounded by her former husband and is knocking at the durbar doors for justice, or Syeda Wahaj Fatima who desperately seeks help to bring her stranded, ailing daughter back from the Chicago streets.
Also, praja durbar’s hotline is abuzz beyond India’s shores. Hyderabadi women conned and trapped by employers in the Gulf dial Amjed Ullah Khan’s number, which is also the SOS button even for those who need a coffin to bring bodies of their loved ones back home from abroad. “Yahan har marz ki dawa hai…praja durbar zinda talismath hai,” says Ameena Begum, 27, who just came out of an abdominal surgery.
“So, what propels the success of the praja durbar from mobilising donors to lobbying for justice to catering to micro afflictions of the community? “The concept of zakaat is a driving force and there are people across the globe who respond to my social media petitions. But it’s a mystery how aid flows. I don't wield a magic wand, it's divine intervention. I am just a medium of the grace. I keep trying,” says Amjed Ullah Khan. What began as a charity movement during the Covid-19 pandemic has come to stay as a one-stop solution to problems for millions of Hyderabadis.