Murgha (From Asian Image)

Murgha

1:14pm Friday 9th July 2010 in Last Bit By The Last Bit

For me, it all started back in the late seventies at mosque.

There was a way of learning things. Unfortunately some maullana’s from back home only knew one way of making you learn and that was to punish you when you made a mistake.

Some would get a stick and smack you on the hands. This obviously had it’s drawbacks because as a six-year old I had a tendency to move my hand away from anything painful. He would end up clipping my finger tips instead.

Some brave souls took it full on and spent the next ten minutes blowing on to their hands.

Other teacher’s made you stand up on the spot for ages. I didn’t think this was a punishment as such but the fat kids really struggled and would hop up and down and turn their heads from side to side. It may have been painful for them but to the rest of us it was funny as hell.

But there was one punishment which goes down in history as the greatest punishment of them all. It was the most demeaning, humiliating and debasing form of retribution known to humankind - it was called the ‘Murgha.’ Murgha was best translated as ‘chicken’ or ‘rooster’ because of the position the body found itself in.

I, like many other kids at mosque had to do the Murgha. It basically meant you had to go into a squatting position then hold one’s ears through your legs.

It became staple punishment in those early years and again the ‘big-boned’ suffered major style. For some it was impossible.

You had to kind of feel sorry for them but when you heard those dreaded words ‘Murgha ban’(Do the Murgha) - you knew you were up for a battle.

Keeping your balance was the toughest thing and stopping youself from laughing when some other poor chap fell over was also a major problem.

But after a couple of years I kind became an expert at it. ‘Murgha sir? No problem. I can squat like this hours.’ I even opted for the Murgha when I was about to have my side burns twisted.

For a while I was a Murgha consultant and started teaching others the art of maintaining a steady and upright Murgha.

Even so, the teacher was always one step ahead and sometimes he would smack a couple of sneaky shots with his stick on to my bottom whilst walking by. If he was really having a bad day he simply pushed me over with his foot.

Whilst times have moved on and the Murgha is a distant memory let us for one moment pay homage to those who went down like chickens but rose back up again like proud lions...never once flinching, never once shedding a tear and never for a moment sharing their inner pain with any other soul.

I, the Last Bit, hereby salute every single damn one of you!