The keeper of Sufi Shamsuddin's shrine in Dinajpur

Caretaker Mohammed Bablu Mondol at the shrine of Sufi Samrat Hazrat Shamsuddin at Kazir Bon village in Ghoraghat upazila under Dinajpur district. PHOTO: STAR

Situated beside the Karatoa River, Dinajpur's Ghoraghat is an unassuming but ancient town. Virat Raja, the king mentioned in the Mahabharata epic, is said to have kept his horses there, which inspired the town's name – “ghora” meaning “horse.”

In the fifteenth century, Nasrat Khan, the king of Gaur in current-day Paschimbanga, sent one Ismail Ghazi, described as a very holy man and good officer, to conquer Ghoraghat, then controlled by the Hindu king Nilambar Raja who was based near Rangpur.

The conquest was successful and Ghazi stayed in Ghoraghat. His is one of the five main Sufi shrines in the area.

Another of Ghoraghat's shrines is located unexpectedly beside a champa or frangipani tree in the now-rural paddy landscape of Kazir Bon village, some few kilometres away.

There is little to distinguish the modest whitewashed exterior of the tin-roofed building. But down a narrow flight of stairs underground lies the perhaps 150 years old grave of the Sufi Samrat known to locals as Kazi Sadar Uddin (the signboard at the shrine records him as Sufi Samrat Hazrat Shamsuddin).

The last of the ruins of Kazi Sadar Uddin's house, a few brick wall ruins around an open area, and two old stone steps that are said to have once led to a mosque are the only other markers indicating the site's history.

“His mother is also buried here,” says Mohammed Bablu Mondol, current caretaker of the shrine. “This was his family's graveyard.”

Mondol says he is the fifth caretaker and has been looking after the shrine for the last 15 years. It's a simple life he leads, heading to the market each morning and sometimes in the afternoon, but otherwise at the shrine, alone.

Originally Mondol was accompanied by his wife, two sons and one daughter, but as the years passed, the quiet life as the keeper of the shrine proved not to suit his wife, who left.

Nonetheless Mondol remains. “All of my dreams will come after my death,” he says, “I will be with the king of the Sufis in heaven.”