When a Muslim mother is coming to terms with her baby’s death under a “tulsi” plant, then a Hindu mother lights her lamp.

And when a Hindu bride is in distress by the side of her head husband’s pyre and adds her “sonkho” and “sindur” to the cremation then the grief of her Muslim friend is no less than if she were one of her own relatives.

Both the grief that lies in the tomb and the pain that burns on the pyre beat at the heart of Muslim and Hindu alike.

How did they come by this?
I can tell you that they got their inspiration neither by reading the Koran nor by meditation on the Puranahs.

But over their heads hangs the same marvel of the endlessly wide open blue sky and the same shady forest’s breeze cools their brow.

Their land slopes the same way and the rain water gurgles off in the same direction.

The moonbeams which gleam through the cracks in the Muslim cabin cast a playful light through the hedge in the Hindu courtyard.

The same sorrows are shared by all and waves of joy ripple from cabin to cabin.

 

(From Sugion the Gypsy - Josim Uddin, known as "the village poet" frequently uses his poems to praise the sense of family to be found in villages where Hindus and Muslims live side by side.  After working together, they cheerfully accept one another’s feast days and even share their sufferings.)