As the Sikhs prepared to storm Peshawar, Akali Phoola Singh led them in an Ardas or prayer as a prelude to departing for battle. Just as the Ardas was completed, Ranjit Singh received word that the leader of his French legion, General Ventura, and the Sikh artillery, who were expected to join the attack, had been delayed and decided to call off the attack. Akali Phoola flatly refused, for in his mind once the Ardas had been completed, there was no going back. He told Ranjit Singh to do as he wished with his regular army and commanded the Akalis to march.
The Akalis charged at the Afghan army on horseback but when they reached close quarters, abandoned their horses and fought through the enemy ranks with swords. Ranjit Singh, seeing the Aaklis’ successful charge, ordered the rest of the army to engage. After severe hand-to-hand combat Akali Phoola Singh was wounded in the leg. He mounted his horse again but it was shot down from under him. He then returned to battle on an elephant. The Sikh forces rallied around Akali Phoola Singh and fought fiercely. However, Akali Phoola Singh in his howdah presented an easy target and he was shot. But the tide of battle had turned by now and the Sikhs emerged victorious. The Timeless Warrior, however, had fallen. Ranjit Singh wept openly when he saw Akali Phoola Singh’s body lying in the howdah and covered him with his own shawl. The doughty warrior had challenged him, tormented him, even boldly chastised him, but he had also been his sword arm for many years and had given him great victories. The next day, Akali Phoola Singh was cremated and his ashes were consigned to the Lunda river.
The following excerpt is from a poem, The Death of Phoola Sing, written by R.W. Bingham, a non-commissioned officer in the British Indian Army, in his book, General Gilbert’s Raid to the Khyber. The poem is an ode to the gallantry of Akali Phoola Singh and his followers and is particularly interesting because it was written after the First Anglo-Sikh War. Bingham was so impressed by the gallantry of the Sikhs he faced that he was impelled to document a battle that his erstwhile enemies had fought decades earlier, in verse no less! This is a testament to the kind of man Akali Phoola Singh was and the admiration he elicited, even from his adversaries.
‘Tis Phoola Sing who heads the band, but sure I saw him fall
When first he led his heroes on, struck by a musket-ball
Now mounted on an elephant, he leads them on again
But much I fear, five hundred men will waste their lives in vain
‘Come on ye Sikhs! Come on once more,’ cried out the brave Sirdar
‘Come follow me, and we will change, the fortune of the war.’
‘Wah! Gooroojee ka futteh jee! Wah! Khalsajee!’ he cried
But not a Khalsa soldier still, to that wild cheer replied
Their silence, nor their trembling looks, did that fierce chief dismay
But boldly with his gallant band, he rushed into the fray
The Affghans nothing loth came down, the fight grew fiercer still
Yet onward press the gallant few, for that contested hill
Like hailstones rained the leaden storm, around, above, below
But yet the dauntless lessening band, press onward on the foe
Their leader on his elephant, still forward led the way
His was the guiding spirit still, above the bloody fray
He watched his time, then gave the word, each man released his steed,
And drove him through the Moslem ranks, with fury-winged speed,
Their matchlocks on the ground they threw, and drew the fierce tulwar
And higher up that bloody hill, they bore the tide of war.
Again the Khalsa troops advance, remembering former fame
They burn to wash in Affghan blood, the morning’s marks of shame
And fiercer raged the stubborn strife, not so unequal then
But Phoola Sing, the Nihung Chief, had lost three hundred men
Himself once more was wounded, still like a flaming star
Leading the strife, was fairly seen his flashing scimitar
And fiercer still the battle grew, and louder still was cried
The ‘Allah Ho,’ from Moslem ranks—’Wah Khalsajee,’ replied
And still the Sikhs press on; the Khalsa bayonets thrust
Makes many a brawny Affghan to bite the trampled dust
But Phoola Sing has fallen;—his leadership is o’er
The doubly gallant Chieftain, lies weltering in his gore
He fell on ‘Terees’ top; he saw the black banner fly
Close by his side,—the guiding star which led to Victory
He raised his thrilling cheer once more, the bullet pierced his brain
He fell, on heaps of slaughtered foes—he’ll never fight again
Thus ended the life of the Timeless Warrior.
* * *
* A childhood bout of small pox had left Ranjit Singh blind in one eye.
THE DANCING GIRL OF LAHORE
For several hundred years, the neighbourhood known as Heera Mandi, in the walled city of Lahore, Pakistan, has been a red-light district. The name literally means ‘Diamond Market’ and in the past it was better known as the preserve of sophisticated courtesans adept in singing, dancing and the fine art of seduction. Today the neighbourhood is run down, with dirty streets and crumbling buildings. The fabled courtesans of yore, once sought out by nobles and monarchs are a distant memory. Today’s client is more likely to be a corpulent businessman flashing an expensive watch and driving a late model luxury car. The women, mostly untrained, dance to popular music, the classical dance forms that Heera Mandi was celebrated for, long gone. ‘It was good in those days, but all that has changed,’ an old prostitute recalls. ‘Nobody bothers with singing and dancing anymore. We were trained for years, but today nobody does that.’
In The Dancing Girls of Lahore, a 2006 book, Louise Brown, a British academic, describes the lives of the modern day ‘courtesans’ of Heera Mandi with great compassion. Her main character Maha, is a prostitute somewhat past her prime, who has spent a lifetime in the same world that her mother, grandmother and great-grandmother inhabited. At twelve, she was sold to a wealthy sheikh from Dubai, her virginity fetching a premium price. Later, she went on to enjoy the patronage of several wealthy and powerful men. As the years passed, the clients became less frequent and less lucrative and in her mid-thirties, Maha is a mother of five, dependent on her last few clients and readying to send her daughters down the only path she knows.
This is the story of another courtesan of Lahore, from a different era, whose tale is no less poignant than Maha’s, despite the very different arc of her life.
‘Nautch’ (or ‘Nach’, meaning dance or to dance) is a term that often occurs in early nineteenth-century accounts written by Europeans travelling in India. Europeans, particularly Englishmen from the Victorian era, were uniformly fascinated by their encounter with courtesans whom they characterised as ‘Indian Dancing Girls’. Mostly unable to comprehend the subtleties of the music being performed and the high art represented by the courtesans, they gleefully presented the attachment of powerful men in Indian society to these courtesans as an example of ‘Oriental’ or ‘Asiatic debauchery’!
The courtesans of that period were referred to as ‘tawaifs’; the word ‘tawaif’ is the plural form of the Arabic word ‘taifa’. Today, in popular culture the word is used interchangeably with prostitute; in Punjabi, a somewhat equivalent term today is the word ‘kanjri’. The etymology of this word is rather interesting; it derives from the Persian word ‘kanchani’, which roughly translates to ‘dipped in gold’. Ahsan Jan Qaisar and Som Prakash Verma, in their work titled Art and Culture: Painting and Perspective, write that in Mughal times, the most respected courtesans were the kanchanis, or those gilded with gold and blooming, a title accorded by none other than the great Mughal emperor, Akbar.
This following excerpt from François Bernier’s Travels in the Mughal Empire will shed some light on the position enjoyed by the Kanchanis at the zenith of the Mughal empire:
Chah-Jehan (T
he Mughal emperor Shah Jahan) … introduced fairs at every festival, though not always to the satisfaction of some of the Omrahs (Mughal officials). He certainly transgressed the bounds of decency in admitting at those times into the seraglio singing and dancing girls called Kenchens (the gilded, the blooming; they were not indeed the prostitutes seen in bazaars, but those of a more private and respectable class, who attend the grand weddings of Omrahs and Mansebdars, for the purpose of singing and dancing. Most of these Kenchens are handsome and well-dressed, and sing to perfection; and their limbs being extremely supple, they dance with wonderful agility.
Since the kanchanis excelled in singing, dancing, poetry, and the erotic arts, and were considered to be authorities on etiquette, they were freed from many of the duties of ordinary women. It was normal for nobility to send their sons to them to be instructed in the social graces. Their position and access to important men often enabled them at times to acquire wealth and even political power. In their time, they represented the few women who owned property and paid taxes. They were often poets and authors, in a period when most women were illiterate.
Another reference to the courtesans of the period can be found in Oriental Memoirs, an account of James Forbes’s travels in India, published in 1813:
Many of the dancing girls are extremely delicate in their persons, soft and regular in their features, with forms of perfect symmetry; and although dedicated from infancy to this profession, they in general preserve a decency and modesty in their demeanour which are more likely to allure, than the shameless effrontery of similar characters in other countries. Their dances require great attention, from the dancer’s feet being hung with small bells, which sound in concert with the music. Two girls usually perform at the same time; their steps are not so mazy or active as ours but much more interesting; as the song, the music and the motions of the dance combine to express love, hope, jealousy, despair and the passions so well-known to lovers, and very easily to be understood by those who are ignorant of other languages. The Indians are extremely fond of this entertainment and lavish large sums on their favourites.
On 12 April, 1801 a new king was crowned in Lahore. Sahib Singh Bedi, a respected elder among the Sikh Sardars and a descendant of Guru Nanak daubed his forehead with saffron and anointed him Maharaja of Punjab. Amidst scenes of great pomp and splendour, the young king rode triumphantly through the streets of Lahore, showering his jubilant subjects with wealth. The city celebrated for many days!
As was the custom, the festivities include dances each night, performed by the city’s most celebrated courtesans, which must have dazzled the young king, who until then, had lived mostly in the backwoods of Gujranwala, where his ancestral home was.
One particular evening, the kanchani performing before the king was a beautiful and coquettish girl of thirteen, who had been raised to be a courtesan. Her name was Moran. The performance was spectacular and by the time it was over, the young monarch was completely smitten.
In his work, History of the Sikhs, Volume V, Hari Ram Gupta quotes Diwan Amar Nath, author of the Persian work Zafar Namah-e-Ranjit Singh, to provide a description of Moran. The following excerpt is from a three-page description of the charms of the young courtesan:
She danced like a peacock; her bewitching glances struck like arrows. Her extremely black curly locks, her white moonlike sparkling face, her deer-like eyes, her elegant grace of form, symmetry of movement, delicacy and dignity of deportment, sweetness of voice and melody, her unforgettable smile and ready wit were such as could make a manly man on earth see a thousand graces in her.
Possessing a beautiful courtesan was not a problem for any wealthy or powerful man and much less so for a king, and possess her he did!
The young Ranjit Singh embarked on a torrid affair with the young woman, who was from a village named Makhanpur near Amritsar. Ranjit Singh built a temple at Dhanoa Kalan at Attari, between Lahore and Amritsar. Close by ran a canal which had been constructed by the Mughal emperors to irrigate the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, decades earlier. There Ranjit Singh also built a large structure with twelve doors, called a ‘baradari’, which he used as a halting place while travelling between Lahore and Amritsar. It is said that this is where his trysts with Moran would occur. The canal, to this day, is spanned by a bridge that is popularly known as ‘Pul Kanjri’ (The Prostitute’s Bridge). Popular tradition has it that on her way to a tryst with the king, Moran lost her silver slipper while crossing the canal, which prompted her lover to build the bridge for her convenience!
Again from Hari Ram Gupta’s work:
Ranjit Singh did not live in the fort at night. He spent nights in the house of his beloved Moran, the dancing girl. His meals and other things were supplied to him there. During his morning exercise Moran was seated on the same horse and he went riding with her and no followers were permitted to accompany him. Ranjit Singh’s residence in the Kanjarkhana was intolerable to many but none dared to dissuade the Maharaja from it.
One individual in Lahore did try to dissuade the Maharaja. Mehar Mohkam-ud-din was one of the notables of Lahore whom the king respected greatly. Ranjit Singh addressed him as Baba with respect and often turned to him for advice. Mehar Mohkam-ud-din advised the young king to be more cautious and careful. On hearing this, Ranjit Singh became furious. Mehar’s title of Baba was withdrawn, he was sentenced to hard labour in jail, fined Rs. 10,000 and his lands were confiscated.
A dalliance with a courtesan in itself would not have been a significant event, if it had remained just that. But the king was in love and he decided that he would make Moran his wife!
Polygamy was the accepted norm among monarchs at the time and Ranjit Singh already had two wives when he met Moran—Mehtab Kaur, daughter of Gurbaksh Singh Kanhaya and Sada Kaur and Raj Kaur, also known as Mai Nakkayan, daughter of Sardar Ran Singh Nakai and Sardarni Rai Kaur. Both of these alliances were strategic and had served to unite Ranjit Singh’s Sukerchakia Misl with the Kanhaya and Nakai Misls. There was no such upside to the proposed marriage with Bibi Moran.
One might expect that the prospect of a marital alliance with a king would have been embraced enthusiastically by Moran’s family, but the match was bitterly opposed by both Moran’s father and her godfather, Mian Samdu who was also the leader of the community that Moran belonged to. First of all they were Muslims, and they must also have been aware of the fickleness of a monarch’s attention, who seemed to have a roving eye and access to any woman he wanted. Besides, the thirteen-year old Moran had just embarked on her career as a courtesan and was at the peak of her earning capacity, as was proven by the king’s interest in her.
Moran’s father and Mian Samdu tried their utmost to somehow avoid the match, but the king persisted. One would imagine that it would have been a simple matter for a powerful monarch to take a lowly courtesan into his harem. But, the Fakir family chronicle, The Real Ranjit Singh, written by Fakir Syed Waheeduddin of Lahore, a descendant of the famous Fakir Fakir Azizuddin, one of Ranjit Singh’s closest advisors, in the possession of the author’s clan suggests otherwise!35
The clan of courtesans had a rather curious tradition. Before a suitor could be accepted as a son-in-law, he would have to build a fire in his future father-in-law’s kitchen with his own hands and blow upon it to make it blaze robustly. Moran’s father, reluctant to marry his daughter out of his clan and faith put forth this condition. After all, Ranjit Singh was the king! He would never consent to performing such a lowly menial task and that too in the family home of a courtesan. It seemed like a very clever way of turning down the Maharaja without offending him. After all, tradition was tradition!
Much to everyone’s surprise, Ranjit Singh agreed without batting an eyelid, so enamoured was he of the young courtesan. The fire ritual was conducted not at Moran’s house but in the home of her godfather, Mian Samdu, a wealthy citizen of Amritsar. The wedding was celebrated with great pomp and show. The Maharaja’s wedding procession, comprising of elephants, horses, palanquin
s and throngs of people on foot stretched from Lahore Fort to the Shalimar Garden, a distance of several miles. The bride was given away by Mian Samdu with a rich dowry of of jewellery, clothes and household goods as if she had been a princess.
The Sikhs, particularly the orthodox Akalis, were incensed. While they could tolerate some of the peccadilloes of the king, the act of marrying a courtesan, a Muslim to boot, was an affront that they could not swallow. Ranjit Singh was king, but the republican nature of the Sikh community had in no way been tempered by his coronation. The Akalis decided to take matters into their own hands. They summoned the monarch to appear before the Akal Takht, part of the Golden Temple complex and the traditional seat of Sikh temporal power, to explain his conduct. Ranjit Singh stood before the congregation, head bowed and hands folded, listening silently as the head of the Akal Takht thunderously condemned his conduct. The monarch acknowledged that he had erred and begged forgiveness. After great deliberation, a ‘Gurmata’ (resolution) was passed, declaring that Ranjit Singh had been guilty of misconduct and deserved to be punished. The punishment—one hundred lashes on his bare back, before the assembly! All eyes were on Ranjit Singh as the punishment was announced. The monarch simply nodded signaling his submission. His shirt was removed and he was tied to the trunk of a tamrind tree outside the Akal Takht. Some of the assemblage was in tears, moved by the king’s humility. The Jathedar (leader) of the Akal Takht then stood up to declare that the Maharaja had acknowledged his mistake and had submitted to the authority of the Akal Takht and for this, he deserved credit. Furthermore, since he was the king and worthy of respect, it was decreed that a single lash would suffice. The assembly then erupted in cheers.
The Jathedar of the Akal Takht was none other than Akali Phoola Singh, often times Ranjit Singh’s bête noire and one of his most effective generals to be! The nature of the relationship between Ranjit Singh and Moran has to be teased out of the pages of history. The nature of a king’s private life with his wives and concubines was such that travellers, outside observers and biographers, really did not have much access into the goings on at the zenana (harem) of a king. But there are many clues that suggest that Ranjit Singh formed a deep and lifelong attachment to Bibi Moran, despite his numerous dalliances and large appetites.
The Camel Merchant of Philadelphia Page 8