The Prince and the Nightingale

by Abhishek Bhatt

  Chapter 10

  ‘It’s unfortunate the tournament didn’t go as I had planned,’ said Abhimanyu over his soup.

  He was hosting a dinner for the Gaekwads in the grand chowk of the palace once the queen’s thirteenth day rituals concluded. The sunbaked marble was still warm, but the cool desert air had made the night bearable. The Gaekwads had stayed put in the palace, even as the tournament was postponed indefinitely, while the Ranakpour family went through the ceremonies to honour their deceased matriarch. Some from the Baroda royal family had suggested that they leave Ranakpour and be back for the tournament at a more appropriate time, but Bhimji Gaekwad ordered them to stay out of respect. They had taken part in the public procession, conveying their condolences and offering help where they could.

  ‘We’re sorry for your loss. Your mother was a gentle soul. I am happy I had the opportunity to know her,’ said Bhimji Gaekwad, aptly ignoring Abhimanyu’s talk about cricket.

  ‘Thank you for your kind words,’ said Abhimanyu. He was digging into the main course. After barely eating for nearly a fortnight, he was enjoying the return of his appetite.

  ‘We plan to take your leave at daybreak tomorrow. While we would have loved to meet up under better circumstances, I want to thank you and the family for your tremendous hospitality, even at such an unfortunate time.’ The Gaekwad clan nodded in approval.

  ‘Oh no, no,’ said Abhimanyu, looking up from his plate. ‘The match is on for tomorrow. Have you been told otherwise?’

  There was a certain edge in Abhimanyu’s tone that made the diners uncomfortable as he looked around the table. He seemed rather enthusiastic about a game for a man who had recently lost his mother. The Baroda clan didn’t know how to react, and looked towards Bhimji for clues.

  ‘Now you regret skipping your practice sessions, don’t you,’ Abhimanyu guffawed. Bhimji Gaekwad nodded and smiled for a brief second, but the expression on his face was grim.

  A lot has been written about that infamous match in the desert city. How Abhimanyu had braved the loss of his beloved mother and played the match. The prince kept his word, they said. Death could not vanquish his commitment towards the sport. However, on the eve of the match, the Gaekwads interpreted things quite differently. They saw a man tethering on insanity. His chirpy demeanor and his voracious appetite for the lamb curry, kesar kulfi and assorted drinks on the table that night were all proof that Abhimanyu was in shock after his mother’s death, and was simply losing his grip on reality. He taunted the Gaekwads about how they were chickening out and finding excuses not to play out of the fear of losing. Good old ribbing under normal circumstances, but highly inappropriate behaviour for a night when the guests were trying to handle a difficult situation with grace.

  ‘The match is on tomorrow morning at 9, sir. Cheers to the start of something beautiful. A league that will lay the foundation for Indian cricket.’ He rose from his seat and held his glass up high. The glass hovered above the Gaekwads’ heads as they contemplated how to handle the unstable prince.

  ‘One last thing,’ said Bhimji, before succumbing to Abhimanyu’s unreasonable demand. ‘A little token of our respect for the late queen.’

  A lanky man stepped in to remove the cloth from a painting that stood on an easel in a corner of the room. The Gaekwads had brought in a talented painter, the best in Baroda, on the trip so that he could memorialize their trip to Ranakpour through his vivid paintings. The plan was for the painter to be present at the cricket match and capture the spirit of the game as well. In the wake of the queen’s death, Bhimji had ordered the painter to create a moving representation of Kaushalya Devi that would stand the test of time. The painter did not disappoint. Abhimanyu was visibly moved when he saw the bright and colourful interpretation of his mother. There was an inexplicable intimacy in that image that Abhimanyu admired so much that he carried the painting with him wherever he went and really felt that she was somewhere close by. He also admired the artist’s skill in depicting the Ranakpour palace in all its glory. Unlike typical royal portraits of the time, this young painter had Kaushalya Devi standing outdoors, with the Ranakpour palace rising from the cliff in the background. Even though the palace looked diminutive in the distance behind the queen’s left shoulder, the attention to detail was undeniable, down to the minutest stroke in the Ranakpour flag that waved atop the grand dome. Moved, Abhimanyu reached for his wrist to take off the diamond-encrusted watch, a gift given to him by the queen herself when he had turned eighteen, and presented it to the painter.

  Not many people know that years later, the painter reached out to Abhimanyu to apologize for his creation, and returned the watch. When a puzzled Abhimanyu said that the painting was one of his most valuable possessions, the artist admitted that the painting was in fact blemished by the vagaries of his youth. ‘I feel bad of having cheated you of your emotions all these years,’ he said, quietly adding, ‘do look at the painting once more, you’ll notice something right over the Ranakpour flag.’ It was a deft play of colours, easy to miss and yet impossible to ignore once pointed out. The saffron hues of the setting sun behind the palace, the scattered white clouds hanging low and almost touching the dome, and the green pastures next to the palace grounds neatly represented the Indian flag. Saffron, white and green, the tricolour hiding in plain sight, ready to ensnare the Ranakpour coat of arms and signifying that the queen had left behind a defeated kingdom.

  What the painter had not known was that Abhimanyu had seen the Indian flag the moment he had laid eyes on the painting. The painter had indeed captured the reality of Ranakpour. For the artist and Meera were not the only representatives of free India in the palace that night. Present in the Durbar Hall were also the members of the Indian Civil Services and Vallabhbhai Patel’s able diplomats armed with carrots and sticks, ready to ratify the final deal with Uday Singh to merge the princely state of Ranakpour with the Union of India. As part of their negotiations, the former king was presented with a relatively meager privy purse and annual payments that would not suffice for the lavish royal lifestyle they were used to. The payments would have been even lesser, had it not been for a secret arrangement that sweetened the offer. The officers had enlisted Uday Singh’s help to reign in his good friend, Paramveer Bhanj, the last ruling head of Bilwara. The agreement was that if Uday Singh would convince Bhanj to join the Indian dominion, in return, Singh would get the backing of the Indian National Congress in his run for a seat in the parliament.

  This deal within a deal would unravel in the coming decades and end with Bhanj shot dead on the steps of his own palace. Even the privy purse was cancelled unceremoniously in the 70s. All that was left of royalty were their old forts and palaces sitting as white elephants. Centuries-old jagirs that were then turned into hotels. Ranakpour’s storied customs and traditions, and even Bilwara’s royal steps where Bhanj breathed his last, were now packaged and pimped into a seven-star resort experience – a business that was barely enough to cover the cost of maintaining the palaces.

  It’s not as if the princely states had any leverage. Junagadh, Hyderabad and Kashmir were the last of the princely states to accede to the Indian dominion. Talks had broken down between the states and Sardar Patel’s men, having run out of carrots, had resorted to sticks, guns rather, to force them to join the Union of India. Secret political and military firestorms had engulfed parts of the newly-found India, and Uday Singh didn’t want to be a part of that theatre. In his mind, it was the best Ranakpour could do in the new India.

  That notion of India would be litigated in every election cycle. The cat and mouse game of the subcontinent had been going on for centuries. The Mauryans and Chalukyas were followed by the Tughlaqs, and then the Bahmani Sultanate was thrown out by the Mughals, and so on. But the war of ideas continued well into Independence, across India, as states continued to be split up by leaders who jostled to hold on to power. Democracy and the powerplays that were the elections would ensure that the country kept transforming – a liv
ing, breathing, shape-shifting entity for years and years to come. One where the maps would change the nature of the land and the names on those maps would also change – from Bombay to Mumbai, Madras to Chennai, and so on – to reinforce identities, as if changing a name could erase their history.

  *

  ‘Please forgive me for disturbing you at this hour. The honorable Abhimanyu Singh wishes to see you,’ a sentry announced from behind closed doors. It was late. The dinner with the Gaekwads must have gone on for some time, thought Meera as she prepared to receive the prince, hoping her dressing gown was appropriate, even though she was in her own room.

  ‘Please let him in.’

  It was the first time Abhimanyu and Meera had been alone after Kaushalya Devi’s death. The night by the pond was still fresh in Meera’s mind, and yet, somehow it felt like a distant memory. Abhimanyu entered and remained by the entrance without uttering a word. His mood had swung drastically compared to how it was at the dinner table.

  ‘I hope all went well at the teravi,’ Meera broke the silence.

  ‘Aren’t you going to ask me whether mother spoke with Daata before she passed away?’ Abhimanyu inquired.

  ‘This is not the time to discuss such matters, Abhimanyu. I just hope you can ride this through.’

  Right there and then, Abhimanyu wanted to embrace Meera. He felt the urge to hold her tight till she melted in his arms, so that no one could ever take her away from him. He noticed her translucent skin peeking from beneath the robe. Just days before, he had buried his head there and felt her skin shiver. He wanted to scream at the top of his lungs that he had failed her, devour that skin right there on the silk bedding, eat her whole so he didn’t have to face life away from her. He wanted to offer her a sword and plead her to strike him at the back of his neck – a punishment befitting his crime; one of cowardice. The prince of Ranakpour was not man enough to stand up for his love and felt that he should pay the price. He wanted to confess that he would not be able marry her, because he had to give the Ranakpour family a chance to win a goddamn election. Meera would have to be the first casualty of the royal family’s quest to hold on to power in Independent India – a pawn in the grand scheme of things. He wanted to shout out his confession and plead her to conjure up all the hate in the world and reject him outright in the cruelest fashion, but instead he lunged towards Meera like a desperate animal holding on to dear life. Meera stopped him with her outstretched hand, her palm gently touching his chest.

  ‘Now is not the time, Abhimanyu.’

  Abhimanyu didn’t have it in him to break her heart that night. He felt an overwhelming sense of shame and despair. He couldn’t hurt her that night. So what if her fate was sealed? So what if he was going to upend her life? He just couldn’t bring himself to do it right then.

  ‘Please come to the game tomorrow morning. I’d love for you to be there,’ he said, and walked out into the wretched night.

  *

  The match was one for the ages. On the day Maharaja Uday Singh acceded Ranakpour to the Dominion of India, his middle son, Abhimanyu Singh Ranakpour, was holding his ground against a fiery bowling attack from the visiting team. The day Uday Singh formally surrendered his sovereignty in return for an allowance and promises of a seat in the new government, Abhimanyu was batting his way with the tail-enders to an unlikely victory. Earlier, he had bowled ferociously to take six wickets and reduced the visiting team to a paltry team total of 104 runs. A man whose life had been thrown into chaos had let it all out on the field that day. The batsmen and their stumps had to face the wrath of the determined prince as he seamed and swung the ball prodigiously to vanquish one and all. The best of the Baroda batsmen toppled like a house of cards until it was their turn to bowl. Ranakpour’s top order disappointed and it was up to Abhimanyu, known for his bowling, to bat them out of a hole as they found themselves staring at defeat – 44 runs overall, which came at the cost of 8 wickets. Abhimanyu had put up a fight and brought his team to a winning distance at 98 runs by first defending and then hitting lusty blows to the amazement of the crowd. Even Meera, who was watching the match from the royal balcony, had not seen that aspect of his game. To the spectators, Abhimanyu was a man possessed to win the game against all odds. His eyes were hyper-focused on each incoming delivery and every action purposeful and deliberate. Internally, however, the prince was distraught and his mind was far away from the game. The previous night had not brought any respite to the storm that brewed inside his head. Despite all his efforts, he did not have it in him to betray his family, especially his broken father. He had made up his mind to stand by Uday Singh’s wish and not pursue his relationship with Meera any further, but he did not have the courage to look Meera in the eye and tell her about his decision.

  And then, completely against the run of play, just when everyone thought Abhimanyu would see it through, came the delivery. To this day, no one conclusively remembers who the bowler was. Bhimji Gaekwad was once quoted as saying that all he could remember from that day was the stomach-churning, loud thwack! – a sound that travelled all the way to the grandstand when the ball met Abhimanyu’s skull. The prince who was hitting perfectly-timed shots till then had let his arms down to a rising bodyline delivery. Maybe the ball came in at an awkward height where he could not decide whether to duck or hook; maybe it bounced unevenly and betrayed his judgment; or maybe he had just lost interest. We will never know. In any case, the ball hit his right temple, and Abhimanyu fell to the ground almost instantly. These were the days where cricket was played without helmets. The players rushed to the pitch to attend to him, and had initially thought that the pool of blood on the batting crease was the result of a gash on the batsman’s head – an injury that would require no more than a few stitches. But to their surprise, Abhimanyu’s head was clean as a whistle, without even a bump, let alone a wound. To their horror, they found that all that blood had trickled out from his right eye. Each and every player on the ground screamed for help. Royal servants rushed to the pitch with a stretcher and whisked the prince away. Their once infallible giant now lay lifeless, leaving a trail of blood on the royal grounds. Meera, who had come to Ranakpour with dreams of starting a life with her beloved prince, could do nothing but watch the gruesome scene from the sidelines. She was devastated that she could not even openly cry out his name lest she give away the nature of their relationship, the actual fate of which she did not know. That first night in Ranakpour, where they stood under the stars as one, was gone in an instant as she stared down at the lifeless prince, alone among a crowd of onlookers by the sidelines.

  Chapter 11

  It’s ironic how the true reputation of a hospital is established by how many famous people breathed their last in its beds. For every mortal that received treatment and walked out of their doors after cheating death, Breach Candy Hospital Trust also boasted a reputation of being a veritable institution where prominent people came to die. From industrialists and business tycoons to celebrities, artists, politicians, people from the uppermost echelons of India, fought for their dear lives and succumbed to their illness or injuries; while reporters with cameras and dictaphones, and later concerned citizens with their camera phones, lined up outside the gates of the pristine white building, eagerly awaiting news. It was a morbid affair, but Abhimanyu lovingly called Breach Candy his second home, and its staff his extended family, he had become a regular fixture at the famed building in his twilight years. Before the Alzheimer’s robbed him of his memory, he knew everyone by their names and everyone in the hospital knew his preferences and pet peeves. Nurses and doctors would sneak in home cooked-food as he’d zestfully feast upon idli-sambhar and modak while his hospital meal would remain untouched. Why order that awful, barely edible fare from the Seagull Dispensary – his name for the Seagull Café situated at the ground floor – when I can smuggle in cuisines from every corner of India, he would say, chuckling.

  The prince displayed no such wit on his first trip though, as he was checked i
n wearing his bloodied cricket whites, his right eye shut and his nose swollen to the size of a cucumber. Halfway through his hasty trip from Ranakpour, blood had started oozing again from his injured eye, a slow but sure drip in every direction. Dried blood in his hair, neck and shoulders had taken over the Ranakpour emblem on the chest of his shirt. The rudimentary band-aid across his head had to be changed every hour as it would get soaking wet. He would drift in and out of consciousness, barely noticing the various modes of transport he was in. A car, a plane, a wheelchair. Had he also been on a train? ‘Meera,’ he would call out, not bothering about who was around him. Thankfully, Ranjit Singh had convinced his family members to stay back home as he assured them that Abhimanyu would be rushed to the best hospital in India. Ranjit, accompanied by Meera, reached the hospital where Penaru joined them to help with the paperwork, while Abhimanyu was whisked away for an emergency surgery. ‘Careful with the trousers,’ he muttered as they were prepping to get him in the operating theater. Meera assured him that everything was fine. She stuck her hand into the pockets of his trousers to check, as they were going to be cut open with scissors before the surgery, and found a note. A page ripped out of his black diary that had a neatly written address on it – that of old man Madhao from Ahmedabad airport who had asked for help. Abhimanyu had intended to announce that his team’s proceeds from the match would go to the man in need; a protocol he had established to raise issues for the countryfolk. Meera placed it next to his other belongings.

  The surgery wasn’t conclusive by any means, but the doctors were able to remove a bone fragment lodged in Abhimanyu’s eye socket. The good news was that his retina was intact. The bad news was that they couldn’t do much until the optic canal decompressed. All the first surgery achieved was allowing Abhimanyu’s injury to bleed out freely. Meera saw more blood soaked bandages in the first hour after the surgery than she had used during the day and a half it had taken Ranjit Singh and her to get Abhimanyu to Bombay. As the painkillers wore off in the middle of the night, through the agony that followed surgery, all Abhimanyu could think of was how in the world he would break the news to Meera that he won’t be able to marry her. It was as though the lingering misery of this thought was robbing him of the ability to cope with his debilitating injury – that feeling of swollen brain tissue pressing up against his skull; a paralyzing pain he would feel for the rest of his life in the most unpredictable moments. At times, he was sure his head was going to burst. A cocktail of painkillers would become his staple diet – five colourful tablets after breakfast, two after lunch and seven at dinner. Over the years, the monstrous throb in his head became a way for Abhimanyu to predict the weather. A throb every six seconds meant a cold front was coming. A throb that lasted more than an hour meant that the humidity was well above 80 per cent. And yet, at that moment in the hospital bed, the thought of confessing to Meera was a thousand times more agonizing than the clockwork-like tremble in his mangled right eye.