‘He signed the papers months ago, Vihaan,’ the prince said grimly, vexed by the fact that Vihaan was still at it.
‘That can be challenged in the courts of the United Nations! We’ll claim they were signed under duress.’
‘I couldn’t be less interested in politics right now, Vihaan. Do I look like I care?’
‘Look, Abhi, this isn’t politics. This is our life, our existence! I sympathize with your condition, and I am sorry for what you are going through, but we have to stand up for our rights! Daata was sold a ruse.’
‘I had expressly asked not to be contacted or bothered while I am here, Vihaan.’
‘Have you heard about Operation Polo? Thousands have been being massacred in Hyderabad to compel them to join India! Innocent blood spilled on the streets – is that what they call freedom?’
The Nizam of Hyderabad had refused to join India, and had chosen Pakistan instead. The landlocked princely state in the heart of the Indian subcontinent wanted to join with a Muslim-dominated landmass that lay 2,000 kilometres away from its borders – something the Indian government just couldn’t accept. Why not? asked the Hyderabadi leaders. Why should they sacrifice the reality of Hyderabad for the idea of India? Vihaan agreed. Ranakpour had been ruled by the family for centuries, he argued – monarchy must work if it lasted that long. We must join the other states, he implored. The idea of India’s Independence didn’t take hold in one fell swoop in 1947. The idea was being challenged and reinforced on the streets as well as in secret cabinets throughout the past year. The British had left the country, but dozens of deep state actors had poured in their own ideas along with guns to fill the vacuum. Lancaster Bombers loaded with arms flew into the holdouts – Hyderabad, Kashmir and other lesser-known princely states. When overpowered by the Indian Army, the same bombers carried the royals to safety in the dark of night – to England, the Middle East and wherever else they could seek refuge – leaving behind their kingdoms and their idyllic lifestyles. They left behind their world and their homes – centuries-old paintings hanging over ornate walls, collections of classic literature from all over the globe, Persian cats and so much more. All left behind in pristine condition while the idea of independence ensnared them whole.
The mess of Independent India he had left behind came back in a swirl along with Vihaan. Abhimanyu had been far away from that tinderbox, undergoing rehabilitation and therapy for his injuries, and he had no intention of getting even remotely involved in the affairs of the royal family and Ranakpour at the time. All he longed for was some quiet time to mourn his broken dreams.
Who am I to stab at the tide of history, Abhimanyu recalled quoting Chishti to his uncle the night his family had gathered after Uday Singh’s last announcement as a monarch. Alas, he didn’t have the luxury to be that blasé anymore. He groaned inwardly, knowing that he was going to have to choose between Vihaan and the rest of his family. His father, along with Ajay Singh and Avantika, had decided to join India in exchange for an elusive seat in the corridors of power. Vihaan, his kid brother, who by all accounts was always high on cocaine and conspiracy theories, had bandied up with other state rulers to subvert the very idea of India. Abhimanyu felt helpless in the face of Vihaan’s arguments. He found it preposterous that Vihaan was working with other princely states to counter the might of India, going against the collective wishes of the millions who cherished their freedom and were willing to defend it till their last breath. He wanted to save Vihaan from the self-destructive path he was on. While he found his brother’s arguments absurd, deep down he envied him for having a point of view; a fire in his belly to stand for something. On the other hand, all Abhimanyu could think of was his right eye, or what was left of it. Where is Meera, he wondered.
‘The Nizams have been thrown out of Hyderabad, but they won’t give up. I am working with them through international channels. I need your help to convince Daata and others to join the fight, Abhi. We have the Nizam with us! The rightful ruler of Hyderabad will not—’
‘Vihaan, you are barking up the wrong tree. I wish to rest. Now please leave me alone.’
As Vihaan made his exit, angrily and unceremoniously lambasting his elder brother for inaction, Meera was trudging along Fifth Avenue, battling a blizzard. Twenty inches of white, powdery snow had engulfed the city, and Meera was on the road, taking one step at a time. Her forty-minute walk on a normal day had taken her three hours, even though hundreds of men all over the city were ploughing the snow relentlessly.
‘It’s your big day! I have tickets to a Broadway show!’ she said as soon as she entered Abhimanyu’s hospital room. She was shivering and dusting snow off her heavy winter coat, clueless about the two brothers’ recent and contentious reunion. Abhimanyu smiled at her excitement, grateful once more that she was by his side, though he was almost immediately consumed by guilt when he remembered that he was keeping her in the dark. But this was Meera’s first Broadway show and he didn’t want to play spoilsport, and so he gamely went along with her.
But on his first night outside the sterile room of Mount Sinai, the prince could hardly focus. He couldn’t recall the plot or the songs of Kiss Me Kate, a story about love lost and found, even if his life depended on it. Instead, he found himself wondering whether the veritable theatre – the same one where Orson Welles and his troupe had once performed in defiance of an actors’ strike in the mid 1930s – would stand the test of time. He learned from the posters hanging in the waiting hall that the New Century Theatre was established in 1921, first as Jolson’s 59th Street Theatre. It had then changed hands and was rechristened numerous times through the following decades, till the original owners bought it back from the brink of total failure, and again named it the New Century Theatre. As the actors on stage danced to the title song, Abhimanyu couldn’t help but notice the similarities between the theatre and India. How many times would the structure change hands, similar to how India had been invaded, captured, lost and reclaimed again for centuries. Years later, during one of his rare trips to America, he found himself unusually sad when he read that the shutters of the New Century Theatre had come down in 1954, and the building was demolished in 1962.
For Meera, though, the night was a brief respite from the difficult times since the accident. She hadn’t allowed herself a moment to breathe easy lest she miss any aspect of Abhimanyu’s care and recovery. The last few months had also been the longest gap in her riyaz; her heart was heavy and she hadn’t thought about singing even a single verse since she boarded the flight to America. But at the theatre, she was fascinated by the performance, an experience that would stay with her for a long time as she started drawing inspiration from Western classical traditions, masterfully borrowing the unique traits of opera singing in her own signature modulations.
That was her state of mind when she finally reached the Pierre, where the concierge had a message for her. It was from Sahil Malik. At first, she thought it was somebody else, but as soon as she called back and heard the inimitable hoarse voice that had derided the state of Indian film music in numerous interviews on the radio, she knew it was the Sahil Malik – the famous composer who had delivered exquisitely-produced songs for Bazaar, a film firmly etched in the annals of Indian cinema. From the endlessly-playable chaashni to the seductive title song, as well as the ebullient and almost anthemic instrumental theme, Sahil had caught the imagination of pre-Independence India with his wide repertoire. It is said that Subhash Chandra Bose blasted the theme song from Bazaar for his troupes before entering the arena of war, and that he freely drew from Malik’s songs in the many speeches he gave on Free India Radio. Had Bose not gone missing after getting on that fateful flight, and brought freedom to India instead of Gandhi, one of Sahil’s songs would have become the country’s national anthem. And yet, he stopped making music after the one movie. The world does not deserve my art, he had declared.
But now, the mercurial composer had decided to stage a comeback. He had been frantically searching for a sin
gle voice that could do justice to his compositions, travelling to Calcutta, Lucknow, Madras and Goa, and finally to Bombay, where he chanced upon Meera’s scratch recordings for a trifling advertisement. ‘The surest way to a man’s heart,’ Meera had cooed one last time before she had stormed out of the recording booth. The vapid scratch tape had landed in Sahil’s hands. A mere sentence that was spoken, not sung, was enough for him to know that he had found the voice he had been looking for.
‘You must come to Bombay at once,’ Sahil ordered Meera over the phone, ditching any formal greetings. ‘We have work to do.’
All those years of struggle flashed before Meera’s eyes – hours of riyaz at the crack of dawn, the way she’d laboured over every khayal while the world slept and how she’d knocked on every door she could find. Her waking dreams of being recognized one day – was this that day? Meera felt herself grow warm with longing. She found herself wondering whether the opportunity had come too early and too easily; whether she had paid her dues, or whether she would be branded an imposter the moment she sang in Sahil Malik’s presence.
And yet, it took her all of a few seconds to reject the offer. She was needed in New York. She needed to be with Abhimanyu in his darkest hour, and that was more important than working with Sahil. It wasn’t an easy decision at all, but knowing what Abhimanyu was going through, she knew that she was not going to regret it either.
‘I’m sorry, Malikji, but I cannot leave New York just yet,’ she said quietly but firmly. And just as Sahil Malik had started the call without any formal greetings, he hung up without coaxing her any further.
Chapter 14
Abhimanyu wasn’t the only reason Meera had let go of the once-in-a-lifetime chance to work with one of the most celebrated composers in India. She had choked again on an age-old fear. Her decision had as much to do with a man who had once lived deep in the Mhadei forest of southern India as it did with the man now recuperating in New York. Though she would never tell anyone, Meera was protecting a secret that had its roots in a ‘holy man’s’ ashram from the mid-nineteenth century.
Somewhere between Karnataka and Goa, there is a wild ravine that once brimmed with water that flowed into it from a height of 800 feet. It originated in the Sahyadri ranges of Mahabaleshwar, traversed through the Deccan Plains and ended up gushing over a monolithic black stone, located a thousand kilometres away in the backyard of Swami Vellasami’s temple. The colourless water turned white as it plunged down the cliff, and as luck would have it, over the centuries, the deluge had carved the stone into a perfectly smooth shiv-ling. So, Vellasami’s ancestors decided to call it their Shiv Temple. Word spread about this stunning wonder of nature – a preternatural shiv-ling carved by the holy waters; waters that were white as milk.
Devotees from neighbouring cities and states, and later, countries, thronged to the site with their prayers and offerings. Vellasami’s humble temple soon became a money-spinning religious institution. Kings would send their sons for months on end to become learned men under his tutelage. The self-proclaimed renaissance man, Swami Vellasami, would spend months interpreting the Upanishads, talking about politics and encouraging his students to take up the arts in order to broaden their horizons. Among the young royalty were also dozens of devadasis – young girls offered to the temple in service of god by their poor parents; they had a better chance of survival at the temple than at their homes. The devadasis kept themselves busy with the upkeep of the temple during the day, and learned singing and classical dance when their chores were done. Unlike the fate of the impoverished in the surrounding hills, where girls as young as seven were forced into prostitution, the fate of the devadasis at Vellasami’s temple was relatively better.
Mariamma, a sixteen-year-old devadasi, however, commanded the adulation and respect that rivalled the priests. Mariamma, Meera’s great-great-grandmother, would sing bhajans every evening. Her honeyed voice would rise above the thrum of the waterfall, captivating hundreds of devotees in a trance. Grown men would weep openly and open their hearts and purse strings. Goodwill and gold coins poured into the temple and it grew in stature by leaps and bounds, until the day the ground shook.
The earthquake of 1843 has barely been recorded in the history of the Deccan. Calling it a quake would be a stretch, since half the population argued that they didn’t even feel the tremors. Nonetheless, the ground shook enough to change the course of a certain tributary ever so slightly. What was but an insignificant event in the grand scheme of things was a tectonic shift for Vellasami. The waterfall evaporated overnight – it was as though the gods had abandoned the shiv-ling. This was seen as an ominous sign by the devotees, and some argued that a demon had cast his eye on the enchanted place. Within months, just like the waterfall, the devotees reduced to a trickle and the temple lost its glory. Financially, Vellasami was in dire straits – as the temple had grown, the number of residents and dependents had increased. Without the devotees’ patronage, they were close to destitution.
Then, a rather vulgar proposition offered a glimmer of hope in the dark. Mansinh, the prince of Bhawadh and Vellasami’s disciple, promised to donate any amount it would take to deploy thousands of labourers to carve a path and create an artificial waterfall over the shiv-ling, thereby returning the holy ground to its original state. In return, he would get the devadasi he desired the most – Mariamma. A livid Vellasami banished the prince from his ashram, lamenting the fact that his own student was capable of such immorality – going against the will of god, having the nerve to command nature and demanding a devadasi for his own pleasure.
However, Vellasami soon realised that all the young girls living in the temple would be in similar situations if the place that offered them refuge ceased to exist. With a heavy heart, he decided to sacrifice one life to save the others.
‘Will you sing in the royal court of Bhawadh, dear Mariamma?’ he asked her one day after agonizing over the situation, yet unable to conceive an alternative by which the temple could be saved.
‘Is god present in the royal court of Bhawadh?’ she asked in all innocence.
‘He will be,’ said Vellasami, standing on the edge of truth and untruth. And so Mariamma went to Bhawadh, then to Skripal. Later, she sang in the royal courts of Bhiwandi and Moradabad and Goa. But she hadn’t been traded only for her divine voice – passed around patrons and kingdoms, Mariamma found herself enslaved by men who used her as they pleased, and then discarded her when they’d had their fill.
The story was a thinly-veiled secret in the Apte family; one that Meera had battled with all her life. Out of all of Mariamma’s descendents, Meera resembled her the most – she had inherited her voice, and the complexion of a higher-born from the man who had fathered Mariamma’s child. The Aptes never knew who he was, but their collective past cast a shadow on the women in the family. When she was a little girl, the children in her neighbourhood would tease Meera for her alabaster skin. ‘Did your mama sleep with Vasco da Gama,’ they would chant when they’d see her on the street, and she would rush to her mother with tears in her eyes. ‘The Aptes have good genes,’ her mother would console her in vain. Meera’s father had a more practical approach. ‘How does it matter, Meera? You are more than the colour of your skin,’ he’d say kindly but impatiently.
But it did matter to her. Every decision she took was to maintain her family’s honour – the honour Pandit Jayashankar had bestowed on her family by marrying her mother. He had trained her in the classical tradition, and all her life she had wanted to follow in his footsteps. His death had plunged them so close to poverty that she had had to reevaluate her plans. Meera now felt torn. She knew that singing for Sahil Malik was a highly lucrative opportunity, but the composer had a reputation of treating his singers like they were his property. How different would that be from how Mariamma had been treated? She didn’t know, but she followed her heart and chose Abhimanyu.
*
When Meera told Abhimanyu about rejecting Sahil’s offer, she had expe
cted him to be supportive and reassure her that she’d taken the right decision. But instead his face grew more solemn.
‘What is the matter, Abhi? Why aren’t you saying anything?’ she asked him, a feeling of dread blooming steadily in her stomach. For months, Abhimanyu had been teetering on the edge of telling Meera about the conversation he’d had with Uday Singh. It had been eating him from the inside. Everytime he gathered the courage to come clean, every time he mustered up the courage to speak the truth, he fell short, hoping that he could find it in himself to defy his father and marry Meera. A royal marrying a commoner, dear reader, was unheard of in those days. But Abhimanyu was not one to be bogged down by such orthodoxy. He could have disowned his family in a heartbeat to spend another day with Meera, even if that meant bringing shame, disgrace and dwindled political fortunes to his family – he could stomach that. But Abhimanyu wanted to walk away from Meera for her own good. The protracted talks on accession, his mother’s death, his father’s decision to join politics and his siblings chasing their own agendas had made his family dysfunctional. ‘We were all unfit for her,’ he would say later. Their’s was a family Abhimanyu didn’t see Meera surviving even if he were to disown them, given their propensity for prestige and power. Abhimanyu couldn’t care less about Meera’s devadasi lineage, but he knew his family cared enough to ruin their relationship. Her history notwithstanding, the royal family would simply not allow her to pursue a singing career in the future.
The Prince and the Nightingale Page 10