‘My father is no ordinary man,’ he informed her, ‘he is the Sultan of Gujarat. He’ll pay whatever ransom the Prince wants. Jagirs, elephants, horses, you mention it, he’ll give anything because, Sikander may be the eldest but I am his favourite.’ He held Kausalya’s hand and kissed it with his lips and his eyes. ‘You will, won’t you?’ he started crying. ‘I have nobody but you and if you let me down, the Maharaj Kumar will leave me to die. Have you seen what he has, done to me? He tried to kill me.’
‘How did he do it?’ Kausalya asked him. He thought about it for a long time, then whispered to her, ‘He knows the lions and lionesses of Chittor and its environs. He paid one to kill me but I fought with it with my bare hands.’
The rest of his semi-conscious time he howled. I wanted to cut his tongue off, ram a thick wooden ruler down his throat. Kausalya sat immobile making me feel like a spoilt child.
Bahadur is fast receding into the sleep of the immortals. He hasn’t been conscious for at least thirty-six hours. The doctors came twice daily because they were afraid of my displeasure. They changed the medicines from time to time but that was more for my sake than the patient’s. In my sister Sumitra’s case, I was sure now that she would have survived if Father had let the surgeon amputate her leg. What was the surgeon going to amputate in Bahadur’s case? His rotting guts or the chest cavity above his heart?
My thoughts went back to Sumitra. I knew what was in Father’s mind when he told the surgeon to leave her be. She would hop and limp about when she recovered and some Rao or Rawal would force his son to marry her because an alliance with Chittor was desirable and her husband would treat her like a cripple, abuse her and humiliate her by mimicking her gait. Even now I catch myself telling Father in the privacy of my mind that I would have gone from any corner of our country and skinned her husband if he had so much as raised his voice at her. Why could she not have stayed with us? I would have looked after her.
I would have too, but that’s nonsense because Sumitra is not here and I am using her constantly as a decoy not to look at what is staring me in the face. Where had that bloody Mangal gone? Was Puraji playing a game of tit for tat, teaching me a lesson in kind for not taking prompt action against the Rajput poachers? Had the tribal doctor Eka died a couple of years ago and I didn’t know about it?
I’ll do almost anything to get Bahadur to live and yet there are times when I imagine the great relief that would accrue from his death. I would be free, free, free from the gruesome rot.
We’ll build a tall and wide pyre and I will go forth like a man to his appointed task, pour the ghee, say the prayers wishing his soul eternal peace and light the pyre at the head, at the feet and the sides till there’s such a mighty conflagration that the very sky will go up in flames. I realize I’m not in my right mind. The Prince is a Mussalman and we’ll have to bury him but no amount of earth can get rid of that bilious perfume. I ask the labourers to dig deeper. How deep, they ask. I think of the well with perennial waters my great-grandfather built at Kumbhalgarh. Two hundred and seventy feet. More but not less. They are making slow progress. The Prince’s corpse has begun to go rancid in the sun under the white sheet that is wrapped tightly around him. I remove my duglo, hang on to the rope and descend. I dig like a mad man, shame the workers into digging and shovelling faster. It’s night. We don’t stop. Someone brings a tape measure. Two hundred and seventy feet. We stop and climb out. The body is lowered. I can hear it plunging, hitting the sides of the pit like a haphazard bucket in a well. There’s a deep low thud. We throw the ropes in and start shovelling the earth into the hole. It takes us three days and three nights. I pat the earth hard and lie down on top of it exhausted. I am about to fall asleep. I sense something in the air. It’s uncoiling like a snake from its subterranean nest. Bahadur’s malodour, how eagerly, affectionately, it rises to embrace me. We start digging again.
Mangal. Followed by a man who I can only hope is none other than Eka. I am about to go off the deep end and ask ‘Where the hell have you been?’ Fortunately Eka ignores me altogether. Mangal draws me aside and tells me that Puraji’s doctor took a full day looking for the shrubs and herbs for treatment. Wherefore the relief, I ask myself. Nothing has changed. If anything, the Prince is twenty-four hours closer to death. I am about to leave when the doctor calls out to me. ‘You’ll wait outside till I’ve finished my examination.’ It’s a long, long time since anyone has spoken to me without my honorific. I am upset at his lack of manners and grateful. If I am ordered around, someone else must be in charge.
Eka took his time, about thirty minutes. Off and on, Bahadur’s shrieks damaged the fort walls. Eka was precise. ‘He has multiple infections. The lioness’ teeth, the dust and the dirt. His wounds should have been cleaned at any cost. But what is not done cannot be undone either. He’s suffered a tremendous trauma and he’s lost a lot of blood. Plus he has had fever for days. I am going to make him unconscious, otherwise he will not withstand the shock to his system. Then I am going to clean his wounds. If he survives and if the poison has not done irreparable harm, then I’ll apply poultices and cover the wounds with bandages.
‘What are his chances? I would rate them very low. Twenty to twenty-five percent on the outside. The only thing in his favour is his youth. Anybody who can bray like that after what he’s been through, must have the health of an ass.
‘Should I proceed? Or would you rather that I concentrated on reducing the pain?’
He had thrown the question and the responsibility of taking a decision back at me. Is this what kingship meant? I guess it did. ‘Will reducing the pain make him come through?’
‘No. But as I have explained, the first option does not guarantee that either.’
‘Whatever slim chance there is, does it lie in the first option?’
‘I see that you are looking to me to make your decision…’
‘I am not.’ I put him down firmly. ‘I need to have the facts before I decide either way.’
‘There is a good chance that I may hasten his death by all my probing and cleaning but there’s not much else going for him.’
‘All right. We’ll take our chances. Clean him up.’
* * *
‘Are you saying prayers for the recovery of His Highness, Shehzada Bahadur?’ I asked the mullah who was waiting for me about five hundred yards down the road from the palace.
‘Yes, Your Highness, five times a day.’
‘Not very effective, are they? Maybe you should say them oftener and a little more fervently.’
‘They come straight from the heart, Master.’
‘And do you ever pray for our health, mullah?’
‘Everyday, Maharaj Kumar.’
Maybe he did. Unlike me who didn’t pray for my soul’s redemption or his.
‘I came to ask a favour, Master.’
I should have known. You don’t get a favour for free. What did he want? A job for his son in the army? Or out of the army into the civil services? I waited for him to speak.
‘Our mosque, Sire, is in a state of disrepair. Would His Highness consider giving a donation for rebuilding it from the state treasury?’
‘No.’ I was sharper than I had meant to be.
‘But just last year, His Majesty, the Rana gave a big sum for the construction of a Shiva temple and a Jain one.’
‘Mullah, tell me something. Will a Muslim king consider giving a little donation towards the upkeep of a Hindu shrine?’
He looked crestfallen and turned to go. ‘But let me give the matter some thought.’ That seemed to touch him after my rebuff.
‘May Allah look after you.’
I stared at his receding back and called him again. ‘Mullah, it is not conditional but I would appreciate it if your prayers helped repair my friend, the Shehzada’s health.’
It’s the seventh time in seven days I have been to the Eklingji temple. The guards beat the crowds back as I entered. I paid the head priest for the abhishekh and asked him if I c
ould have some privacy for a few moments. After he had left I prostrated myself. My mind was numb. Shiva is the Destroyer but they say he destroys to create anew. I find it impossible to barter with God, you give me this and I’ll give you that and I hate to treat him as a petition box. I lay on my stomach and took his name seventeen times, then I said, ‘I wish you well, O God. I hope you’ll keep us well too. Bahadur is as much your guest as mine. We’ve always treated our guests with honour and generosity. I trust we won’t fail them now either. May your blessed hand rest over my head and Bahadur’s.’
I circumambulated ten times around Eklingji and went home.
Leelawati was sitting on a swing in the palace. Without meaning to, I ran towards her. She flung herself from the swing straight into my arms and hugged me. She wouldn’t let go of me and I wasn’t about to let go of her. To be trusted so, without any reservations, I too must have been up to some good in my past lives.
‘Where have you been all these days?’
‘You should ask. You never come home. Never send for me.’
‘Look who’s fishing for compliments?’
When in the wrong, take the offensive. ‘You could have come over too.’
‘I asked Father and Dadaji every day. They said you were busy and not to be disturbed.’
‘If I am as busy as they say, how is it you are here today?’
‘I was invited if you please.’
I caught a fleeting glimpse of her behind the curtain. What was she up to? She had already driven a wedge between the Flautist and me. Did she now plan to deprive me of this child too? Leelawati is my only living link to my sister Sumitra. I had no intention of losing her. I must have felt truly threatened. I was about to ask Leelawati the same asinine question that a child is asked at least once a day. Who do you love more, her or me? Fortunately Leelawati interrupted me.
‘What have you got for me?’
I gave her the prasad from Eklingji to gain time to think. She hadn’t come for so long I had stopped stocking up on chikki, halwa and other sweets.
‘You wait here. Close your eyes. Don’t move. Not an inch. Not a millimetre.’
‘What if I do?’
‘You’ll turn to stone.’
She opened half an eye to check if I was watching her.
‘No cheating, madam.’
She quickly closed her eyes. I ran out into the garden, picked a dozen roses, then doubled back, went to the attic where my toys were stored and got ten marbles from the bottle in which I had hoarded them many, many years ago. She was standing still with her eyes closed.
‘May I open my eyes?’
I kissed her left eye and then her right. ‘Now you may.’ I gave her the bouquet. It was such an unexpected present, she stood there a little hesitant and thoughtful.
‘Does this mean you love me?’
‘But I always did and always will, stupid.’
‘Forever?’
‘Yes. Seven lives and more.’
‘Now look who’s silly. Not you, but it is I who must ask for you as my husband in my next seven lives when I tie the string around the banyan tree at the festival of Vat Savitri.’
The curtain moved almost imperceptibly. Greeneyes was listening to Leelawati’s and my conversation. Leelawati did not miss the tightening of the muscles in my face.
‘These flowers are a token of our betrothal, aren’t they?’
Is that what flowers are for? If I give some to my wife, will we be married too? Leelawati was distraught by my silence.
‘Yes.’
She smiled and gave me back a flower. ‘There, now the marriage is sealed.’
‘Are you going to keep jabbering or do I get a chance to give you your second present?’ I gave her the marbles. Her eyes lit up with incandescent pleasure.
‘Veerdev, Raghudev, Ashok Simha, Pratap can all go to hell. I don’t need their marbles any more and it’s okay if they don’t play with me. I can set up my own game now. You haven’t asked what I have got for you.’
‘I’m sure you’ll part with the information, anyway.’
‘That does it. I will not tell you what it is and I won’t give it to someone as snooty as you.’
I apologized. I begged for mercy.
She was not about to forgive me. ‘I made them with my own hands.’ She added just in case I had lost interest.
‘What?’ I asked innocently.
‘Hopscotch shells.’
‘There, you told me.’ That brought on a shower of blows.
‘You made me. You tricked me.’
‘More fool you.’
‘I’ll get you for this. I will too.’
‘Are we going to play or just blabber?’
‘Are you really going to play hopscotch with me?’ She couldn’t contain her delight. She brought out the shells. She had painted them with phosphorescent sindoor. ‘See, you can play with them even at midnight and you’ll see them.’
She watched us play through the evening from the window. Once when I stumbled and sprawled on the ground, I thought I heard her laugh.
It was the first night after the Prince’s illness that I had slept. I was woken up around one thirty. There was a message from the tribal doctor. He couldn’t get a reading of the Prince’s pulse. If I wanted to say goodbye to him, now was the time.
‘Is he awake?’
‘No, Highness.’ Was the honorific back as consolation for his inability to change my guest’s fortunes? If he was not awake what was the point of calling me? Was I supposed to keep vigil? Say a prayer for his soul? He must have read my thoughts.
‘Sometimes they wake up and are absolutely lucid before they venture to other worlds.’
Don’t I know it? But once was enough. What shall I say to him?
The Shehzada didn’t wake up that night. Or the next.
I didn’t see the point of going back to bed. A dip in the Gambhiree, phew, the water was cold or perhaps I’m not in such great shape, and I went over to Lakshman Simhaji’s office.
I had discussed Raja Puraji Kika’s complaint with him about a month ago but had not followed it up. He felt we should call our nobles from the border areas to Chittor and ask them to clarify what was going on.
‘Are they likely to confess to poaching if, and I grant you that it’s a big if, they really have been?’
‘I would like to think they are honest men. And even if they are lying they are bound to slip up.’
‘If they were honest men they would not be grabbing Bhil lands. Raja Puraji is not likely to have made this complaint without checking the facts first. But there’s another matter of some urgency here. Apart from the fact that we have both been lax, I want to send a signal to all our neighbours that we value their friendship, if it is proffered, and will do everything in our power to cement it.’
‘Fair enough, but why the urgency? Merely because the Bhil king is your Gurukul friend?’
‘No. I listen to the heroic tales that the Charans and the other bards sing of and I am aghast. Do you know just how many of our wars in the last fifty years alone were due to some petty frontier dispute provoked by a small-time jagirdar whose greed got out of hand? Every friend that we make and keep is at least one war less.’
He was silent for a minute.
‘I will send for Hada Parbat.’
‘Won’t that give the game away?’
‘Give me some credit, Maharaj Kumar. He’ll meet the erring landlords and be sympathetic to land-grabbing and poaching and worm out all the information we need. When instructed precisely, he’s a capable man. He’ll leave tomorrow.’
He was right. I sent a courier to Raja Puraji Kika telling him that I was instituting an enquiry as of immediate effect and would keep him posted of developments.
At ten o’clock I had a meeting with Rao Jai Simha Balech. He owed me one and I wanted to strike when the iron was hot. I enquired after his family, especially his sons and then moved straight on to business.
‘I have been through y
our report. I agree with your analysis that given the state of technology in the weaponry and equipment in our neighbouring kingdoms, we are, at the very least, at par with them. In many instances, our elephants have proved to be a major factor in our favour. But do you remember what you taught us at the Academy? The difference between bronze and iron was a phenomenal leap in war technology, not a matter of degree but almost of a different species. Both the opponents fought with swords but against iron, the bronze swords were soft as clay. From the reports that have filtered down from the north-west, from Turkey and beyond, the technology of war materials seems to be undergoing revolutionary changes. I am not talking about matchlocks. I have heard that they now have some very, very big guns, I’m not sure what they are called but just ten or twelve of these massive guns can play a devastating role before two opposing armies can join hand-to-hand battle.
‘Unless we are familiar with the new equipment we’ll find ourselves in the position of the soldiers with bronze swords confronted by iron ones.’
He was respectfully attentive, I was after all the Maharaj Kumar, but I didn’t want him to humour me.
‘All this will take time. How soon do you think you can get all the information on the subject? Names, diagrams, effective range, the chemistry of the gun powder, and the metallurgy for the guns. Who has the expertise and who is selling it? Let’s have competitive figures and last but not the least, where can we hire experts and teachers to train our men?’
He looked dumbfounded. I had overdone it. Perhaps I should have gone about it in stages.
‘Will your father approve of all this?’
‘Whether Father approves or not, the new know-how will overtake us all. That is the nature of technology. The least we can do is to keep abreast of it. Otherwise someone else will and that will be the end of us.’ I decided to deadline the project to conclude the discussion and underline its seriousness. ‘I have set aside thirty thousand tankas from the defence budget for the project. I would like to have a preliminary report within two months and a detailed one in five months’ time. I suggest you treat this as top priority.’
Cuckold Page 13