I tied my horse and did what any child of seven would have done right at the start. I spat on my palms and climbed up a peepul tree. When you grow up and return to them, you find that your school and classrooms, your home, the long and forbidding administrative block of buildings, your own father and mother, everybody and everything has shrunk. Unless my memory was playing tricks on me, Rohala had gone against the grain. It had prospered and grown into a town. The semicircular Mayura lake by which it was situated was a good mile and a half long. The slate-grey glass of the water looked solid enough to walk on. It was a mystery why the houses stopped exactly at the diameter of the lake but the effect was to turn Rohala into a toy town. Just in case the Mayura ever went dry, the town had its own river, a tributary of the Banas. There were at least forty two-storeyed buildings, a mosque with a minaret and on the left bank of the river, a temple.
Does a town, city or village have a heart and a soul and a mind? Who decided that the lake was for leisure and that the town should grow around the river? I felt I was caught unawares, as if Rohala had hoodwinked me and grown and spread behind my back. How was it I was so uninformed about our kingdom? How many other villages had burgeoned into towns? And how many had atrophied? I knew what I had to do. I must tour every part of Mewar. I wanted to see the faces of my people. I must talk to them, ask about their crops and industries. What were their problems? Were they good tax-payers? Were our revenue officers corrupt? That old fox Adinathji was right. Not war, but agriculture, manufacture and trade are the fuel of progress. What was the secret of Rohala’s prosperity? Could it be replicated? Or was the trick to study the genius of each place and …. Chamundi. The temple on the river bank was a Chamundi temple and the house next to it was the one I was looking for.
I knocked for a long time. Was she there? I could feel the hostility of the house. With every tap of the knocker, it shrank back from me. The two-storeyed mansion was now a tight little ball of malevolent intent which swung back at me.
‘Who is it?’ the retainer asked. It didn’t look as if he had been sleeping the sleep of the dead. He was alert, truculent and itching for a fight.
‘Dai Kausalya. Is she here?’
‘No, Your Highness, she is not.’
He was a professional bouncer, the kind that can deal with any manner of trouble and if need be, put an end to it. But I am a handful, and besides I never forget that I am the future king.
‘Wrong answer. You should have said “Who the hell are you?”’ I pushed him back and entered. The fountain was playing. The geography of the house came back to me. I turned right. Kausalya’s room was on the first floor. I went up the stairs, turned left, ran along the balustraded passage that looked out on the courtyard and knocked on the fourth door. No response. I knocked again. Silence. I pushed the door hard. It didn’t give. I was relieved. She must have locked it from inside.
‘If you don’t open the door, Kausalya, I’m going to break it open.’ The retainer watched me from downstairs. Three other servants, two of them women, had joined him. I turned back to the door. It was latched from the outside. Neat trick, I said to myself, removed the latch and threw the door open. It was dark but I knew there was no one inside. I went in and slipped my hand under the bed. She was not there.
‘Give me that lamp, you dolt,’ I snapped at the watchman. He ran upstairs hurriedly and handed me the lamp. I went through every room. I scoured the bathrooms and the water-closets, I ransacked the servants’ quarters. I took off my shoes and stepped into the prayer room with its stone icons of Shri Ganesh, Vishnu, Chamundi and the Flautist. I went back to the ground floor and combed the rooms once again. Oh God, oh my dearly beloved God, where was she, my one-time mother-sister-woman-lover-confidante and preceptor. The worst of my fears had come true and however violent I felt, I knew I could not touch the Shehzada.
I saw the household watching me as if I was an actor from a play. I asked for a drink of water both for myself and the horse. We had a long journey back. They were closing the front door when I threw it open again. There was a room on the terrace.
She was lying naked on her back in a bed. The flimsiest of muslin cloths covered her. Her eyes were glazed with fever. There were welts and blisters and hives all over her body. I stood in the doorway. My arrival had generated a draft and the flame in the brass lamp trembled like a frightened bird and then died altogether.
I knew then what she had done. She had rubbed the poisonous weed called Maa ka Krodh or Mother’s Wrath which grew in the marshes on the eastern slopes of the Ramkali hills and which all animals instinctively kept away from, on her body before going to see Prince Bahadur on the night of the seventh.
She was red and black like a bruised and broken tomato with fungus growing on it. Edema had disfigured the angles of her face and inflated it till her eyes, nose and lips were misaligned and yet level with each other. I took my clothes off slowly. Kausalya tried to sit up in bed but fell back exhausted. ‘Don’t Maharaj Kumar, I beg of you don’t. You know how infectious the itching is.’ I lifted the muslin sheet from her body lightly and then gently, very gently lay on her.
‘I’ll never leave you again, Kausalya.’
* * *
Jai Shri Eklingji
Our blessings be with you.
A worthy king must divide his time between his kingdom and the battlefield. It is time we came home and took the reins of state in our hands once again.
The conduct and direction of a war are good and essential training for a prince. It is our wish that you now take charge of our armies and do battle with the enemy, the forces of the Sultan of Gujarat.
Celebrate the festival of Janmashtami, pay homage to the gods and proceed forthwith to Idar. We await your arrival.
Shri Surya Namah
Your Father, His Majesty Rana Sanga
Ever since the day I could separate my childhood from my youth, the one wish uppermost in my mind was to lead the Mewar armies. I had accompanied Father on five major campaigns, participated in strategy-planning and on the last two occasions led the main attack. But that was all under Father’s watchful eye and under his command. Now I was to be the sole commander of the Gujarat campaign and yet I couldn’t bring myself to rejoice without reservations. Within a matter of hours, the news would spread and every minister, secretary and under-secretary, anybody who was somebody in the government and the civil services and the populace of Chittor would arrive to congratulate me. But I know that it is not in Father’s nature to drop a job, especially such an important campaign, half-way. I have often heard him say that change of leadership midway on any project, particularly when you are fighting a war, confuses and ultimately demoralizes not just the soldiery but the officers and commanders too. There’s a change of style and substance in the thought processes and concepts, in the way a problem is identified and a solution worked out, all of which affect the thrust and cohesion of a team adversely. He has often given credit for our victories against Malwa, Delhi and Gujarat to the sudden switches in command effected by the sovereigns of these states, when the war had not been going well for them.
Why was Father abandoning one of his basic tenets? Did I owe the honour of becoming the commander-in-chief of the Mewar forces to Mother Karmavati’s good offices?
She had been sending an endless stream of missives to Father, two a day in the past month and a half. I had thought about intercepting and eliminating them but once you indulge in surveillance in personal dealings, you enter a bottomless pit of suspicion and persecution. What is important is that I must not confuse Queen Karmavati with Father.
It’s not the person who tells tales who is the culprit, it is the one who listens to them. What I must never lose sight of is that whatever the Queen, her chief eunuch Bruhannada, her long train of sycophants or any minister of state may whisper or insinuate in Father’s ear, the responsibility for listening and acting upon it, instead of going by his past experience of me and assessing the evidence impartially is his, and his alone. For
the moment it seemed as though the Queen’s entreaties, warnings and counsel were fighting against Father’s own conscience and sense of fair play. He did not wish to displease either of us. The middle path, the golden mean, is a fine principle but in the business of politics, you can’t keep everybody happy.
But perhaps what he was doing was playing one against the other, making me commander-in-chief and getting me out of the way while he came back, regained his putatively threatened crown and set Vikram free.
There were, however, other reasons for my not wanting to leave immediately. I had initiated a project which I believed was of crucial importance to the future of Mewar.
The health of my people and consequently, the drainage system were top priority for me. But the water and sewage schemes were also a smokescreen. My primary concern was with the fort. For several years now I had been exercised by the one problem which even the strongest, soundest and most spacious fort poses. Chittor was just such a citadel. It was at a commanding height, the plateau on which the town sprawled was three miles long, it had its own perennial water-springs and it had large granaries. If there was a fort which was indomitable and unassailable, it was Chittor. And yet a long-drawn out siege like the one Alauddin Khilji of Delhi had laid, had brought Chittor to its knees and killed off almost the whole contingent of Rajput warriors in the fort.
For a while I was convinced that the problem was the institution of the fort itself. The safe haven, I was almost persuaded, was really nothing but a trap crying to be snapped shut. That’s just what we did when hostile forces approached. We locked every gate and threw away the keys. Beleaguered, starved and exhausted after months, our only hope and way out of the predicament was the enemy. He alone could release us, either by raising the siege, or by storming the gates. I was, needless to say, throwing out the baby with the bath water.
I thought about it for months and re-invented the wheel. A fort was not the ideal solution but however inadequate, it was still the most viable. Was there no way out then? I realized there was, if I concentrated my energies and imagination on the phrase ‘way out’. One of Chittor’s greatest assets is that its slopes are covered with dense jungle. My plan was this: under the guise of digging sewer systems, engineer a secret but extensive network of broad tunnels with doors that would open out but not inwards, at seven or more deeply concealed and forested points along the base of the hill on which Chittor stood.
When a siege seemed imminent, the first thing to do was to evacuate all children and women. (The women may valiantly jump to their death in the fires of johar when all was lost, but in the meantime concern for their safety weakened the resolve of the men.) Stockpile as much food, wood and arms and ammunition as the fort could hold. But despite the fall in the population, the resources in a fort are finite. When the enemy was convinced that we were low on victuals, water and morale, move half the forces out at night, through the tunnels, if possible on a stormy and thunder-ridden night. In the absence of thunder, create a deliberate and effective diversion for the troops to escape. Once outside, regroup at night and take the enemy by surprise from the rear and cause havoc in his ranks. If the nocturnal assault fails, the remainder of the garrison too would vacate the fort the next night.
The enemy will discover a ghost town and fortress the next day. Sure, he’ll loot whatever he can and set fire to everything in sight. That he would do even if you fought to the death. Now when his troops leave Chittor loaded with every kind of booty while a small contingent holds the fort, attack the over-burdened, lax and weary, home-bound divisions with everything you’ve got. You better make a rout of it because the day after, you besiege your own badly damaged fort which is almost bereft of supplies and take it back as quickly as you can.
I had barely forty-eight hours in which to settle my affairs, do my packing and say my farewells. But I had to find the time to meet my new proselyte, the town-planner Sahasmal, before I left Chittor. When I first outlined my ideas about the tunnel project to him, he sounded sceptical. He was worried about the time it would take to complete such an ambitious project.
‘Rana Kumbha didn’t build the Victory Tower overnight.’
‘Your Highness, building in open space on firm rock is a far easier proposition than excavating rock for miles. In the former you just place stone upon stone. In the latter you chisel for days and make an inch-wide dent.’
I must confess that the elementary example he cited brought home the problem of the labour involved far more graphically than I had envisaged.
‘So it will take longer to build than the Victory Tower, what of it? We hope the tunnels will prove useful to our children’s children over the centuries. Besides if the scheme is going to really save us in times of a siege, then we can double or triple the work force we would employ for overground construction.’
‘The second problem’s more intractable. I’m worried about the air in the tunnels.’
‘While digging or afterwards?’
‘In both cases. But especially afterwards when it’s been closed for years. It could become toxic and prove fatal.’
‘Chittor is high but not so high that we’ll have to dig a mile or two into the bowels of the earth. Perhaps we need to work out a system of vents and lower birds in cages to see if they can survive. I’m improvising, you understand? I’m not discounting or belittling your reservations. Perhaps there will be other more obdurate problems. But I would leave it to you to resolve them. Just think Sahasmal, if we can see this plan through, how many lives we can save. And if we survive, we may yet end up defeating the enemy. It’s not exactly the Victory Tower you wanted to build when we first met. But we could call them Sahasmal’s Victory Tunnels. Imagine how grateful future generations are going to be to you.’
‘When do you want to see the first plans?’
‘You tell me.’
‘Four weeks from now. My son will personally bring them to you.’
‘I don’t want them to fall into anybody else’s hands.’
‘I’ll do them in code. All the tunnels will be shown above ground so that the whole thing looks absurd and is completely indecipherable.’
‘All right, let’s see what you can do for us.’
‘Godspeed, Your Highness.’
One last job remained. I sent for the mullah. ‘Was it your prayers or the prayers of the priests in our temples which worked? Was it our gods or your One Single God who saved the Shehzada?’
The mullah looked perplexed. He didn’t want to displease the Prince but he didn’t want his Lord God to be angry with him either.
‘Never mind, mullah. Here’s the money for the repairs in your mosque.’
Since the Flautist was born at midnight, the official puja for the Janmashtami festival should have been at that auspicious hour. But as Shri Eklingji is our family deity, he is the first among equals and the honour of a night-long wake belonged to him alone. The family puja for the Flautist was a private affair at night and the public ceremony was held the next evening. I had almost entirely severed relations with the Flautist but this was official business. The kings of Mewar always visited the Brindabani Temple, did arati, touched the Blue One’s feet, ate prasad, and distributed largesse amongst the subjects of Chittor on Janmashtami. Whatever my personal quarrel with him, I was not about to break with tradition. A kingship survives on institutions, and there’s no greater institution than tradition.
It was a state occasion. Kausalya helped me put on the full royal regalia: yellow silk dhoti, a sandalwood-white duglo with some fine silver thread embroidery, nothing fussy, almost the subtleness of white on white which only a very few discerning courtiers would notice and appreciate and a green saafa topped with a flourish of white feathers. I bent my head for Kausalya to put on the fourteen-stringed meenakari gold necklace.
‘Shall I fetch the mirror?’ she asked.
I shook my head. I do not care to look at my own reflection. ‘You tell me how I look.’
‘Like a future king. And a
king must always know what impression he’s making on his subjects.’
‘All right. Fetch it.’ I saw a young man with an intense, thoughtful look. Deepset eyes, eyebrows that kept their distance from each other, an assertive nose and a wide mouth; the loose shock of hair was well-behaved since it was hidden under the turban. Why have I become such a painfully serious person in the last few years?
My brothers, Prime Minister Pooranmalji, Adinathji, the Minister for Home, my uncle Lakshman Simhaji and other cabinet ministers and dignitaries were waiting outside the palace. Each did obeisance to me, and I mounted the royal elephant, Toofan. I was relaxed, confident and as always, keeping an eye on myself. This was the first time I was standing in for His Majesty at a public function and I was conscious of the pomp and gravity of the occasion. The roads were thronging with townspeople. They were leaning over balconies, standing precariously on ledges and peering down from terraces. They wished Father and me long lives. I was moved by the warmth and openness of their affection and overwhelmed by their trust. If I were to ask them to go with me tomorrow and give battle to the Gujarat armies, they would come without question or hesitation. They threw flowers at me and the women pressed their knuckles against their temples to ward off the evil eye. I wanted to wave out to them and embrace them all. Instead I smiled slightly and raised my hand sedately every now and then as a future king should.
We had turned right into Maharana Kumbha Mahapath when I heard the voice, the same as on that rainy day when I had first heard it. I was daydreaming of course, no question about that. What would she he doing in this part of town? What in God’s name was she up to? Since we led separate and independent lives, I had no idea of her whereabouts or how she occupied herself. That sounded lame. It would be a risible and inadmissible plea even in my own Small Causes Court. If the Maharaj Kumar of the realm was going to be in the dark about his wife’s movements, he had better become a hermit and go into the mountains. Because if he couldn’t take care of his wife, how was he going to look after his subjects and his kingdom? Did I not know it was Janmashtami, the Flautist’s birthday? Did I expect her to have a change of heart, disown the Blue One and come and lie with me? I had no one to blame but myself. If Vikramaditya hadn’t already helped me become a household name and the gossip of the town, I was about to make myself the cuckold, jester and fool in every bhavai, nautanki and farce in Mewar.
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