‘Leave the Maharaj Kumar alone.’ He had a resounding voice and he used it to magnificent effect. ‘You want me, here I am. I am ready to sacrifice my life for the honour of Gujarat and Islam. Only cowards will attack a single man, ten to one, hundred to one or as you are now, a thousand to one. If you have the courage, come forward, one at a time and fight the fair fight. Let the righteous win.’
The crowd was now roaring alternately for my head and that of Bahadur’s. The men had smelt blood, it didn’t matter whether it was mine or the enemy’s, they were not going to be deprived of it.
‘Perhaps you are under the impression that you are at the amphitheatre watching competitions. And soon the wrestling matches will start.’ It was such a low voice, it was a wonder anybody heard it but heads turned slowly and listened to Lakshman Simha. ‘I would, however, like to remind you that my eldest son Rajendra is dead and but for your antics, we would be at the burning ghats by now.’
After the funeral I bathed in the Gambhiree and went to the Eklingji temple. I prayed hard. It was but recently that I had shifted my allegiance from the Flautist to our family deity. I begged him to embrace the slain Rajendra and free him from the cycle of reincarnation. As for myself, I asked for light and wisdom and the greater glory of Mewar. The head priest suggested that Rajendra’s death could be an ill-omen and it might be a good idea to leave a week later; ten days would be even better since that was an auspicious day. On some other occasion I may have been in two minds but fortunately I had no choice in the matter. You don’t keep His Majesty waiting.
The sun was already halfway to the top of the dome. If things had not gone awry, we would have left by six thirty in the morning. I wanted to hurry but I was not leaving without going up to the Victory Tower. There’s no need to be melodramatic about war. But it is reasonable to accept that a warrior cannot afford to put too much trust in return journeys. I make quick jottings. The Digambara temple which the Minister of the Exchequer, Adinathji, visits every morning was originally, they say, a Vishnu Temple. I have never understood how temples switch religions or worship one god for centuries and then overnight change to someone else. Next to it is the Tower of Fame, another Jain landmark. The merchant Jija Bagairwal Mahajan built it in the twelfth century to commemorate his visit to the shrines of the twenty-four tirthankars. It is about seventy feet high and has seven storeys. When my great grandfather Kumbha built the Tower of Victory, it was to upstage the Tower of Fame. The Jain tower is shorter and does not have any carvings inside.
I concentrate on the Chaturang Maurya Talab next. The Shiv Mandir at the centre of the lake has such strong Buddhist features, I suspect that here again there has been a change in divine tenants. Rao Ranmal’s house. Badshah ki Baksi where, local lore holds, the Sultan of Gujarat was imprisoned in Rana Kumbha’s time. Rampur Bhanpura’s palace from around the same time. The Bhanpuras are today old nobility without old money. Rani Padmini’s Palace with its Jal Mahal, the miniature jewel of a water palace that Queen Karmavati so often commandeers for her ladies’ get-togethers. Kalika Temple. Haath Kund where our royal elephants are washed. Behind Rani Padmini’s Palace is the Khatan Rani Palace. No queen this, but a lowly woman from the carpenter caste who caught Rana Khshatra Simha’s eye and became his favourite concubine. The Sas-Bahu Kund, the only place where mothers and daughters-in-law meet on an equal footing since both come to bathe here. Its springs are a mystery to this day since nobody knows their source nor the secret of their perpetual waters. Sattabees Devari or the twenty-seven tiny Jain temples built in the eleventh century. Last stop on my panoramic whirlwind tour of Chittor is the complex of the royal palaces where I have lived all my life.
I feel like a camel greedily stocking up at a water hole. Not very discriminating, I’m afraid. But I’m not looking for elegiac or epiphanic moments, just snatches and fragments of the life and rhythms of Chittor. Look at that group of women sitting in a circle with piles of cloth. They take little pinches of the cloth, tie knots around them with pieces of string and soak them in vats of dyes. Behind them extend row upon row of crossed bamboos with ropes stretched between. Any moment now bands of tight-rope walkers will climb the poles and walk nonchalantly on the taut ropes. Instead a woman hangs the ‘tie and dye’ cloths on them to dry. The wind fills the flamboyantly coloured sails and there’s a full-scale regatta five hundred feet above sea-level. Down on the terraced slopes a pair of bullocks and a farmer walk backwards. I can hear the distant splash of the buckets hitting water in a well. Now they go forward and the water wheel empties the buckets into shallow channels. My eyes track the Gambhiree and come to a stop at the dhobi ghat. She is so far away but there’s no mistaking her. That easy, unselfconscious grace of limb and movement could belong to no one but Sunheria. What did she mean by that cryptic remark early this morning? Is she a clairvoyant? Why won’t I come back to her? Is this campaign which has begun so badly going to claim my life too? Her arms and hands swing up and the dhoti or sheet she’s washing does a double loop and crashes on the wet black rock. Her arms don’t look muscular but they must be made of corded steel to beat hundreds of clothes effortlessly hour after hour. Then it hits me, the black bruises on her back and her legs, the welt on her back, the missing bangle on her left arm and the swelling on the bridge of her nose which she said she got from a fall in her house seven days ago. She is right. I’m not just blind but dumb too. Her old man can’t make it with her or anyone else for that matter, but that’s all the more reason to beat her up with a stick. Why didn’t she break his bones? She surely has the strength. Those hard adamantine palms of hers which she’s so conscious of and is forever trying to hide, one whack from them and her husband won’t be able to get up for a week or two. I’m talking rubbish. For all her independence and willfulness and although she does a man’s work, Sunheria is tradition-bound and will not retaliate.
The custard apple trees are weighed down with fruit. Not yet ripe but I must take a few dozen along with me. Nowhere, at least nowhere I have been to, do you get custard apples like the ones from Chittor.
I called Mangal over when I got down from the Victory Tower. ‘Put the fear of the devil in Sunheria’s husband. If he touches his wife again we’ll put him in solitary for assault and battery. I know you are discreet but let him not know the source of the threat.’
Leelawati, the royal household, the Queen Mother and all the other queens, Adinathji, the Pradhan and the gentry and denizens of Chittor were waiting at the parade grounds. I had asked my uncle Lakshman Simhaji to rest and not come to the ceremony for the presentation of the colours. Did I really expect him not to come? I had appointed his younger son, Tej, in Rajendra’s place and he stood at the head of the contingent I was taking along with me.
Leelawati waited solemnly under the pavilion. No throwing herself at me or hugging me this time. She stood there like a little queen. She was wearing a bandhani ghagra-choli with a Dhaka chunni. My troops and I marched past the whole congregation and came to a halt in front of Leelawati. I executed a left turn and held out my spear. She unfurled the pennant she had embroidered for me and slipped it up the brass shaft. A maid passed her the gold thali with a lamp and kumkum and turmeric powder in it. Leelawati did the arati and put a thumbful of red and yellow powder on my lowered forehead. ‘The honour of Mewar is in your hands, Maharaj Kumar, preserve it. Conquer the enemy and return unconquered. God speed. Jai Eklingji.’ I stood up straight and saluted the pennant with the Sun-god.
We were on our way. But not before I had performed one small errand. Something about Sunheria’s strange words kept bothering me. I dropped in at the office and with Mangal and another clerk as witnesses, transferred two villages from my own property to Sunheria and sent the deed along with a note to Kausalya. The elite Guard brought the Shehzada and his companions to the main gate and handed them over to me. Neither Prince Bahadur nor I were unaware of the ironies of the occasion. Months ago, the Shehzada had ridden in, asking Mewar for asylum from his own father. He was lea
ving now under escort because his new friends did not care for his company any longer. He was as much an enemy of Mewar’s as his father’s now. We would part company at the border of our kingdom. What he did then was his business. It was possible that instead of going home to Ahmedabad or Champaner he would join the Gujarat forces and we would meet in hand-to-hand combat in the next few weeks.
Chapter
18
When I look at my peers, friends, colleagues, cousins and brothers, I realize what a dullard I am. They carouse together, they go out whoring, they are lively and full of fun and pranks. I would like to join them once in a while but am rarely invited since I am prematurely serious, and would very likely dampen their high spirits. But I am a plodder in other ways too. Even my elders find me a bore and a little too earnest. War is fun and games for them. They dress up, wax their moustaches, ride their steeds and charge blindly. They kill or get killed. Life is simple and far more exciting that way.
War is not my favourite pastime. I would resort to it only under exceptional provocation or if, after thorough planning, I was going for the big kill. The fact is, in the long run, most wars lead nowhere but back to where you started. If I am to fight, I want to make major and if possible, lasting changes in our political geography and fortunes. Otherwise I would rather sit at home and be at peace with my neighbours. I like to prepare myself before a confrontation. I need to do my homework. I want to know every single detail and fact I can lay my hands on about the enemy: the monarch, his generals and his army. I want to learn their likes and dislikes, peccadilloes and predilections; their mental make-up, their previous campaigns, what they eat, their notions of hardship, their sleeping habits and any other trivia you can think of. Most of all, I’m interested in finding out how they think. What about contenders and pretenders to the throne? Why fight if you can help along a civil war and get someone else to do all the fighting for you? If internal jealousies and power equations are germane to the final outcome of any war and need to be exploited, it is just as relevant to know the state of mind of the ordinary citizenry. Are the common people tired of conflict or supportive? What was the harvest like in the current year and in the previous three? Not just the state of the economy, trade, too, has an indirect but very substantial bearing on the enemy’s – or for that matter, our own – capacity to fight a long war. None of these propositions are very original but I am perplexed by how reluctant most strategists and military commanders are to follow even the most basic principles of preparing for war. I’ll grant you this, collecting information, more precisely reliable information, is laborious, time-consuming and a bore. Besides it’s effective only if it’s done in a sustained manner. Imagine studying the enemy’s economic, political and military abilities for months, sometimes years when all that the decisive battle itself will take is three, five or seven hours at the most.
I have had such short notice this time, I feel particularly at a disadvantage. A fine way to assume the reins of command for my very first campaign. How am I going to lead my men if I don’t know the lay of the land, let alone anything else? I’m not even too sure why we are fighting the war with Gujarat over Idar. I’m exaggerating of course. But the reasons are emotional and tenuous rather than political, economic or strategic. My sister’s husband Raimul has a claim to the Idar throne but is rarely seated on it. Idar is a ball in perpetual motion between Gujarat and Mewar. Sometimes it is with us and sometimes, with Gujarat. How did Idar get to be so fickle and inconstant? You’ll have to do a bit of back-tracking to the time when Prince Bahadur’s great-great-grandfather, I am not too sure about the number of ‘greats’ there, Sultan Muhammad, was in power. Idar had for some time been a thorn in Gujarat’s hilly western frontier and none too forthcoming with its stipulated tribute. Matters, however, became a little tricky when Har Rao, the chief of Idar realized that if he shilly-shallied any longer, Sultan Muhammad might just snap up Idar whole. He then did what was most uncharacteristic for a Rajput ruler. He bought his way out of the quandary by offering his daughter’s hand in marriage to the Sultan.
The matrimonial alliance bought peace for Idar for a few generations until Raimul became Rao of Idar. But soon after he came to the throne, the young Rao was deposed by his uncle Bhim. Raimul took refuge in Chittor and married my sister.
Meanwhile, Rao Bhim embarked on a policy of confrontation with Gujarat. He stopped paying tribute, raised the standard of rebellion and plundered Gujarat east of the river Sabarmati. Not a wise move that. Bahadur’s father, Muzaffar II, was the Sultan now. The wrath of Muzaffar was the thin, long blade of a scythe that swept across Idar as if it were the tall, brittle yellow grass of autumn. The Gujarat armies sacked the capital of Idar, laid low temples and buildings and ravaged the country. Rao Bhim paid a heavy price for his little adventure. It took twenty lakh tankas, and one hundred elephants to appease Sultan Muzaffar.
Two years later, Rao Bhim was dead and his son Bharmal succeeded to the throne. Things had come full circle: Bharmal’s accession was challenged by his cousin-in-exile, Raimul. When Father sent a strong force to support his son-in-law, Bharmal approached the man who had rubbed Idar’s nose in the dust, the Sultan of Gujarat. That, in short, is how we got embroiled with Gujarat.
We had ridden hard for days and were finally at the border. I asked Mangal to see to Bahadur’s needs including provisions, water or whatever else he required and to let him and his friends go. Mangal came back with a message: would the Maharaj Kumar be so kind as to give Prince Bahadur a brief audience?
‘It does not behoove a prince of the royal blood to regret his actions. I do not. But I am sorry that I will no longer have you as a friend. You were a better host than I could ever have imagined. I owe you my life, not once but twice over. It is a debt that I’ll never be able to repay. There’s much that I or anybody else has to learn from you. I’m not blind, Your Highness. You are the loneliest man I know. No slander nor ridicule can touch you because you do not let the personal affect your professional life. It is in the latter sphere that I respect you most. I doubt if you’ll ever be a popular king when it is time for you to ascend the throne, because you do not know how to make unpopular measures palatable.
‘You’ve taught me that sewers are a subject worthy of a prince’s attention. Shit, they say, is your element. If I gain the throne, some day in the distant future, I’ll take it as a compliment if my subjects say the same about me. I’ll not embarrass you further. All these years I had believed that money was a royal privilege and it was the duty of the king to spend it. I now know that to become king, one must master money. Economics and commerce, you’ve taught me, are more important than war and victory.
‘I will not wish you well on this campaign but Godspeed and may God be with you. Khuda hafeez.’
‘Where will you go Prince?’
‘My brother Sikander seeks my head. I would rather keep it on my shoulders. I fly to Delhi, Your Highness.’
‘Goodbye, Prince. I was serious about peace with Gujarat.’
‘I know you still are. It took me a long time to realize it.’
* * *
Father. Why do I feel like a greenhorn at his first job interview? Perhaps it’s because he’s behaving like a king and employer and has kept me waiting in the antechamber of his sprawling tent for the last fifteen minutes. It’s a good ploy. Makes the subordinate nervous as hell, his mind runs amok and his imagination works feverishly. Am I out of favour? Did I say anything to upset the great man? Have any of my actions in the last twenty-seven or thirty or hundred years given him offence? (Or perhaps I earned his enmity while I was still in Mother’s womb.) Perhaps someone’s been telling tales behind my back. I could see it in the sentry’s eyes, I’m bad news and no one wants me.
Good tactic, that. Let the arrogant son-of-an-untimely screw stew in his own juice. These youngsters think they own the earth including their elders. Best to take them down a peg or two before they get completely out of hand. By now I’m really getting into stride,
doing a piteous number that would make stones weep: you never loved me, Father. Where my soul was, there’s a void and scar tissue.
But all my tomfoolery can’t conceal my anxiety about this meeting. I have not exactly had a run of great good luck in my time as regent, have I? What with a prince of the royal family, Father’s very own son Vikramaditya committing treason, and now Bahadur killing Lakshman Simhaji’s son, Rajendra. Lakshman Simha is Father’s closest ally and confidant and oldest friend. All this is bad enough but I can weather it. It’s just so much inert fuel till you introduce the mother of all inflammatory substances into the scenario: Queen Karmavati. We’ve ridden almost non-stop. We’ve halted for barely a few hours at night and stopped to eat and let the horses graze. I have goaded everybody on in the hope that no one but I will break the news of Rajendra’s murder. But I know it’s a futile attempt. I’ll bet Queen Karmavati’s man’s been here before me and Father’s already heard.
I’m called in. I’m right about the Queen’s man but wrong about Father deliberately keeping me waiting. The surgeon’s been with him dressing his new crop of wounds. I wonder how he holds his water or blood or any other fluid. The man should be a veritable fountain with close to a hundred spouts all over his body. Why he has to be in every charge or fray is anybody’s guess. Is it arrogance, megalomania or is it fear? Fear is a strange and, perhaps, the last word that would occur to anybody in speaking of Father. But Father is afraid as no other man in Mewar or anywhere else on earth is. He has been afraid from the day his brothers chased him from Charni Devi’s temple. He’s afraid someone will call him a coward because he didn’t make a stand while his deracinated eye swung like the flesh and seed of a custard apple from his eye-socket, and fight his brothers. Somewhere deep in his heart Father subscribes blindly to the Rajput code of heroism and honour and is ashamed that he did not die an utterly pointless death.
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