There are few things as infectious as fear, and fear paralyses. The poor helpless clods just stood there shivering and peeing in their pants waiting to be delivered. We did not disappoint them. Men poured out of the flaming tents, then ran back to collect their weapons. Half were asphyxiated, the others returned to put up token resistance. They did not know whether we were real or phantoms. Where had we come from? Wasn’t the war over? It was an unequal fight. They were stranded on the ground. We were riding horseback and momentum was on our side. There was a strange ululating sound mixed up in all the crying and screaming. Where was it emanating from, this high-pitched lamenting and wailing? It rose from within me and from all the Mewar troops. It was a ghastly howling, an incredulous and disbelieving cry for mercy, a plea for forgiveness from our prospective victims even as we pierced flesh and cracked bone and skull.
I saw the muezzin then. He was standing unsteadily, his left foot on a dead body, his head aslant to catch the drift of sounds. Every scream was a blow aimed at his person. I knew now why he hadn’t noticed the arson in the first few moments. He was blind. He stumbled and fell. I leaned over and gave him a steadying hand. He blessed me. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked me, ‘Is it Judgement Day?’ ‘Not for those who are slain but for the slayers, yes. Lie down quietly, old man, and no one will touch you.’ I was impatient to be gone.
Shaan-e-riyasat Bunde Ali was riding towards us at the head of around a thousand men. I eased the pressure on Befikir. We slowed down to a trot. The Shaan-e-riyasat’s tunic buttons were undone, his turban was a shade askew and he had not had time to lace up his armour. I had not realized how tall and erect he was. He leaned forward, his sword parallel to the ground. He and his men were a violent whirlwind. They were advancing so rapidly, it was almost as if they were stationary. The sound in my ears was shut off. All the wailing and weeping ceased. I couldn’t hear the pounding of the horses either. A thousand horses flexing their muscles and bodies. Black, tawny, dappled, amber, mahogany, the air and skin sparking in the early morning sun. And a thousand horsemen astride them.
The Gujarat horsemen were a tidal force that should have swept everything in its path. Yes, on most other days, they would have.
As rehearsed, my nine hundred men parted in the middle and let Bunde Ali and his men in like much sought-after guests into our homes. The perception of the Gujarat forces though, was that we had given way because they had broken through our ranks. Now my men pressed in upon them, relentlessly walling them in. They could have disregarded the Mewar warriors on their flanks and slipped right out by continuing on their earlier path and then reassembled and charged back. But their minds and thinking were set in a particular mould and they were caught in their rage and the compulsions of vengeance.
It was amazing what a tight little space a thousand riders could be fitted into if you had a mind to do so. They were collapsing in upon themselves. They had no room to move and only the cavalry in the outermost circle was in a position to take us on. They didn’t stand a chance. We began to peel layer after layer of the solidly packed Gujarat ball. Meanwhile the claustrophobia proved too much for those at the core. Confused about what was happening outside, they panicked. The outer forces had to now fight both the enemy and the explosive compression from within. At a predetermined signal, my men suddenly released the pressure by providing an outlet in the south-west. The Gujarat contingent pushed and shoved and clubbed their way to attain open space and make their getaway. We were waiting for them, a handful of my horsemen and I. Many escaped but the majority presented such easy targets as they came out single file, we went back to our hacking and chopping.
And what of Shaan-e-riyasat Bunde Ali? What of him? It would be nice to say that the two of us engaged in mortal combat. I would have to turn him into a man of extraordinary prowess and guile to make myself the greater of the two. But only a short-sighted leader can afford the luxury of that kind of petty aggrandizement. Bunde Ali got his four victims. Then one of my braves got him, an ignominious death if he had set his sights on me.
The Gujarat troops were fleeing wildly now, either on foot or on horseback, it didn’t matter which. They had lost their nerve as most armies do when blind terror takes possession of them. Horses, cattle, the men and the camels were all headed for the same place under our guidance. They were running for their lives, heading straight for the marshes and bogs in the south-west.
We had cleared a path along the diagonal of the camp. It was left to Rawal Udai Simha and Tej to take care of over two-thirds of the Gujarat forces whom my men and I had not engaged. There were still large pockets of resistance left in the encampment but within an hour from the time we struck the first blow, my colleagues had overrun the enemy and were herding them to the swampy lake of oblivion in parallel streams. Killing is an exhausting and thankless job. Any time our energies slackened, the enemy armies thought that we had had enough and were calling it a day. They instantly slowed down. A great many of them just gave up and sat or lay down. This was intolerable. It only doubled our work. We had to start hacking and slicing in earnest all over again. We could not afford to take prisoners of war. Our supply lines were already extended, and would not be able to bear the additional burden. Besides, we would play directly into the hands of Malik Ayaz and his formidable armies. More to the point, a soldier reprieved is an enemy reborn. It would be folly to think that the quality of mercy would make the defeated forces think kindly of us and treat us leniently at some future date. The idea, if anyone had lost sight of it, was to prove that the age of chivalry was dead among the Rajputs and we could no longer be taken for granted as gullible fools. My objectives were clear and simple: terrorise the Gujarat armies – and any of our friendly neighbours who cared to observe – to a point where they would think twice before they ventured to disturb Idar or any of our other territories. If our current campaign could achieve that limited objective, I would think that we had not done too badly.
One of the retreating soldiers got hold of my right ankle with both his hands and pleaded with me to spare his life. I swung Befikir around hard but the man would not let go.
‘Let me live, Prince,’ his granite face was pale and beads of sweat dangled at his earlobes like clusters of soap bubbles that a light breeze would send scudding. What is it that happens to human beings when they are in a crowd? They take their cues from the mob and not from the evidence of their eyes. He had enough strength in him to hang in while I dragged him through a full circle. Why did he not pull me down as my attention wavered when through a break in the mist, I saw Tej’s forces come riding at gale-wind speeds? I bent down to loosen his grip on my leg. I wish he hadn’t spoken. Now he was a person with a past and a present and a future. If he got a chance he would tell me the names of his children, three boys and four girls or vice versa. How could I possibly kill this man? I had a tough time loosening the fingers of his hand. When I was free, I turned and rode away in a hurry. The men were watching me and so was my old friend, Raja Puraji Kika. A few more sentimental fools like me in the Mewar armies and we would be in a fine mess. I galloped back. The soldier looked at me with puzzlement and then with undisguised terror as I raised my sword and brought it down.
Deception, diplomacy, intrigue, prestidigitation, machination, all these and many small and great things, the Flautist had taught me, were the tricks of a king’s dharma and trade. But where had I inherited this wanton cruelty from? I remembered then how the great warrior Arjun and his mentor, the Flautist – mine too till a few years ago – had burnt the whole of the Khandava forest and all its inhabitants without cause or provocation. It was one of the strangest episodes in the Mahabharata, one that I could not understand, nor make sense of, try as I might. Perhaps that is the point the great epic is trying to make, that life is not explicable, nor does it pass the test of reason; that some, if not much of it, is meaningless. No amount of culture and civilization can subdue or hide the wanton violence in man.
Why do marshes always attract mist and f
og? Is there a relationship between bogs and fens and vapours? Thus far and no further. We had arrived. It was time to bear down hard on the enemy, push him over the edge but hold back oneself.
They disappeared, thousands upon thousands of Muzaffar Shah’s and Malik Ayaz’s braves into the mist. They went happily, relieved that the pursuit and the frantic slaughter were finally waning, if not ceasing altogether. In the twenty or twenty-five minutes that we were there, the fog opened up only once. The sun shone through and lit a couple of acres of the bogs for a minute or two. You do not have to pay for your sins in an afterlife. You start paying for them here and now. Would that the curtain of the low-lying clouds had not rolled back. No fiction can compete with the horrors of reality.
It was downright chilly near the marshes. Those who had gone in set up an infernal racket of screams, cries and bleating. Bodiless hands moved in the air. I saw a man buried up to his nostrils, the water and muck went into his nose, there was no way of knowing whether he was choking, then he sank out of sight. Most of the men thrashed around as if they were swimming for the shore and that only hastened their disappearance. There were no friends here, it was as if the Gujarat soldiers had never seen or known each other or fought wars together. They cursed anybody whose exertions made the sucking and hissing waters shift faster under their feet. I saw two men fighting, slipping, sinking, strangling each other until the lucky one overpowered the other. He hauled himself up on the dead man. He was jubilant as he balanced himself precariously on his victim’s shoulders. He was sure he had beaten the odds and would be able to make it safely to solid ground. He let out a triumphant yell. The dead man’s shoulders sank further. The man on top placed his right foot on his head. Soon the head was no longer visible and the exhilaration and glee disappeared in the realization that he too would follow his victim’s descent.
Elsewhere, when you saw water bubbling you knew that a head was still breathing underneath. As they went down the men cursed or swore or begged forgiveness. ‘Tell Fatima I loved her dearly though I scalded her hand with boiling water last year.’ ‘Tell Ammijaan that her son died a brave death. He killed seventeen enemy soldiers in three wars. Even when we were betrayed by the enemy, I did not once beg for mercy. Call the new baby …’ He was gulping the brackish water with small helpings of air by now.
I had taken it for granted that the last words of men on earth must somehow be profound or terribly moving. I realized how unfounded my expectations were. We are petty, vacuous or vindictive in life. We are not likely to be any different when confronted by death. ‘Promise me, Anjuman, promise me, you’ll never marry again. If you do, I’ll sit on your neck till ….’ They all babbled simultaneously. They wished others well or they wished them ill but most of all they cried for help and asked their God to save them.
Those who could have saved them watched in horror and fascination from the hard ground as a pair of legs thrashed and flopped and a man bent his head down with dignity and asked God forgiveness for not being able to turn towards the Kaaba in Mecca and say his last prayers. The saddest were the horses. Bewildered and frightened by the ground that seemed to slip and slither under them, they struggled hard for a couple of minutes craning their necks to see whether there was a way out and then waited silently and resignedly for the end to come. I can still see their forelegs kicking out as if trying to climb a vertical wall, the slow sluggish water fanning out in the air like powdered diamonds in the sun’s rays, floating undecidedly and then going down reluctantly, their manes swept from left to right, their handsome heads wondering why we did not help them or put them out of their misery. My men and I watched in silence. There are crimes against humanity and there are crimes against nature and then there are crimes so terrible they do not have a name and we had committed all three of them.
Seven thirty-five in the morning. It was time to leave.
Chapter
19
Was ever an outcome of war so certain? I will wear my saffron saafa, the kind one wears when one is going to certain death in war, smear crimson on my forehead and fight the vile god to the death. But there is no death, only defeat. Daily, hourly, perpetual defeat.
He had abandoned Befikir some days ago. As if that wasn’t bad enough, he couldn’t now recall where he had misplaced one of his shoes. He sat down and scooped up sand with the remaining shoe and poured it out at the same speed he had seen it run down in an hourglass. There was a foot-high mound in front of him. He must have been playing Father Time for hours, maybe even a couple of days. Before that he had walked for a few days. At every step his foot sank irretrievably into the sand. He fought hard to pull it out but all that frantic activity only made the sand shift. There was a slow hissing sound and the foot was sucked in further. Was he getting a taste of what he had put the Gujarat soldiers through? Was this his final comeuppance? It couldn’t be. There was no way he would have an easy and swift end, of that much he was sure.
Something hard was poking sharply into his back. He stretched his hand behind him and pulled out the protruding object. It took him back to the beginning of the Gujarat expedition, to the night before they drove the Gujarat armies into the quagmire. One of Raja Puraji Kika’s men was working on a wooden cylinder. The Maharaj Kumar watched fascinated. He was curious about what the final product was going to be but he was damned if he was going to ask the soldier who, once he had acknowledged His Highness’ presence, had ignored him. The man was making intricate calculations and measuring out the distance between points on the wooden ferule. Was he a mathematician, a geometrical wizard, would he be able to foretell the movement of the stars with that divining rod? The Maharaj Kumar’s curiosity got the better of him. ‘If you don’t mind my interrupting you, what are you making?’
‘This?’ the man pointed at the stick. The Maharaj Kumar nodded his head. ‘You’ve been watching me for over a quarter of an hour, why don’t you tell me?’
Wise guy. Why would he ask if he had known the answer in the first place? The other soldiers waited expectantly for him to answer. The craftsman had gone back to his markings. The Maharaj Kumar would have liked to walk away nonchalantly, but something held him back. He tried to put on an insouciant face, forced a smile on his tight lips and spoke, ‘A magic wand, what else.’ Even as the words came forth, he knew he was coming across exactly as he didn’t want to: spoilt and ill-tempered. He was amazed to hear the long sound of applause his vacuous reply had elicited. Even the preoccupied artisan-warrior doffed his Bhil cap. The Maharaj Kumar thought it wise to make a getaway before he was asked to solve any more riddles.
* * *
Next morning a little before dawn, just before they were about to set out on their dire mission, the Bhil soldier walked up to the Maharaj Kumar. What does the wiseacre want now, he could barely suppress his irritation. He was tense. He was prescient enough to suspect that the day which lay ahead of him was likely to affect his career and fate in ways that it was not in his power to imagine. The Bhil bowed, ‘Highness, may the blessings of Eklingji Shiva be upon you.’
‘Upon you and all our men too,’ the Maharaj Kumar made brisk reply.
‘I beg your indulgence for a minute.’
‘Not now Bhima,’ Raja Puraji Kika spoke before the Prince could answer, ‘Later, later.’
They were the exact words with which the Maharaj Kumar was going to snub the man. He realized how uncouth and misplaced they would have been in his own mouth. ‘It’s all right, Raja. I know him. Speak.’
‘I have a small gift for you, Maharaj Kumar.’ He brought forward his right hand.
‘You were very perspicacious last night, Highness.’ It sounded like a put down but the Bhil’s face was innocent of double-meaning. ‘It is a magic wand. Don’t underestimate its powers. Breathe into it and it will come alive. It will work its magic on those around you. But more importantly, it will work its magic on you. It will soothe you and bring you peace of mind.’
He waited for the Maharaj Kumar to take the gift. The P
rince wanted to break it in two on his knee; or should he hurl the cursed thing into the great unknown distance called space? But the very thought of touching it revolted him. He would rather shove his hand into the bleeding mess of a leper’s newly broken stump. Get it out of my sight, you damned fool, get it out of my sight. He was not looking for omens and yet an omen had been visited upon him. Not in a thousand lifetimes could he have thought of a more calamitous augury than the one the man held in his palm.
Fate. There was no escaping fate. Raja Puraji Kika had tried to save the Maharaj Kumar. He had told the man ‘Not now, Bhima. Later, later.’ But when your time’s up and there’s a good chance of giving fate the slip, you collar him and get him back.
‘Take it, Prince. I didn’t know who I was making it for last night,’ the man called Bhima was saying, ‘but it surely must have your name written on it.’
And yet the Maharaj Kumar would not take it.
‘Blow into it, Prince. There’s a void inside of it that you can turn into a note and then another and then another till it becomes a tune and a melody and then a raga that can move the very gods.’
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