How he loathed these songs. Didn’t the bards of India have anything else to write about? There were thousands of songs about the divine eve-teaser and every day someone or the other was adding to the genre. In plaintive, vexed or patently false angry voices, the women complained about him. They pleaded with him to stop stealing their clothes, implored him not to flirt with them in full public view and spray colours on them during the Holi festival; would he please leave them alone once and for all? No more, no more, no more, they said when they meant more, more, more and please don’t stop. If he turned his back on them, instead of rejoicing they went berserk with grief. They pined, they fretted, they had nervous breakdowns. Frankly, if they were painful when their modesty was compromised, they were unbearable when they were wailing with lovesickness.
Who, he wondered, wrote these songs of soft pornography, and suggestiveness, these songs which were keyholes through which peeping toms – that came to almost the entire male population – lead a fantasy double-life? The voice and persona of the lyrics was that of women but the majority of writers were men. And yet, given half a chance, any housewife who could manage a rhyme, would dash off a song about ‘Look Ma, see how the Flautist is undoing my plait and pulling my pallu.’ Sure, it was a convention and the poets were working within a framework and the words and images had deep metaphysical significance (a likely story if he had ever heard one), but the curious thing was that the overwhelming majority of the singers were women. Were they too as repressed as the men? What was the lure of this god? It was not just the women who fantasized about him, the entire population of the country carried on one continuous love affair with him. Nobody sang steamy overwrought songs to Rama, Vishnu or Shiva. What was the source of the irresistible attraction of the peacock-feathered god? How was he able to get away with the very things that would land any other man in jail for life? Did the women, in their heart of hearts, want to walk the streets with see-through, wet blouses and wait for some dashing young man with a peacock feather in his phenta to tug at their odhanis?
Whatever the ironies and paradoxes, he was convinced the Flautist was wish-fulfillment for both men and women.
But even as he excoriated the banality of the besotted love songs to the Flautist, he was drawn to the beat and lilt of the music. His wife, as was her wont, was pouring her soul and incredible voice into the hori. She kept you off-balance because you never knew what to expect from even the most familiar song when she was rendering it. There was fire and ferocity in her voice which dropped suddenly to whispered intimacies and passionate pleading. He remembered the pichwai paintings he had seen from childhood. Their subject was almost always the dance of the Flautist; never alone of course, but with a hundred or thousand shepherdesses. The women did not have to wait in a queue or share their beloved. He was sufficient unto all of them without having to divide his time amongst them. There were always as many Flautists as there were gopis in the picture. He was sure he had walked into a pichwai painting except that the Princess had taken care to eliminate the competition altogether.
The raas was a sensuous, circular dance which after the first half hour invariably got on your nerves. You went slow or you went fast but either way it got to be the most monotonous and repetitive dance you could think of. He was damned if he would go round in circles by rote. He had no option but to improvise. What he did was to follow the same principle that’s used in playing the pakhawaj drum. The taal had twelve or sixteen beats. On the face of it once you chose the taal, there was no escaping its constricting scheme till eternity. And yet a taal allowed an almost unimaginable degree of freedom. You could do almost anything you wanted so long as you touched base every twelve or sixteen beats dead on time.
The Princess was carrying on sedately and routinely when he switched tracks and changed the coordinates of the dance. He thought his wife looked disoriented and was bound to miss a beat but she was on to him.
‘You want a fight, my friend,’ she whispered, ‘you are going to regret it.’ She smiled, her body language changed. She was lightning alert, watchful and ready to spring into action. Her limbs were loose, she rocked almost imperceptibly while she calculated her partner-opponent’s next move. There was glee in her green eyes and she looked like a cat about to play with her quarry before polishing it off. She beat a tattoo with her sticks and signalled that she was entering the fray.
What if somebody saw him? He would be a fine sight for the gossip mills. His eyes darted and took in the windows and dark corners of the palace. The retainers, the gardeners, not to mention Queen Karmavati’s flunkies and spies were bound to be watching. He thought he saw a shadow slither away. Why was he lying to himself? There was no one around, not for all these weeks and months since he had got back from Kumbhalgarh because Kausalya made sure every night that all the maids, eunuchs and numerous other busybodies were flushed out and put to work in some other wing of the palace.
‘I worry about you, Maharaj Kumar. Look at the dark circles around your eyes,’ Bhootani Mata was suspended like a bat from the ceiling of a balcony in the palace. There was no purchase for her fingers but she seemed to hang in there without any difficulty. ‘How you burn the midnight oil. You do bring out the worst clichés in one. Pray, where is everybody? Has there been a plague in the palace? There’s not a soul around except of course that old faithful retainer of yours, I forget her name. Was she your nurse or the one who first slipped your member between her legs? What’s her name? It’s at the tip of my tongue.’
‘You remember her name just as clearly as you remember every damn thing you ought to forget. I suggest you stay clear of her.’
‘My, my, we are sensitive about Kausalya to this day. But why is she keeping guard? What’s going on here?’
‘Why don’t you mind your own business?’
‘But you are my business. My one and only business for the time being.’ She looked at the Princess and then him. ‘Isn’t this romantic? Never seen anybody so besotted with his enemy. What would I not give to exchange places with the lady?’ Bhootani Mata opened her crotch. ‘Peer into the void and see the cosmos at a glance, Maharaj Kumar. All the pleasures and treasures of this and every other universe await you. Do you like that internal rhyme? Of course you don’t. You have no ear for poetry, not even bad poetry.’
He spat into the black hole. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Casting the proverbial evil eye.’ She laughed. It was an evil sound, something that came straight from the heart. ‘Let me invoke a benediction upon you. May everything you touch, turn to ashes. May all those who are dear to you, rue the day they came within your ambit.’
Chapter
32
Raja Puraji Kika and I may be soulmates but it’s mostly a long-distance closeness. Besides, even when we are together, neither of us is very voluble. What we share is taciturnity and silence. I often ask myself if I am incapable of making, and more important, keeping friends. And yet perhaps my state of almost total friendlessness is good training for kingship. For a king may have many companions but no friends. However much the poets and romantics may protest, friendship and favouritism go hand in hand. And where there’s favouritism, it’s not long before a king or a dynasty heads for a fall. I hear people say that the best relationship between a father and son is that of friendship. I have no doubt about it. But I think Father is wise to keep all his sons at a distance. Fondness is often nothing but foolishness. You can only say ‘no’ to people who cannot blackmail you emotionally. And a king must needs say ‘no’ several times a day. When it comes to jobs, for instance, there’s a limit to them. You can’t, it’s obvious, have two prime ministers or two commanders-in-chief. But even in the lower echelons where the posts are not so limited, you can only appoint a restricted number of people for otherwise, both the concept of ‘officer’ and ‘the chain of command’ become meaningless and the strain on your exchequer intolerable.
That leaves Mangal. He is the only companion I have in my professional dealings
and the closest thing to a friend under the circumstances. I wonder if I have degraded the notion of friendship. For me it seems to boil down to respect for ability, the willingness to pursue a goal with imagination, originality and economy. There’s something about doing a job well that is akin to art. In his sphere of action, Mangal is indeed an artist. Even so, one of my fears about the bits and pieces of paper that have been coming down from the court in Kabul is their authenticity. I guess what is at the back of my mind is the staggering rise in fake miniatures and relics in Mewar in the last few years since my wife’s elevation to sainthood. Our two most well-known miniaturists are Ajeet Solanki and Sharafat Ali. On an average anywhere between twenty and forty paintings of the Little Saint singing, playing the ektara, dancing with the Flautist are sold outside the Brindabani Mandir every day and all are signed Ajeet or Sharafat. But the miniature industry is a fraction of the relic business. There’s so much of the Princess’ hair sold daily that she should have gone bald seven times over by now.
My anxiety about the Babur-notes has been that some clever trader who is fluent in Turki is in league with Shyam Dulare and Pyarelal and is making a small fortune by selling forgeries and fabrications. Mangal had decided on his own to double-check at the very source. It must have required a great deal of ingenuity, deviousness and perseverance but he has slowly established a network that extends up to Kabul and has infiltrated the king’s quarters. Babur, it turns out, does have a much younger cousin called Haider of whom he is very fond. Despite his sojourns to India, various battles with neighbours and rebels, not to mention civilian and administrative matters, he has taken it upon himself to supervise the education of the youngster. As a matter of fact there are some subjects like calligraphy, reading, the art of writing letters and poetry for which Babur alone is his teacher. As for tangible proof, Mangal has furnished that too. He has managed to obtain, steal would be more correct, the ceramic vessel inside Haider’s bejewelled inkpot (which is a present from Babur) and the quill which Haider used. Both the ink and the strokes, angle and width of the quill match the ones in the stolen diary entries.
Let me quote some of the highlights from the material that Shyam Dulare has been passing on to Mangal over the past year or so. They are longer and far more substantial than the earlier ones.
Here’s an entry about his first marriage at the age of sixteen.
‘Ayisha-sultan Begum whom my father and hers, i.e. my uncle, Al-Ahmed Mirza had betrothed to me, came to Khujand and I took her in the month of Sha’ban. Though I was not ill-disposed towards her, yet, this being my first marriage, out of modesty and bashfulness, I used to see her once in ten, fifteen or twenty days. Later on when even my first inclination did not last, my bashfulness increased. Then my mother Khanim used to send me, once a month or every forty days, with driving and driving, dunnings and worryings.’
Babur is smitten with an adolescent but deep infatuation, the only one of its kind, it would appear, in his entire life.
‘In those leisurely days I discovered in myself a strange inclination, nay! as the verse says, “I maddened and afflicted myself’ for a boy in the camp-bazaar, his very name, Baburi, fitting in. Up till then I had no inclination for anyone, indeed of love and desire, either by hearsay or experience, I had not heard, I had not talked. At that time I composed Persian couplets, one or two at a time; this is one of them:
May none be as I, humbled and wretched and love-sick;
No beloved as thou art to me, cruel and careless.
‘From time to time Baburi used to come to my presence but out of modesty and bashfulness, I could never look straight at him; how then could I make conversation and recital? In my joy and agitation I could not thank him for coming; how was it possible for me to reproach him with going away? What power had I to command the duty of service to myself? One day during that time of desire and passion when I was going with companions along a lane and suddenly met him face to face, I got into such a state of confusion that I almost went right off. To look straight at him or to put words together was impossible. With a hundred torments and shames, I went on. A Persian couplet of Muhammad Sabih’s came into my mind:
I am abashed with shame when I see my friend;
My companions look at me, I look the other way.
‘That couplet suited the case wonderfully well. In that frothing-up of desire and passion, and under that stress of youthful folly, I used to wander, bare-head, barefoot, through street and lane, orchard and vineyard. I showed civility neither to friend nor stranger, took no care for myself or others.
Out of myself desire rushed me, unknowing
That this is so with the lover of a fairy-face.
‘Sometimes like the madmen, I used to wander alone over hill and plain; sometimes I betook myself to gardens and the suburbs, lane by lane. My wandering was not of my choice, not I decided whether to go or stay.
Nor power to go was mine, nor power to stay;
I was just what you made me, o thief of my heart.’
Would I who am as much a warrior as Babur, have been candid and so explicit about a homosexual longing even in the privacy of my own diary? I doubt if I will ever distrust Babur’s word.
I feel like a peeping tom. What would be my reaction if I discovered that someone was privy not just to my actions (you can’t live in the palace and expect privacy) but to my thoughts and writings? Diaries, at least those that are not written deviously with an ulterior motive and for public consumption, I’m convinced are far more revealing than a face-to-face encounter or even a long acquaintance with the person. One thing is certain: the more I get to know Babur, the more I want to know him. Why must religion be such an unbridgeable divide? I would have liked to meet him, perhaps, even be friends with him.
My train of thought was broken off. I heard a heavy dragging step and the scurrying of retainers. It couldn’t be. His Majesty. It was late and Father had hurriedly thrown a duglo over his shoulders. My head was resting on his feet when his good hand reached down and tousled my hair, an unusual gesture on Father’s part, to say the least. Had I finally come of age, had he discovered that his eldest son was not a bad sort after all or, more likely, was he favourably disposed towards me because of his affection for the Little Saint?
My wife brought a silver lota of water and poured him a glass.
‘A missive’s just arrived from Medini Rai. His former liege, the Sultan of Malwa, has laid siege to Gagrone at the head of forty thousand troops and three hundred elephants. The Rai’s son Hem Karan is holding the fort. Supplies are running out and he doesn’t have enough warriors to defend the citadel.’
‘Where is Medini Rai?’ I asked.
‘At Dharampur waiting for assistance from us. Who should we appoint commander and how many troops can we muster in a short time?’
‘How long can Prince Hem Karan last out in Gagrone?’ Had Father really come to consult me about who I thought was the best man for the job – he had never done so in the past – or did he have something else in mind?
‘Seven days, maybe eight. After that he will have to declare Kesariyabana: open the gates and march with his men to certain death. Who is going to be our man, son?’
‘There’s only one person I can think of.’
I had not realized that my wife was now His Majesty’s military adviser. Neither it would seem, had Father, for he looked as surprised as I.
‘And who may that be? You, Princess?’ Father had obviously decided to indulge the Princess but I felt she was trying his patience.
‘Don’t underestimate me, Your Majesty.’ There was a smile on my wife’s face but she was also giving notice that she would not brook it if anyone took her lightly. ‘Prince Vikramaditya. He’s aggressive and a doer; and most crucial of all, he has the killer instinct. Come what may, he’ll rescue Prince Hem Karan and his men.’
‘He’s all those things, Princess, but he’s also a hothead. Not the ideal qualification on this campaign when you need to think clearly and yet act
swiftly and decisively.’
‘That sounds like the profile of Rattan Simha,’ Greeneyes, it was becoming clear was not about to shut up. ‘He’s thoughtful, dependable and experienced. He’ll deliver Gagrone.’
What was the Little Saint up to? Was she really backing my brothers? I had the uneasy feeling that the more earnest she looked, the less trustworthy she was. Was she leading Father on or was His Majesty merely playing along because he too had a hidden agenda?
‘You wouldn’t recommend your husband for the job?’
‘His Highness? No. He’s good but he has too many unorthodox ideas. If the commanders of Mewar are uncomfortable with his methods, imagine poor Medini Rai’s reaction. I’m sure he’ll think we are letting him down once again.’
‘That’s curious. That’s what I thought too. But it’s the Rai who has asked for your husband.’
My wife had gone through this elaborate charade, it was clear now, to try and get Father to nominate me to lead the Mewar armies against Malwa. But as usual His Majesty had already made up his mind.
‘That settles it then. Will you excuse me, Majesty? I’ll pack His Highness’ things.’
‘Do I take second place in your affections merely because your husband is going to war? Am I to eat my meal alone tonight, then?’ Father smiled. It is clear that my wife knows Father better than I am ever likely to.
‘Not a chance, Majesty. I know you are looking forward to spending all the money that you made off me last night by cheating me at cards. But I intend to win everything back with compound interest.’
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