Cuckold

by Kiran Nagarkar

  I gave thanks to our family deity, Eklingji, that the Sultan had given credence to my story about the fifty thousand Mewar troops. We could expect him any time now but that was fine with me. I hugged Karan I don’t know how long. I sat him down next to me but within minutes, he was fast asleep.

  ‘Take him under your wing, Maharaj Kumar. I think you are a hero to him and he would like to walk in your footsteps.’

  God forbid. Today’s heroes are tomorrow’s villains. But I would be happy if there was one other Rajput apart from Tej and Shafi who thought that all life was not about the art of dying.

  What was the Sultan of Malwa up to? It was close to three weeks since he had lifted the siege of Gagrone and there was still no sign of him. He should have followed on the heels of Prince Hem Karan and overrun us. Was he waiting for reinforcements? Was he far shrewder than I had given him credit for? Was he paying me back in the same coin by preying upon our fears? If he was, he was doing a good job of it. He had Medini Rai, Hem Karan, Tej and Shafi, all our men and me stewing in a gruel of doubt and speculation and fear, wondering what his next move was going to be.

  It was time, I thought, to test the waters; if possible, jangle the Sultan’s nerves and get a reaction out of him. We would play cat and mouse with him, hopefully he would be mouse. We chose three thousand of Medini Rai’s men, put them together with our troops and divided them into four groups of fifteen hundred men. At no time would more than two task forces go out on sorties. Tej and Shafi were put in charge while Prince Hem Karan and Karan Rai were to assist them till they had learnt the ropes. After that they would have independent command.

  ‘You are on your own,’ I told the four men. ‘Don’t try to figure out how I would act or wonder whether I’ll approve of your actions. You will be on the spot and therefore the best judges of what needs to be done. Two rules. Don’t take the enemy head on. Whenever possible, strike simultaneously but in different locations. Sow confusion and panic among the enemy. The idea is to decimate their men. Lose one of our men without good reason and you’ll be charged with culpable homicide. Godspeed.’

  Chapter

  34

  I got news from home mostly from Mangal. The first phase of the water and sewage system was coming along nicely. Lakshman Simhaji had had a stroke but was recovering fast. The royal barber’s wife had tried to cut off her husband’s member with one of his razors since he had got himself a mistress. The barber Madanlal is inordinately proud of his wife and is more than willing to show his mutilated manhood to all and sundry including His Majesty. The extension work on the Brindabani Temple had been completed and though there had been much protestation against His Majesty attending the evening arati there from some sources in the palace, he continued his visits. The King of Kabul, Zahiru’d-din Muhammad Babur, was riding hard towards Hindustan with the ostensible purpose of restoring order in Punjab. Mangal sent me some more of his notes. ‘They don’t always make sense,’ Mangal wrote, ‘but that’s because our source there picks up whatever he can and they are almost invariably out of context.’ Sometimes I resolve to ask Babur himself for clarifications and annotations when we get together one of these days and are sitting outside his tent of an evening and drinking the wine which he so often talks of renouncing.

  ‘Marching from that ground, we dismounted over against Kahraj, at the mouth of the valleys of Kahraj and Peshgram. Snow fell ankle-deep while we were on that ground; it would seem to be rare for snow to fall thereabouts, for people were much surprised. In agreement with Sultan Wais of Sawad there was laid on the Kahraj people an impost of four thousand assloads of rice for the use of the army, and he himself was sent to collect it. Never before had those rude mountaineers borne such a burden; they could not give all the grain and were brought to ruin.’

  This is a curious entry. Babur’s ancestors were nomadic tribes and the flying raid where you stole grain, women, wealth in the form of horses, camels, cattle and jewellery and if you had the time after wholesale massacres, set the township or encampment on fire was routine. But Babur seems by nature a more circumspect and just man. He does not give idle offence and prefers not to antagonize people needlessly. Did he miscalculate and suddenly fall short of supplies? Even if he did, why not pay the going price of grain and make certain that those mountain-farmers and their families too did not starve?

  It was, however, Babur’s next entry, which would destroy my sleep once and for all. It proved Mangal’s and my worst fears true.

  ‘The various flocks and herds belonging to the country people were close round our camp. As it was always in my heart to possess Hindustan, and as these several countries, Bhira, Khushab, Chinab and Chimut had once been held by the Turk, I pictured them as my own and was resolved to get them into my hands, whether peacefully or by force. For these reasons it being imperative to treat these hillmen well, this following order was given: “Do no hurt or harm to the flocks and herds of these people, nor even to their cotton-ends and broken needles!” ’

  What followed was even more revealing.

  ‘People were always saying, “It could do no harm to send an envoy, for peace’s sake, to countries that once depended on the Turk.” Accordingly on Thursday the 1st of Rabi ‘u’ ’lawwal, Mulla Murshid was appointed to go to Sultan Ibrahim of Delhi (the next line and a half are illegible) … I sent him a goshawk and asked for the countries which from of old had depended on the Turk. Mulla Murshid was given charge of writings for Daulat Khan and writings for Sultan Ibrahim; matters were sent also by word of mouth; and he was given leave to go. Far from sense and wisdom, shut off from judgement and counsel must people in Hindustan be, the Afghans above all; for they could not move and make stand like a foe, nor did they know ways and rules of friendliness. Daulat Khan kept my man several days in Lahore without seeing him himself or speeding him on to Sultan Ibrahim; and he came back to Kabul a few months later without bringing a reply.’

  It was a specious argument yet perfectly sound. Babur had grasped the central truth behind governance. At the heart of civilized life was a contract; real or concocted, articulated or subterranean, did not matter. The form was all. Its perception was the source of all power and order in a state. It kept chaos at bay. It is the sole underpinning of a monarchy or any other system of rule whereby the many obey the fiat of a few.

  We Sisodias are, as you know, but regents of the supreme power of Shiva and that is the source of the authority vested in my family. Why do people pay taxes, offer their wrists for manacling when the kotwal or even an ordinary policeman shows up at the door to arrest a man who is accused of committing a theft or murder? Because the offices of taxation and law and all instruments of government are but conduits of the power which flows from that covenant, contract or whatever you choose to call it. It is because of the putative authority of that binding abstraction that Babur is so bent on invoking the validity of his claim to the Delhi throne through his ancestor Timur. It did not matter that the legal status of that claim is highly dubious and at best, far-fetched. The lame Turk, Timur, was more a whirlwind dacoit, a hit-and-run marauder than a king in these parts. He swept through Delhi in 1399. Babur needed a pretext to stake a claim to Delhi and Timur’s flying visit over a hundred years ago to the place was reason enough.

  Having decided to take possession of Hindustan at some future date by the simple expedient of his distant relationship with Timur (the Lame Scourge had, after all, many sons and grandsons and legions of great-grandsons and who was to say which of the current crop of the fifth generation of cousins was the legal heir to Delhi), Babur was now willing to be generous with Sultan Ibrahim and make a deal with him: a goshawk in exchange for the Sultanate of Delhi and all the territories that Timur had run over. A fair and just bargain and barter by any count, wouldn’t you agree?

  I was marvelling at the audacity and the gall, the political acuity and chicanery of the King of Kabul and chuckling to myself when the Chief of Security walked in.

  ‘I beg your forgiveness, Hig
hness, but ....’ I raised my hand to cut the preliminaries short. If I had given orders that I was not to be disturbed and he had still had the temerity to do so, he must have had good reason. ‘There’s a lady come to see you.’

  I smiled. Only one kind of lady visits an encampment close to the battlefield. ‘I’m touched by your solicitude but when I am desirous of female company, I’ll let you know.’

  ‘Highness, she says she’s a relative of yours, a very close one.’

  I did not have time to tell myself that I had three guesses; the first one was Queen Karmavati, the second Greeneyes and the third .... She was standing in front of me.

  I knew I was hallucinating. For close to four years, I have repressed one single thought. I have done the one thing I consider the most cowardly deed that mankind is capable of: deny my love. Had I killed her it would have been a kindness. Instead I let her live and killed her spirit.

  She touched my feet. ‘Bless me, my Lord.’

  I raised her up. ‘What are you doing in Dharampur, Leelawati?’

  Ah, the converse of princes. Was there a banality that I would not dredge from my infinite store of small talk?

  ‘Mahmud Khalji asked my husband to come from our home in Mandu to discuss the matter of an urgent loan. I came along with him and thought I would make a small detour and visit you.’

  ‘Do you accompany your husband wherever he goes?’

  ‘He is a financier,’ she smiled, ‘I’m a moneylender with a stateswoman’s head. In important and complex matters, he has discovered that it profits him to consult me.’

  ‘And what advice did you give him?’

  ‘The Sultan believes that your forte is the lightning attack. It wounds and debilitates but does not destroy and can be effective only on a long-term basis. He is banking on your not having staying power this time for why else would you bring along an army of fifty thousand?

  ‘He’ll not give battle to you on land which has hills and deep ravines. On flatland he’s persuaded that he can beat you just as Malik Ayaz did on that first encounter near Idar. I think it’s smart thinking on the Sultan’s part. But I told my husband the problem’s not the Sultan but you. You are the most parsimonious royal in the country when it comes to state funds and manpower. I find it difficult to believe that you were able to muster and move such large forces in so short a time. And even if you did, I doubt it if you would want to commit so much money and time against the Sultan. Malwa would be good to pocket if it happened to drop into your lap, but my guess is that Delhi is the prize you have your eye on.’

  ‘So what do you think is my game plan on this campaign?’

  ‘I have no idea, Highness. I’m not sure you have anything specific in mind either.’

  I kept a deadpan face or so I hoped but I had the feeling that I was being undressed, not just my body but the innermost recesses of my mind.

  ‘There’s only one thing I’m certain about. You are entirely without any loyalty to any one particular military theory or ideology. And that’s what makes you so unpredictable and dangerous.’

  ‘So should your spouse bet his money on the Sultan or not?’

  ‘Highness, we are not Rajputs,’ she laughed a matter-of-fact, unmalicious laugh. ‘It’s never all or nothing for us. We invariably hedge our bets and always cover our risks. The Sultan, as you well know, is badly strapped for funds and is already in debt.’ She smiled mischievously. ‘I’m sure Mangal and his men have told you the exact sum to the last decimal point. Now is obviously the time to extract an extra fractional percentage point. But all that is piffle. The only pertinent question is will Mewar be satisfied with defeating the Sultan or does it want to grab the whole of Malwa this time? Because if it’s the latter, we stand to lose everything, the previous debt monies as well as the contemplated current loan. Let me frame the crux of the problem: what is the objective of the Mewar campaign; more specifically, who has formulated it, His Majesty, the Rana or you?’ She did not take her eyes off me. ‘I’m betting my money on His Majesty. Which is why I’ve told my husband to put together a cartel of financiers from Gujarat, Vijayanagar and the east and lend money to the Sultan. That way we don’t take undue risks and yet collect commission on the loans given by the cartel. Does that confirm your conclusions about the lending policies of my husband’s house?’

  She had not given away anything I did not already know or would not have found out in a couple of days. I had not forgotten that she had one of the keenest heads in Mewar but to see her break up a problem into its various subdivisions, address each one of them and then make a clean sweep of the lot with a composite solution was like watching a master make his moves at a dense and convoluted game of chess.

  I shook my head slowly. ‘If only your grandfather had married you to someone from Mewar, Chittor rather than the Sultan, would have benefitted immeasurably from that swift and shrewd brain of yours which leaves nothing to chance.’

  ‘I am married to Mewar, Maharaj Kumar. It may have escaped you, but I’m not likely to forget it ever.’ She let that sink in. ‘I am back for good this time.’

  ‘Not exactly the happiest time for banter, Leelawati.’

  ‘I’m in earnest, Your Highness.’ Unhurriedly but with an economy of movement that was like pressing a lever to open hidden passages and vistas, she unsheathed herself. ‘Take me, Sire.’

  She was more serene and self-possessed in her nakedness than the supernaturally calm larger-than-life image of Lord Mahavir in her grandfather Adinathji’s courtyard. I closed my eyes. She stood inside them.

  In Lakshman Simhaji’s library, there’s a priceless illustrated copy of Vatsayan’s Kamasutra. In it is a picture of a woman’s face. The head is thrown back. Her eyes are closed with the pleasure of anticipation, her lips are moist and a little open. At the end of her expectant yearning is the index finger of a man, perhaps it is of a woman. The lips will close upon the finger, the tongue will wet, flicker and swirl around it. Gently the lips will suck at the prathama, draw it in and release it.

  And yet, and yet Vatsayan and his artist have not seen Leelawati’s toes.

  There is nothing, absolutely nothing one cannot do without in life. All wants are dispensable so long as one can absent oneself. What happens if you discover a dark and urgent longing in your chest that runs all the way from front to back, a hole that you pack with the rest of your life, state-work, lovemaking, the tunnels under Chittor, writing diaries and military manuals, wars and warcouncils; and yet you never make any progress? The hole stays as it is, you carry it wherever you go, no great ache, just an emptiness and a suspicion that you have betrayed both Leelawati and yourself.

  If it is politic, I have no problems lying with a straight face. But I am not given to lying to myself, at least not consciously. And yet through the intervening years whenever I have struggled to erase the thought of Leelawati, I have asked myself what she means to me, what is the relationship that our stations and roles in life permit. Some questions I can answer, others I cannot do anything about. But there are also areas where I am not able to sort out the boundaries of prevarication, responsibility and that very real and just as intractable entity called the truth-of-the-matter.

  I loved Leelawati when she was a child. She was precocious, lovely, vivacious and fond of me (that always helps). Despite my great affection for her, I was perhaps patronizing towards her as adults are wont to be. I did not doubt the intensity of her attachment to me but I read it as puppy love. My brother Vikramaditya did not mind ruining Leelawati’s name and future just so long as he could get at me. That effectively dropped the curtain on my relationship with Leelawati. But even if Vikramaditya had not intervened, would matters have been any different between Leelawati and me? How much was I responsible for her fate? Given the fact that we were Rajputs and her family Jains and that her great-grandfather was not just minister of the exchequer but also the most powerful financier in the kingdom, could we have continued to be anything but formal and distant friends after
she grew up? We are not a closed and oppressive society in Mewar, but men and women who are not married to each other do not meet except socially.

  ‘And what about your husband?’

  Where was my ancestor, the Sun-god? Would he not turn his flammable gaze upon me and rid Leelawati of a man who would rather stammer inanities than do her bidding?

  ‘I’m a virgin, Maharaj Kumar.’

  My face must have shown some sign of humanity and perhaps even astonishment.

  ‘No fault of his, Sire, he’s a whole man. Unfortunately for him, he is also a staunch believer in the tenets of Jainism. In the early years of our marriage when he tried to force his attentions upon me, I would tell him that if he touched me, I would kill his favourite singing bird, Geet, the mynah he fed with his own hands every day and the blood of the bird would be on his head. He’s besotted with me, Maharaj Kumar but he is a true Jain and even for love of me, he’ll not spill blood.’

  ‘Go back to your husband, Leelawati,’ I could barely whisper the words, ‘Make him happy.’

  ‘I’m yours and no one else’s.’

  ‘I’m truly touched, Leelawati. Nobody has paid me a greater compliment.’ I was choosing my words with care so that they had just the right degree of pleasant anonymity. The sand of fraudulence and chicanery blocked my mouth and try as I might, I could not be rid of it. ‘Your cruelty and denial can kill a man, Leelawati. You must stop this foolishness.’

  ‘You need an heir, Highness. The Little Saint is too self-centred to give you one. We’ll have children, boys and girls and I’ll make you a fine wife and colleague.’ She got hold of my hands then and clutched them tightly. ‘I’ll wipe out all the terrible years of your first marriage. I’ll make you happy.’