The Little Saint may have accelerated the alienation of the Rai’s daughter, but however loath I may be, I must give credit where it is due: to me and me alone. I did not will it so, quite the contrary. But what use are good intentions if all we end up doing is to subvert their results?
* * *
I had decided to go through the marriage ceremony with stoicism and detachment. Instead I got involved. My Sanskrit is not what it used to be but I was pleased to note halfway through the rituals that I could make sense of many of the stotras and verses. There was a young priest who reinvented the language by a simple trick, perhaps the right word is insight. He did not reproduce a text he had learnt by rote. He spoke Sanskrit as if he was talking an easy Mewari. The key to Sanskrit, the pundits never tire of telling us, is crystalline diction. They are right, absolutely right. What they forget to mention is that diction will make sense only if it is illuminated by understanding. Eschew meaning and context and even your mother tongue will sound dead. The most condensed and closely reasoned or lyrical verse, the priest seemed to suggest, is not so much rhyme or metre as it is spoken language.
Who killed Sanskrit? How does a language die? It wasn’t as if a cataclysm had wiped out the populace of the country or the Muslims had decreed one day that Arabic or Afghani would replace the mother of our languages. Was language like a woman from the zenana that we could abandon any time we felt like it? Would Sanskrit have survived if not just the brahmins and the court, but all castes had spoken it? Will the language of Mewar also die? Along with geography and religion, a mother tongue is the destiny of a people. I have the strange feeling that man created language but now it creates us. This is too big a thought. Am I talking rubbish? I need to examine this interaction closely.
Suddenly my bride and I were alone in the bedroom. Sugandha had her back to me. It was a scene that every Mewari couple has re-enacted on its first night together. It was the time, I had a feeling, when the fate of most marriages is decided. Please, don’t be afraid. I won’t touch you. I won’t touch you till the day you ask me to share the bed with you. I give you my word. I’ve got some alta powder with which I’ll stain the sheet so that when the maid comes to clean the room tomorrow, she’ll not carry any tales. I’ll just remove one blanket from the bed and sleep in the corner here.
I stood in front of the door unable to move and kept going over the same sentences over and over again till she finally turned around and looked at me. I could hear her pulse from where I stood. I thought I detected a passing smile as she looked at me expectantly. I realized then that my internal monologue was misplaced. She wanted me to do my husbandly duty by her. I was overtaken by the same desire I had seen in her eyes. I walked up to her and gently undressed her. I played with her till both she and I were fully aroused. She had closed her eyes and waited for me. She might as well have waited for me till she was dead. I could not perform.
I watched myself in horror as I shrank into myself. I was in an impotent rage. My world had lost its moorings. What was left of life if I could not depend on sheer, straightforward lust? There is no certainty more immediate than the hardness at the crotch. And now even that was taken away from me. Unable to cope with the betrayal of my body, I began to rail and rant at my new bride. She drew her knees to her chin and made a tight ball of herself. She waited for me to strike her as she cowered. I did not raise my hand but I could not stop my ranting.
I hated marriage, I said, I had done everything possible to spare her and myself the pain and indignity of being together. But does anybody listen? Everybody but me knows what is best for me. I have no idea what connections, or rather disconnections, my mind was making but I brought Babur and the coming war with him into the picture. I was surrounded by enemies on all sides, did she know that? All my brothers had an eye on the crown. Did she want it too? And what if the legal heir didn’t get it? Was she going to blame me for it? There was no end to people’s expectations of me. I’m not superman, is that clear? I couldn’t guarantee her the throne or anything. Did she know that people thought I was a coward?
It was obvious that she was responsible for everything that had gone wrong with my life from the time I was born, perhaps even when I was in my mother’s womb. There was more, much more but the fact was, nothing was going to cover the gaping hole of my inadequacy. I knew I had to shut up, this was Medini Rai’s daughter and my wife, for better or worse, in sickness and in health. Did I doubt it for a moment that Sugandha would run to her father and tell him all? Did I wish to wreck Mewar’s friendship with the Rai at such a critical time?
‘Forgive me, Sire, forgive me for hurting you.’ She still had her head between her knees and I couldn’t hear her clearly.
‘What? Don’t mutter, woman,’ I lashed at her with renewed fury, ‘speak up, I am man enough to take whatever you have to say.’ By now my one-track mind had deciphered her words and I was even more incensed than before. ‘I’m treating you like a swine and you want forgiveness? Oh God, how I hate these martyrs. Can’t you stand up for yourself and tell me to shut up and leave you alone?’
I was dressing with my back to her (I had got my dignity and prudishness back) when she pulled my belt towards her. Before I knew what was happening she had got my scimitar out of the scabbard, held her hand over the bedsheet and cut her index finger.
* * *
I was working on a speech for the passing out parade at the Gurukul, when Mangal walked in with a shade more urgency to his step than is his wont.
The curious fact is, even when Mangal is silent, everybody listens to him. I’m no exception. Long before he became head of intelligence, it went against Mangal’s grain to reveal what was going on in his mind. The natural rider to that article of faith has been an impassive exterior, an economy of body movement and zero degree of excitability. But there is a paradox here. Despite his stoniness, Mangal is approachable, very much so, otherwise he would be useless at his job. I think his unique quality is that he lets you think you have a special rapport and reciprocal relationship with him without ever allowing you to discover how wrong you are. He will not show his hand even after the game’s over. How could he? All through our childhood, not that things are very different today either, I hogged the attention, I was the one who had moods and tantrums. He had to pretend that that was all right, that it was a perfectly just world and that he was without feelings or likes and dislikes. But I don’t want to grieve overmuch about Mangal’s deprived childhood. It has made him the best listener in Mewar and perhaps the second most powerful person in the kingdom.
I looked at the note he had placed on my table. It was addressed to me but I couldn’t make out who it was from, since the handwriting was unfamiliar and the seal was smudged.
To
His Highness, the Maharaj Kumar of Mewar Greetings.
Would you do us the kindness to see us? We await you outside the city limits.
Yours,
Prince Bahadur.
‘Is Shehzada Bahadur really waiting for us?’
‘In the shade of the rain tree outside the banyan grove, Highness.’
‘Any chance of an ambush?’
‘I doubt it, Sire. He has only eleven of his companions with him.’
‘They were twenty-seven the last time he was here.’
‘I believe the Shehzada is much reduced in circumstance.’
I have mixed feelings about Bahadur. I should hate him and a part of me does for what he did to Rajendra, however provoked he may have been, and yet I cannot deny my fondness for him. There is a quickening in my pulse and a repressed excitement at the thought of seeing a friend I had not imagined I would run into again, except perhaps on the battlefield. I will of course not allow myself to articulate the one question that needs to be asked: of all people in the world not excluding my new friend and likely enemy, the Padshah of Delhi himself, what is Bahadur doing on the outskirts of Chittor?
Mangal was right. Time has not been kind to the Shehzada. He had always been self-in
dulgent but he had taken care in the past to camouflage the cruel streak in him with humour and easy, likeable ways. But he had either given up the attempt or he no longer cared that he now had the air of a dyspeptic lout.
His deep-set eyes had turned beady and watched you shiftily. They measured your good fortune against his. Disappointed ambition, hard times and a wavering faith in his destiny had made him bitter and given him an evil eye. He could and did wish you all the ill in the world. The most unsettling change in him was that he could no longer focus on or attend to anything for more than a few minutes. He would ask you a question, start to listen intently and lose interest. He was a man who was through with impatience and would go over the edge any day now.
We embraced each other. He had obviously been drinking steadily. Liquor is like garlic. Its miasma and stale smell envelop the whole body.
‘Are you surprised to see me, Highness?’
‘Pleased to see you would be more precise.’
‘You were always the perfect gentleman, Maharaj Kumar, And how has life been treating you?’
‘The usual ups and downs.’ I wondered if we were going to exchange banalities for the next couple of days.
‘Have you finally been officially declared as the successor to His Majesty, the Rana?’
‘No, Highness. But His Majesty has, God willing, many more useful years left to him.’
‘My old man’s dead but I’m still not the Sultan of Gujarat.’
‘I was sorry to hear about His Majesty’s death. But take heart, Prince. If it’s written that you’ll be the sovereign, then no power on earth can prevent it. Our best wishes are always with you.’
‘But is it written, Maharaj Kumar?’ he asked me with not so much vehemence as rancour.
‘Shehzada, I, too, am just as keen to decipher the hieroglyphics of destiny as you are.’
‘Highness,’ his tone changed suddenly, ‘I’m a homeless man looking for a home. We were on our way to Malwa when we were told that you had not only defeated the Malwa armies but taken Sultan Mahmud Khalji prisoner. You’ve shut the door of Malwa on my face. Without the Sultan there, they’ll not give me asylum.’
I refrained from telling Bahadur that had the Sultan been in Malwa, he would have been even less welcome there than in Mewar. Gujarat and Malwa had been allies recently but I don’t think Sultan Mahmud had any illusions about Gujarat’s intentions. The slightest provocation and the late lamented Muzaffar Shah or now his son, Sikander, would swallow Malwa whole and without a burp.
‘I’m fed up with going from pillar to post. I need a temporary home. Will you let bygones be bygones?’
‘I do not live in the past, Shehzada. You’ve known my views for a long time. Gujarat and Mewar need to be friends and at peace. If anything, I believe that even more now. If it was up to me, you could stay with us as long as you wanted. But I must be candid with you. The people of Mewar will not welcome you. Not after what happened on your last visit.’
‘Are you saying no to me, Highness, even though I’m begging you to give me asylum?’
‘I’ve no say in the matter, Shehzada. However, I’ll arrange for you to rest and recover incognito in one of our villages for the next couple of days. I’ll also give you a loan of ten thousand tankas from my personal funds to be paid back when you can.’
‘I’ll accept your hospitality,’ Bahadur told me imperiously. I have to admit that he made me feel that I was the recipient of his benevolence and largesse. ‘Your generosity, however, is misplaced, Highness. I have an elephant’s memory. I’ll not forget that you refused me shelter. Beware, Maharaj Kumar, you sent ten thousand Gujarati men to their death by deceit. You masqueraded as a Gujarati soldier and killed Malik Ayaz. You took Idar back. No one has ever inflicted such a devastating defeat upon Gujarat. Vengeance is mine, Maharaj Kumar. Mark my words. I’ll hound you from village to village and town to town and I will overrun the whole of Mewar.’
I couldn’t help smiling. Was this the talk of a supplicant or of an autocrat at the peak of his power?
‘You are tired and at the end of your patience. But your luck will turn, hopefully very soon, and then your elephant’s memory will remind you of all the good things that transpired between you and me. If ever there was a chance of two hereditary enemies coming together, becoming friends and fighting for peace, it is Gujarat and Mewar.’
‘And what of honour and vengeance?’
‘Why not try an honourable peace, Prince? Its consequences are little short of wondrous. It will give us the time and the funds to build new cities and renovate old ones. It will attract artists and musicians to our courts. I may then even find time for my favourite obsession: the sewers of Mewar.’
He smiled tentatively. ‘You think so?’
‘Yes. I believe that with both my heart and head.’
‘Khuda hafiz, Maharaj Kumar.’
‘Khuda hafiz, Shehzada. Till we meet again.’
* * *
On the morning of the last day of the victory festivities, the Sultan of Malwa, Medini Rai and the Rana of Mewar signed a peace treaty. That night Sajani Bai sang for us at the palace.
Normally Kausalya would have looked after the arrangements since I was the host but Kausalya has ditched me. She was not there to greet me when I returned to Chittor.
‘She sent Mamta a message about a month ago saying that she was going to her village on some pressing business. We have not heard from her since then,’ Mangal said.
‘Does she know that I am back?’
‘I suppose she does.’
Why do my conversations with Mangal about his mother always turn obtuse and cagey?
‘What’s that supposed to mean? Don’t be supercilious with me, Mangal. Does she know or doesn’t she?’
‘I don’t know, Sire. Would you like me to send for her?’
‘Yes.’
Two days later he was back.
‘She’s not in the village, Maharaj Kumar.’
‘Where the hell is she?’
‘I don’t know. Ghanikhama Durbar, but I need hardly tell you that my mother is an independent woman and not answerable to me.’
‘Did she go some place else after visiting the village?’
‘She never did go to the village.’
‘So where did she go?’
‘I have reported her missing to the police. They are combing the city and checking out with their underworld connections. I have spoken personally to the Inspector-General. He’s sending messengers with mother’s description to every town and city in the kingdom.’
‘Is she all right, Mangal?’
I had to get a grip on myself. What was Mangal supposed to say? Mother’s missing for over five weeks now but she’s doing fine?
‘I have alerted our intelligence network too, Highness. I took the liberty of borrowing one of her portraits from your collection and have asked one of the artists at the temple to make a dozen copies of it.’
‘Thank you Mangal. I appreciate this.’
Mangal smiled wryly. ‘We may not always get along, Highness, but she is my mother and I’m concerned about her.’
‘You are right. Let me know if you hear anything. Anything at all.’
I needn’t have worried about the hospitality and the protocol for the guests. In my absence the Princess routinely managed dinners and banquets for anywhere between twenty-five and two thousand five hundred people. She plans and organizes while Mangal’s wife, Mamta, executes her orders. You’ll find more than a trace of Merta cuisine at the palace these days but as always the Princess makes sure that no one can accuse her of partisanship by introducing some Delhi or Ahmedabadi dishes in the meals. Since that night’s recital was in honour of His Majesty Mahmud Khalji, the menu for the dinner was Malwa all the way. My wife’s grapevine was obviously a sound one for the Malwa King was delighted with the meal and in terrific back-slapping humour. I, too, must have been feeling lightheaded and expansive for I was caught unawares when he disingenuously slippe
d in a query while we were walking after dinner to the Rana Kumbha hall where the concerts in the palace are held.
‘Now that it’s merely a memory of little consequence, perhaps you may care to tell me whether you brought an army of fifty thousand along with you on the Malwa campaign or was it only a bluff?’
When I think back on it, it was a good thing that I had not rehearsed my answer beforehand for my look of surprise had nothing false about it. I recall Medini Rai who was accompanying us slowing down and awaiting my reply with as much curiosity as the Sultan himself.
‘It was, Your Majesty, not a bluff so much as a rounding off of numbers.’
‘How much?’ the Sultan paused almost as if he was asking himself whether he really wanted to know the truth. ‘How much of a rounding off are we talking about here?’
‘We were forty-seven thousand seven hundred Mewaris, which didn’t sound half as impressive as fifty thousand, so we padded the figure a little bit. Why, why do you ask, Majesty?’
He looked relieved. ‘I thought someone mentioned yesterday that you had taken the latitude of adding a zero and had turned forty-five hundred soldiers into forty-five thousand.’
‘I would like my children to believe that I was heroic, almost supernaturally so, but I don’t want to be the laughingstock of Mewar, Sire. Soldiers are the worst liars in the world but I do believe that your source was overdoing things a bit.’
The Sultan hadn’t finished with me yet. ‘And how would you explain so large an army covering so great a distance in so short a time? Three days to be precise?’
I tried to avoid answering that one. ‘You don’t really want to know, Majesty.’
‘I do.’
‘It was an egregious lie and you’ve caught me out. It was a matter of dropping a zero this time. His Highness Medini Rai asked for assistance from his Majesty, the Rana, immediately after you left Mandu. We had a little time, so we divided ourselves into ten groups, each one leaving after an interval of two or three days and never by exactly the same route.’
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