Cuckold

by Kiran Nagarkar

  After breakfast we went to the Mrikanda Muni Kund which grants the boon of wisdom. It is close to the most wooded spot on the rim of the lake and also the most secluded. I knew that it would be a long time before I spent such a quiet day again and I wanted to make the most of it. My brothers Vikramaditya and Rattan and their nine children, Tej, Mangal and I played seven tiles and peet-pitai. After the games I swam for a long time and then lay on my back on the bank. There’s no more soothing sound in the world than the slow, unintrusive, soft swish of water against the shore. Every now and then I would turn on my side and look at the ladies in the distance. Was this all my family? I had rarely seen so many beautiful women together. They were playing hide-and-seek, some of them were making garlands while others chatted or scolded the children. The sound of their voices seemed to come from a long way off. I let my hand fall drowsily in the water.

  ‘Which ... which ... which-whee-whee-which?’ No other bird but the black-and-chestnut crested bunting, the pathar chidiya could be so cheerfully inquisitive about life. If there’s a pond or a river nearby, there’s bound to be a red munia around. The munia reminds me of a child. It is a musical bird which is always short of breath. This one too sang a discontinuous and feeble song. Where had I been all these years? How could I have ignored a world that Raja Puraji Kika had opened up for me when we were at school together and would go bird watching on holidays? That black and orange chestnut bird pecking at spiders and insects is, I think, a redstart. It’s too busy eating to call out its sharp and short whit ... whit ... whit. I was watching that shy winter visitor, the blue throat feeding on caterpillars and beetles in the reeds when I must have fallen asleep.

  I don’t know how long I had been dozing. The sound of voices in the background had almost completely died down. Everybody must have had lunch and lain down for a siesta. I did not want to open my eyes but I had the strange feeling that somebody was watching me. It was Sugandha. She was on her knees, crouching, with her arms tightly wound around herself. Every half a minute or so her body jerked, her throat and tongue worked hard to release some deep and unmentionable grief and yet could only let out an occasional hiccup-like sound. But it was her eyes that held me. They wouldn’t look at me. There was a terror in them that made them dart and flit from the trees to the lake to the sky and then to the rise and fall of my belly. I sat up slowly and gently, very gently placed my hand on her shoulder. Her body tensed at my touch and I thought she would roll her eyes and fall to the ground in a fit of epilepsy or hysteria.

  Whatever it was that was on her mind, why would she want to come to me? Vikramaditya was her friend, no sarcasm meant, and she should have gone to him. I stroked her back barely touching her at first and then firmly. The spasms that were shaking her to the very pit of her stomach had reduced in intensity but she still could not speak. She took my hand in hers and we walked for a minute. Some terrible urgency seemed to take hold of her then and she began to run till we came to a break in the trees around a slight detour in the line of the lake. A body with its head resting on its chest was immersed three-quarters in the shallow water. A watery red had spread all around it and the white of the clothes had gone a dirty brown. I lifted the head. It was Bruhannada.

  I pulled him out with some effort. His right leg had got stuck in the mud and he was heavy with all that water soaked into his clothes. There were multiple stab wounds all over his chest, none in the back, and his privates or whatever passes for them in eunuchs had been slashed repeatedly. Why would anybody, I wondered, want to mutilate the genitalia of a eunuch? His lips were the ashen grey of the dead and I couldn’t get a pulse on him but when I put my ear to his chest, I thought I detected a faint but erratic heartbeat.

  ‘Will you stay with him while I get some help?’ I asked Sugandha.

  ‘Don’t leave me alone.’

  ‘He needs medical help urgently.’

  ‘He may be dead by the time you get it.’

  ‘That’s a chance we’ll have to take.’

  When I got back, my second wife was no longer there.

  * * *

  Greeneyes had planned for two days at Pushkar. We had all been so happy and carefree, Father was even considering extending our stay by another day. Perhaps paradise is always short-lived. The water at Pushkar had suddenly curdled and the summer pavilions had lost their exuberance. The women were huddled together around the Little Saint. She had taken charge as usual and had already given orders to pull up the tents. Father appointed Rattan to oversee the journey back while Mangal, he and I took off for home.

  ‘Mangal will handle the investigation,’ Father told me as we were about to enter Chittor, ‘while you will conduct the trial.’

  ‘Mangal’s not in the Home Ministry, Your Majesty, and I’m merely a judge in the Small Causes Court.’

  ‘I’m aware of who’s in what department, Prince. This is a Palace matter and I want it to stay within the Palace. I also want the culprits brought to justice speedily. You had better do a good job.’

  ‘I beg of you, Majesty. I’m part of the family. The purposes of justice may be served better if an outsider was appointed.’

  ‘We need to get to the bottom of things. It’s because an outsider may be intimidated that I’m appointing you. Now will you get on with the job or will you continue to tell me how to do mine?’

  Chapter

  41

  They are afraid of us, there’s no question about that Why else would Babur recall his son Humayun to Delhi from Junpur?’ Silhadi asked the question of no one in particular at the War Council. He was in great spirits and seemed to have forgotten the uncalled-for tantrum he had thrown the last time he was at Chittor. (It was also likely that he did not find this an opportune moment to ask why and on whose authority the Sultan of Malwa had been sent back to his own kingdom with an escort, a week after the Rai’s departure.)

  ‘Would you not recall your right hand man to be with you,’ my wife’s uncle, Rao Viramdev, asked Silhadi,’ if this Council decided that we should march against the Padshah?’

  ‘I would, naturally.’

  ‘Should Babur then conclude that the Rajputs fear him?’

  The Prime Minister changed the subject before Silhadi realized that he had been trapped by his own words and became nasty.

  ‘Did you know that both Babur and Ibrahim Lodi, the Delhi Sultan, had solicited Mewar’s help before the battle of Panipat? I think we are all agreed that the loose confederacy which holds Mewar and its friends together is today the mightiest power in this part of Hindustan. Let us strike while the iron is hot. Let us give battle to Babur as soon as we can.’

  The War Council, it appeared, did not wish to debate the matter of war or weigh the advantages and demerits of putting off the confrontation for a while, maybe even for a couple of years. They were impatient to go and finish off Babur.

  ‘Before one takes such an important decision,’ I asked a little hesitantly, directing my query to Rao Viramdev in the hope that he would consider the issue on its merits and not in the heat of the moment, ‘would it not help if we investigated how so small a force as Babur’s defeated the numerically vastly superior armies of Ibrahim Lodi?’

  ‘Why is that such a puzzle?’ It was Lakshman Simhaji who fielded my question. ‘Hadn’t you told us for years that the Delhi dynasty was a spent force and ready to crumble?’

  ‘Besides,’ Prime Minister Pooranmalji had a broad grin on his face, ‘did you not but recently prove beyond the shadow of a doubt how a tiny band of dedicated warriors lead by Rao Medini Rai and you could defeat the combined armies of Malwa and Gujarat?’

  ‘I mean no disrespect to the courage and valour of the Rajput armies but ask a mere hypothetical question. What is to prevent Padshah Babur from repeating the same feat as ours and giving a drubbing to the combined Mewar armies?’

  The Prime Minister was patient with me. ‘Because unlike Delhi and Malwa, Mewar is at the peak of its power. Never have the Rajputs been so united and their hegemon
y so undisputed.’

  ‘You were trying to tell us something, Maharaj Kumar,’ Rao Viramdev revived my earlier point. ‘The Lodi empire may have been in bad shape but the Sultan undoubtedly had a formidable war machine. What would you say were the causes of his defeat?’

  ‘Four reasons. The Moghul bows are better designed and their steel arrows have greater penetrating power. Unlike us, they make extensive and routine use of matchlocks. One can shoot from a greater distance and yet be far more accurate and deadly than with arrows. They don’t just come with superior conventional arms, they build fortifications on the battlefield itself.’ I drew the diagrams of Babur’s battle plan at Panipat and explained how his strategy worked. ‘Fourth, the Padshah uses new deadly weapons called field-cannons which discharge huge flying stone balls at high speeds from great distances into the midst of the enemy. The cannon balls played havoc long before Ibrahim Lodi’s forces could engage Babur’s cavalry or infantry.’

  ‘You call wagons tied together, ditches and walls of packed branches fortifications?’ Silhadi asked me disdainfully. ‘Our elephants will trample them down.’

  ‘Ibrahim Lodi had a thousand elephants.’

  ‘How many cannons does the Padshah have?’ Rao Viramdev again.

  ‘Three or four, I’m not sure about the precise number. But he has employed a Turkish master artilleryman and cannon-builder called Ustad Ali-quli who has recently cast an enormous mortar. It is calculated that the new cannon will lob its stone shots sixteen hundred paces.’

  ‘And what do you recommend should be our course of action?’ Rao Viramdev kept the discussion on course.

  ‘Play for time.’

  ‘To what purpose?’

  ‘We have been making enquiries. There seems to be a good chance that the Portuguese may sell us four field-guns within a year or year and a half. That will give us time to buy at least a couple of thousand matchlocks and work out a strategy that will bypass Babur’s portable fortifications.’

  ‘What kind of strategy would that be, Maharaj Kumar?’ Raja Puraji Kika pinned me down. ‘You have obviously given it some thought.’

  ‘Eschew all confrontations. If hostilities cannot be avoided, harry and harass. Strike at the flanks and disappear.’

  ‘We thought you had grown out of your fun and games phase when you fought a conventional battle with the Malwa Sultan. Time to get serious, Maharaj Kumar, this is war we are talking about.’

  Raja Puraji Kika ignored Silhadi’s dig at me. ‘How long could you carry on with these tactics? The Padshah, as you’ve convinced us, is nobody’s fool.’

  ‘We would fall back on this evasive strategy only as a last resort. I am fully seized of the fact that at some point, not in the immediate future but as soon as our arsenals are on par, we must meet the Padshah head on.’

  ‘I keep thinking that it couldn’t have been just four cannons and a thousand matchlocks that ran Ibrahim Lodi to the ground,’ Rao Medini Rai spoke as if he had been puzzling over the issue for some time. ‘There was a serious problem of morale amongst the Sultan’s troops. He had alienated the majority of his people and most of his amirs and generals were at odds with him. I believe that with us the Padshah will face a united army whose leaders are acting in concert and share common goals and aspirations’

  ‘I cannot gainsay the truth of the points you have made, Highness. We are a large, strong and united force. Cohesion and compactness will come with extensive drilling and practice as we discovered on our last campaign. What harm could ensue from some procrastination that would also make us stronger in small and big firearms?’

  ‘And how will you hold off the Padshah till then?’

  ‘By a diplomatic offensive. We send an embassy to Agra bearing gifts for the Padshah, Shehzada Humayun and others in the royal household. We congratulate Babur and make friendly overtures; if need be, even discuss boundaries and borders with him. It will throw him off balance and he’ll be confused about our intentions.’

  ‘Are you suggesting that after months of a hostile build-up, the Padshah is going to be fooled by your transparent ploys?’ Silhadi was perhaps rightly scornful.

  ‘It’s worth a try. He has so many revolts, rebellions and other problems on his hands, I believe Babur too would be happy to get a respite from what he calls the infidel problem of Mewar.’

  ‘You are right, Maharaj Kumar, time is of the essence. The best time to attack an enemy is when his house is not in order. If we don’t engage the enemy now, he’ll gain the upper hand. If we are the paramount power in the country, surely we must behave like one?’ Pooranmalji reasoned patiently with me.

  ‘Is it settled then,’ it was the first time Father had spoken that day, ‘that we move swiftly against the Padshah?’

  I should have known better. His Majesty had made up his mind before calling the meeting of the War Council.

  * * *

  I saw Rao Medini Rai and Raja Puraji Kika off that afternoon.

  ‘Why is it that half of Chittor is always dug up?’ Medini Rai asked me as we rode down.

  ‘We are trying to set up an aqueduct system like the one they have in Vijayanagar.’

  ‘That’s the reason why he doesn’t want to go to war, Highness,’ Raja Puraji Kika told the Rao. ‘Because he thinks funds will get diverted from his pet project.’

  ‘I hadn’t thought about that but you are right. Everything will come to a standstill till we get back.’

  ‘So you think this is going to be the big one?’ Medini Rai asked me.

  ‘I suspect it is. What do you think?’

  ‘This new man in Agra is like a fever that keeps rising higher and higher. I hope all of us are not going to be delirious by the time we get to the battlefield.’ Medini Rai was right. We could think of nothing but Babur. ‘Our allies seem to be raring to go. That kind of excitement and confidence can’t do us any harm. Why didn’t you mention the fanatic frenzy with which Babur’s approaching this war?’

  ‘I was hoping to slow down the pace of the discussion from excessive patriotism to a rational level. Any talk of Babur’s extreme stance would have made them want to go to war today.’

  ‘That doesn’t answer the question of how we are going to combat it.’ Medini Rai stopped me short.

  ‘Do you have any ideas?’

  ‘Perhaps we too should make it a religious war?’

  ‘And lose the support of the Muslim kings and populace?’

  ‘So what do we do?’

  ‘There are only two checkmates to a Holy War. Enlist as many Muslims as we can on our side. Make merit the only criteria for advancement and not religion. Secondly, and that’s what I was holding out for throughout the meeting: technologically, we have to be, if not ahead, at least on par, and militarily, we have to think and move like a single unit instead of ten companies moving in ten directions.’ The Rai listened intently but it was what I had to say next that made him frown grimly. ‘Do you know what Babur says about us? “Swordsmen though some Hindustanis may be, most of them are ignorant and unskilled in military move and stand, in soldierly counsel and procedure.” We have to prove him wrong.’

  ‘It would appear that I was in error to suggest that Ibrahim Lodi was as much to blame as Babur’s brilliant management of the limited resources at his disposal.’ I was glad to see that Medini Rai had the courage to have second thoughts. ‘It also diverted attention from Babur’s technological superiority in arms.’

  ‘Only slightly, for everybody at the Council thinks the field-cannons and matchlocks will not do serious damage to our forces.’

  ‘I owe you and His Majesty the Rana an apology for another matter. It is long overdue. I believe His Highness, Silhadi, got carried away the last time when we met to decide the fate of the Sultan of Malwa. I am not lacking in appreciation of what I owe you, Highness. Without you I may have lost my son and Gagrone and we certainly would not have won the battle.’

  ‘You need not have worried on that count, Highness. I am not likely to con
fuse Silhadi with you.’

  * * *

  I was working late at the office (we all were, there’s so little time before we set off) when Father came to see me.

  ‘I think a clarification would be in order. I did not write to the Moghul Padshah as his diary suggests. It was he who asked me.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter who asked whom, Your Majesty. What matters is that Babur feels betrayed because you wrote to him that we would support him and attack Agra from the south. He is the kind of man who does not forget a grievance easily. I suspect he’ll bring an extra degree of malevolence to this conflict not just because we are pagans but because he wishes to settle other scores with us.’

  ‘My calculations were based on a different set of assumptions. I was counting on Ibrahim Lodi beating Babur’s lesser forces but in the process suffering unacceptably heavy casualties. On the other hand, if Babur defeated the Delhi Sultan, he would collect a huge sum and at best, annex a province or two. Either way, I felt that the ideal time for us to attack Ibrahim Lodi was after his brush with Babur. Who would have guessed that Babur would occupy Delhi?’

  It never ceases to amaze me how we disregard people’s avowed intentions. Copies of the translation of the bits and pieces of Babur’s diaries had been sent to all the cabinet members. Surely Father knew that Babur had announced a long time ago that he viewed the Delhi Sultanate as his since his ancestor Timur had conquered it some generations ago.

  ‘Perhaps we were a shade naive.’ That’s about as close to admitting a mistake as His Majesty had ever come.

  ‘You did not stop there. After the battle of Panipat, you made Ibrahim Lodi’s brother Mahmud, who’s next in line for the succession of the Delhi throne, welcome in Chittor. Then you took Kandar which belonged to the Delhi Sultanate and which Babur considers his territory since he beat Sultan Ibrahim Lodi. As if all that was not enough, you’ve also surreptitiously occupied another hundred and ninety or is it two hundred other towns and villages that Babur thinks belong to him. We cannot deny, Father, that we have given Babur grave provocation.’ I laughed then. ‘I suspect that was your intention.’