Cuckold
Page 66
His most significant contribution to India and to civilization was his grandson, the Emperor Akbar. Akbar was a contemporary of Queen Elizabeth I. His grandfather would have been proud of him. He extended the empire to practically two-thirds of India. He was a great builder and founded his new capital at Fatehpur Sikri close to Khanua where Babur had defeated Rana Sanga. But his finest achievement was something that his grandfather would not have been too happy about. He appointed Hindus, Muslims, Jains and Zoroastrians to the highest military and civilian posts in the empire. He believed that different faiths could coexist. As a matter of fact he tried to found a new religion, Din-i-Ilahi, which was a synthesis of what he thought was the best in the different faiths. He was completely illiterate. Enlightenment and tolerance, it would seem, have little to do with being lettered or unlettered.
His son Jehangir ruled from 1605 to 1627. It was during his tenure that the British established their first settlement in Surat. Akbar’s grandson, Shah Jehan was the great builder of the Moghul dynasty. He built the Agra fort, the Red Fort in Delhi and one of the most beautiful monuments in the world, the mausoleum of his wife, the Taj Mahal.
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Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat eventually swallowed up both Chittor and Malwa. When Babur’s son Humayun decided to invade Gujarat, Bahadur sought the help of the Portuguese in exchange for the seven islands of Bombay which were part of Gujarat then. It is said that the Portuguese invited him on one of their ships at Surat and while he was doing the royal tour, fore and aft, starboard and port or whatever they call these things in Portuguese, they arranged an accident that did him in.
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Saints in India do not, perforce, have to be celibate as in Western tradition. Nor do they have to perform miracles to be canonized. In the mystical Bhakti ethos, which signalled a sharp break with the totalitarian brahmin control of God and religious rituals, anybody from high caste Hindus to grocers and traders to mendicants and untouchables like cobblers or potters, had access to the Almighty. All that was needed was intense devotion and God was yours. It is a peculiar feature of this intimate rapport with God (He went by all kinds of names, Ram, Vitthal, Krishna, Shiva), that the Bhakti mystics from all over India felt an almost compelling need to converse with the Lord in poetry. A great number of them wrote truly superb verse, lyrical, passionate, colloquial, abstruse, rigorous, humorous, romantic, austere, complex, playful. The subject was always the same: Him. He was father, friend, lover, companion, soul mate. He was not high and mighty. You could tease him, order him, wake him up at any time of day or night. You could do all these things because you believed in the oneness of God; that there w; no dividing line between Him and you.
Kabir, Dnyaneshwar, Krishna Chaitanya, Thyagaraj, Tukaram, Lulla, Namdev, Narsi Bhagat. And then there was the Little Saint, Meera. Unlike the others, she was the only one who was a princess. She was born around 1498 and married Rana Sanga’s son, the Maharaj Kumar, Bhoj Raj, in 1516. Her affair, albeit with a god was a scandal. She was constantly criticized and persecuted for it in the Palace. In one of the lyrics ascribed to her, she calls upon the Flautist to rescue her from her sister-in-law, mother-in-law and the Rana (Vikramaditya?). Perhaps they really did attempt to kill her by giving her poison or in some other way.
It is impossible to separate biographical detail from the legends and myths that grew around her name. The Indian imagination responded warmly to the romantic story of the Princess and her divine paramour, and her travails with her in-laws. She was a fairly prolific writer. Her love poetry was in the confessional mode and she has innumerable imitators even in this day and age. Her imagery, the turn of phrase and her work are part of the conscious and unconscious vocabulary of Indians. You can recognize her picture anywhere. Krishna is the yogi. She is the jogan or devotee. She is always in white and thrumming a one-stringed instrument. She never looks out at the world. She is lost in her god and is dancing in a trance in front of him.
The Little Saint, as we all know, became a very big saint. The measure of life in India is the commercial cinema. Indian cinema keeps going back to the Little Saint time and again. The Krishna-cults including the Hare Krishna sects in New York, Moscow, London and elsewhere owe not a little to Greeneyes. In the 1980s, it was discovered that like Saint Joan of Arc, she was one of the earliest feminists. Meera is the subject of plays, dances, poetry and painting. Her bhajans, love-poetry and other kinds of verse are sung all over the country. More singers have recorded her songs than those of any other poet or saint The other great Bhakti saints of India may have been intellectually more robust than her but their fame is mostly regional. Her name is on almost every Indian’s lips.
Acknowledgements
‘There’s no way we’ll publish an acknowledgement as long as your book,’ my publishers told me. This was a gross misrepresentation of the facts. First of all, Cuckold is not a long book, just a bare 600 pages when the norm today in turn-of-the-century fiction is 670 to 1437 pages. Secondly, my original acknowledgements were not even a round five hundred pages. Since publishers have the last word in all matters, I’m constrained to do an abridged and utterly inadequate page and a half of thank you’s. My apologies to all those good people who the publishers will not allow me to name and thank.
Ramchandra Rao had no idea of what I had in mind (nor did I) but he was instrumental in organizing my visit to Udaipur and Chittor and placed me in the hands of Nitin Tirpude and Rajiv Sharma. Why Nitin and Rajiv should have put themselves out to such an extraordinary degree will always remain a mystery to me. I wouldn’t have had the help of these gentlemen, and all the other kinds of help without the silent support of my old friend, Daljit Mirchandani.
Sunanda Herzberger got loads of reference books from the library. Out of the blue, Tulsi Vatsal – I’ll come back to her again – bought me a copy of Baburnama. Fate, serendipity, the grand design, whatever you choose to call it, the book was coming together.
If Babur plays a crucial role in my novel, it is due, to a great extent, to Annette Susannah Beveridge’s translation of the Baburnama. How does one doff one’s cap to a dead author except to recommend her to all those who are interested in exceptional literature?
Nancy Fernandes got acidity, lost her 20:20 eyesight but typed and retyped the manuscript without complaint. Rekha Sabins, the translator of my novel Ravan and Eddie, was the willing(?) victim of my first, and largely incomprehensible readings from Cuckold as it was being written. Tulsi Vatsal played Mahmud of Ghazni, Timur and Jenghiz Khan rolled into one and lopped off close to a hundred pages. Her sharp critical insights and cuts made Cuckold a tighter and far better book.
I’m grateful to my friend Pervin Mahoney for her comments, initial editing and encouragement. And to Nita Pillai for further vetting the book. How shall I thank my friends Hira and Adrian Steven? Their patience was close to infinite. Every word, line, paragraph and chapter was scrutinized, every suggestion annotated and discussed. Never mind the inadequacy of the words, thank you both, again. Meena and Vijay Kirloskar have stood by me, and when the going’s been tough, given me a sense of perspective with wry humour and encouragement.
Whatever the shape of my gratitude, most of it is related to the fact that these people believed in the venture. Among the believers, I must especially mention my friend, Octavia Wiseman. She has stood by Cuckold through some difficult times. I’m grateful that she never gives up. That leaves my editor at HarperCollins, Priyakshi Rajguru. Like most soft-spoken people, she knows her mind. I’m glad that her mind was set upon Cuckold.
About the Author
Kiran Nagarkar was born in Mumbai. He wrote his first book in a language in which he had never written before — Marathi. The book was called Saat Sakkam Trechalis, recently translated as Seven Sixes are Forty-Three, and is considered a landmark in post-independent Indian literature. His novel in English, Ravan and Eddie, acclaimed as a literary bestseller, has been translated into Marathi.
Nagarkar’s writing has a lightness of p
ace coupled with a clarity which enables him to illuminate the most subtle and complex philosophical concepts with a directness and intimacy which linger in the mind long after you’ve finished Cuckold.
Praise for Cuckold
(Cuckold is) a fascinating book, a sort of fantastic marriage between the Thomas Mann of Royal Highness and the Lady Murasaki.
– Gore Vidal
Cuckold is a historical fiction at its best.
– Khushwant Singh
Astonishingly for a book of this size, like a young river cutting through our resistance to facing yet another literary door-stopper, it’s both deep and swift. Nagarkar has set a superb precedent with his third novel.
– Outlook
The strength of Cuckold lies in Nagarkar’s powerful prose and imagery. You just don’t read about the colours of Mewar, the futility of war, and the wonder of being in love – you experience them.
– The Statesman
With Cuckold…Nagarkar has established himself as a novelist with that rare ability to keep making readers ask for more.
– The Express Magazine
Cuckold is a memorable book, a clever and accomplished book, even a great book….
– The Pioneer
Cuckold is a novel of ideas and one of the most introspective books in India…
– The Economic Times
In this exceptionally light ‘arted’ epic Nagarkar depicts the torridity of a kingdom propelled forward by traditional notions of valour and fidelity.
– The Hindustan Times
This is a brave and eminently readable novel…and far more challenging and provocative in its content than other large English novels Indian English writers have produced in the last four years.
– The Hindu
Published by
HarperCollins Publishers India
First published in Hardcover 1997
First published in Paperback 1999
9th impression, 2012
Copyright © Kiran Nagarkar 1997
ISBN 13: 978-81-7223-257-3
Epub Edition © September 2014 ISBN: 978-93-51-77-010-7
2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1
Kiran Nagarkar asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a work of fiction and all characters and incidents described in this book are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
All rights reserved under The Copyright Act, 1957. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers India.
Cover concept and design Kiran Nagarkar
Cover illustration Suhas Masurkar
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