The tumult and the shouting had died down by the time we came down to breakfast that morning; and, not only because it was Monday morning, and we had to go back to Sham Pur, but because other things had happened to sober down the atmosphere, everyone was in that grey mood which makes for frayed tempers and disdainful sniffs.
For one thing, Srijut Popatlal J. Shah had already left without even saying good-bye to His Highness. And Mr Bool Chand had gone with him.
Furthermore, he had left a wire which he had received from the States Department at Delhi asking him to send His Highness to see Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel as soon as possible.
Srijut Popatlal J. Shah had not written a covering note to His Highness to interpret the States Minister’s message, but had left the telegram, which had been brought by a courtier, to speak for itself.
Gloom descended on the bright, sunny morning as soon as the darkened brow of His Highness became visible over the heavy eyebrows. And silence, the sister of gloom, cast her shadow across the hunting lodge. And in the wake of silence arrived their young cousin, anger, lurking in the bloodshot eyes of His Highness and on his dilated nostrils. That telegram was the ultimate challenge, the final potential threat to his very existence, and thus to the continuance of his dynasty, which claimed descent from the Sun, the Moon, the God King Rama and many of the other supernatural powers, and weaknesses, who people the Hindu pantheon. His Highness’s face contracted and he looked rather like the righteous mongoose which is setting out to kill all the snakes in the neighbourhood.
‘I am going upstairs to lie down for a while,’ he said to me.
And as he said this and walked away, I saw that his face relaxed. I felt that the stubborn self-will in him was giving way, that he would not fight the States Department anymore, that he did not care what became of him.
Sensing the nature of the doom that had descended upon him, the guests also drifted away into corners, smoking their after-breakfast cigarettes and pipes on the veranda of the lodge or on the lawn below.
But the shikari Buta, came and disturbed the vague doom of the atmosphere with his effervescent and bumptious talk.
‘I have asked the beaters to bring the panthers here, so that the sahibs can have their photos taken,’ he said to me.
‘Ah, yes, that is a good idea,’ I said.
And I tried to work up a little enthusiasm by asking the guests to get ready to be photographed.
‘It will be a little while, Huzoor,’ Buta said.
‘All right, I will go and get my camera,’ said Kurt Landauer.
‘Ask him why he became a hunter,’ said Mr Watkins, coming up to where I was leaning on the balustrade of the veranda overlooking Buta’s swarthy, half-clad, wiry, bare-footed figure on the pathway. I translated the query.
‘I was enraged by the impertinence of a panther who attacked my friend Shibu and killed him,’ began Buta. He only needed a very little encouragement to begin story-telling. ‘I decided to kill that panther and all other beasts from that day. . . . This ferocious beast had pulled down a man from a tree and mauled him. Later, it came and attacked and injured a youth in a cattle-shed and then disappeared in the paddy field by the lake. So I went for it and shot it.’
I explained Buta’s yarn to Mr Watkins in a free English transcription.
‘I thought you Hindus were a gentle, non-meat-eating race,’ said Mr Watkins.
I communicated this sublimely ignorant statement to Buta. ‘The Sahib does not know the laws of the jungle,’ he said, with redoubtable logic. ‘Tigers and panthers and other wild animals live in the jungle, Huzoor. And they don’t trouble men or cattle so long as they can get other prey. But when they do attack humans, should we forgive them their sins like Mahatma Gandhi and be eaten up quietly? What philosophy is that? To be sure, they attack shikaris and villagers, mainly because of their instinct for self-preservation or for the protection of their mates or young ones. In the ordinary course of their lives they are of great help to man. They keep down herds of deer and of wild pig and rabbits which would ruin all harvests if they were not destroyed. A Tehsildar Sahib once said that the best way to protect the forests against theft of timber is to keep a tiger for every five acres of jungle. And the best way of preserving the balance of life and death in the animal kingdom is to keep shikaris well fed!’
I knew that Buta would contrive to bring the conversation round somehow to the question of bakhshish. I told Watkins everything the shikari had said. And the American was most amused by the dexterity with which the talk had been brought round to the question of bread and butter. Just at that instant, however, Victor came up and said:
‘It is no use, I can’t rest. . . . What is this scoundrel up to?’
‘He naturally wants his bakhshish,’ the American said before I could open my mouth. ‘And he deserves it for the splendid work he has done.’
‘Ohe, son of a swine!’ His Highness shouted. ‘Aren’t you ashamed of asking these sahibs for bakhshish when you are going to be given something by Rai Bahadur Chottu Ram? . . . Shameless fool!’
‘Maharaj, please forgive,’ said Buta, bending his head over his joined palms.
‘Go and get to your work, then!’ His Highness shouted.
‘The beaters have brought up the panthers there in the garden for the photographs,’ I said.
‘Yes, let us get the photographs done, Mr Watkins,’ His Highness said. ‘And then we must pack up quickly and go to Sham Pur. I will have to leave for Delhi tonight.’
Kurt Landauer was already on the lawn tinkering with his camera. But it took some time to round up all the guests for the photographs, especially the ladies, who went to powder their noses and kept the gentlemen waiting.
I suggested that while the ladies were getting ready, the guests who had actually taken part in the hunt should be photographed in one group, and all the gentlemen in another, and the whole party in a third. His Highness agreed to this. Only, he took upon himself to organize the groups so that Mr Watkins should be prominently in the centre of all of them. And Mr Watkins, though affecting a certain bashfulness which reddened his face, fell in with these arrangements, even actually putting his foot on one of the panthers at Buta’s suggestion to symbolize the fact that he had been responsible for killing it. As Kurt had taken most of the pictures, I took over the camera from him while he joined in with the various male groups. Then the ladies came down, except for Gangi, who was still indisposed, and, amid much real and artificial laughter, giggles and nervous shrieks at contact with the dead panthers, the photographs were taken. Needless to say, the actual killer, Buta, was nowhere in the picture.
And then something ugly happened.
In the olden days, Buta would have accepted the rebukes of His Highness and not minded his exclusion from the pictures, but he had been caught by the spirit of the new times and could be heard arguing with Rai Bahadur Chottu Ram as he stood at the head of the beaters and other forced labourers.
‘What is this buk buk?’ Victor asked in a gruff voice.
‘Don’t talk like that, Maharaj,’ said Buta, half gallant, half impudent, even as he bent his head and the joined palms of his coarse, black hands.
‘What are you barking?’ shouted Victor, enraged at the man’s impertinence.
‘I am not a dog, Huzoor,’ Buta answered back. ‘We want our fair wages. And Rai Bahadur won’t give them to us.’
‘Maharaj, I have given them what is customary,’ said Rai Bahadur Chottu Ram.
Fierce and hard, seething with an anger with which seemed to be mixed all the indignation Victor obviously felt against the fates which were gripping him like a vice, squeezing his spirit dry and destroying him, annihilating the very roots of his personality, his kingship, the source of all his power and dignity, he burst into a storm of passion.
‘Jao!’ he raved. ‘Chale Jao! . . .’ His throat was hoarse with shouting, his eyes red shot and his whole frame shook from extremity to extremity.
‘No more begar, Maharaj,�
� said Buta, his face still leaning over his hands.
Victor sprang forward like a tiger in a paroxysm of rage and struck his head, kicking him the while, till Buta fell back, bleeding in the mouth and nose.
Some of us pulled His Highness and held him back. Meanwhile, he frothed at the mouth and raved and shouted the foulest obscenities.
After the awful scene in which the hunt had ended up, the Americans cooled off, and sheepishly withdrew, going off to Delhi by the afternoon train. They seemed to be afraid that they would become involved in the storm which was gathering in Sham Pur, from the way our cars were pelted with stones as we passed through little villages, in spite of the strong police escort that we took with our convoy, and from the deathly silence that reigned in the capital, which was in the grip of a hartal when we got there. Victor hinted that if the guests would wait till the evening, he would come with them, but the sahibs pretended that they had important business to attend to.
‘Perhaps you will come for a longer week-end,’ Victor said, abjectly, merely because his instinct for hospitality could not accept his failure to have kept the guests for a longer spell. And he ordered Captain Partap Singh, Rai Bahadur Chottu Ram and Munshi Mithan Lal to arrange special air-conditioned compartments for them and to see to their comfort in every way.
When I returned to my rooms to rest a little before packing up to go to Delhi by the night train, as His Highness had ordered, I found, of all people, Mr Bool Chand waiting for me. I surmised at once that he had ratted on Victor and yet wanted to save face, even as he wanted to offer himself in the role of negotiator in the desperate situation in which the Maharaja found himself. He sat impassive in the armchair and pretended to be calm when he was frightened at his betrayal of His Highness.
‘You are the one!’ I said, taking the offensive. I was angry and could not sit down. So I took off my jacket and stood under the fan to cool down. Francis took my jacket and retreated.
Bool Chand looked sheepishly at me, with a faint smile on the corners of his lips.
Then he asked:
‘Did His Highness say anything about my leaving with the Diwan?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But I am sure he noticed it and thinks that you are like a rat deserting a sinking ship.’
‘You can abuse me if you like,’ said Bool Chand, with that cool hardness with which he usually disarmed everyone. ‘But the situation is serious for him, and I have been trying my best to persuade the Diwan to intercede on his behalf, to help to bring about a settlement by negotiation.’
‘A settlement there will be,’ I said. ‘All wars end up in peace—on a conference table!’
‘You will agree, though, that the negotiations are difficult,’ Bool Chand said. ‘His Highness’s bid for independence and the States Department’s demand for accession are incompatible. And it will require some manoeuvring to bring about a settlement. The Diwan did not like the idea of His Highness asking for American help.’
Bool Chand had stated the position clearly enough. He had inherited the hard-headed lucidity of his Marwari businessmen ancestors. But he seemed to be utterly lacking in that sentimental affection or regard or loyalty for Victor which obliterated my own reasoned analysis of the situation.
‘What are things like in Sham Pur and the villages generally?’ I asked. ‘Have you heard anything?’
‘The hartal is still going on,’ said Bool Chand. ‘You must have seen on the way that the shops are closed. The people in the city are now not only demanding the release of the Praja Mandal leaders, but they are shouting the slogan of “Quit Sham Pur” against the Maharaja.’
‘And what about the military manoeuvres?’
‘General Raghbir Singh is back in Sham Pur,’ said Bool Chand. ‘He was anxiously waiting for His Highness to return. I hear that the three sardars, Raja Parduman Singh, Thakur Mahan Chand and Thakur Shivram Singh, have gone to Delhi to see Sardar Patel. It seems that the sardars fell out with the Communists, because the guerillas began to divide up the land among the peasants on the estates of these noblemen. And, though the state army has taken control of some of the villages, the Communists and the peasants keep shifting their ground and go to other villages, divide up the land there, leave a small commune behind and go further afield, playing hit-and-run tactics with the army. They have looted a great many rifles and ammunition from the army. That is why General Raghbir Singh looked so seedy when I saw him this afternoon. And there are other surprises waiting for His Highness. . . .’
I did not catch the meaning of the last sentence, but I realized that it was all up with Victor, finally and for ever; that, though it would still take him days to admit it, he was already defeated on all fronts and that the best thing was to persuade him to acknowledge it. And, against the sentimental basis of my stand, the ugly, blatant opportunism of Bool Chand seemed to be much more realistic, even though it left a bad taste in the mouth. With this realization, a kind of inertia seemed to come over me, the belief that it was all hopeless. And I was surprised that I had not seen the futility of the whole business with brutal clarity before, and that it had been left for this crook Bool Chand to reveal it to me. Why, Pandit Gobind Das, the Praja Mandal leader, who was no revolutionary, had been at the head of the processions which demonstrated against His Highness! The sardars, who were feudal chieftains, had openly revolted and, for a time, joined the Communists! The States Department had sent Srijut Popatlal J. Shah, and Victor had ignored his advice and sought the help of the Americans! Maharani Indira insisted on her rights. And, while demanding gifts of money and jewellery and land in lieu of the non-recognition of her son as Tika and the bestowal of the status of Maharani on her, Gangi was betraying him physically! And, beyond all these realities, stood, menacing, because more real, the people of Sham Pur State, the peasants from whom he had extorted nazaranas and begar; the small landlords from whom his officials had been exacting huge fees for adoption of children, the men whose property the state had often appropriated when they died without leaving heirs; and the big lords among whom he had discriminated on the basis of personal likes and dislikes! Not all the Machiavellianism of Victor could ward off the nemesis that was approaching. And when the full nature of all his difficulties would dawn upon him, when he would see himself really cornered on all sides, I knew that his disillusionment would probably break him. I could only see the darkness of utter gloom spreading around him on all sides.
‘His Highness is a trespasser on the sacred soil of the Indian Union!’ said Bool Chand as he got up from the chair. ‘A criminal. . . . There is no divine right of kings left anymore!’
I looked at him open-mouthed.
‘Sham Pur has no place outside the great Indian Union!’ he went on. ‘It has no sovereignty of its own. Sovereignty belongs to the people! . . . And everyone is against him, including his own household!’
Noble as these sentiments were, I was flabbergasted at the owner of the mouth which uttered them—the selfsame jackal who had once come insinuating himself into the service of His Highness with the soul of a boot-licker, a flatterer and a toady.
‘Sham Pur is a wealthy state so far as its natural wealth goes,’ he continued, confronting me full face. ‘And yet Sham Pur has remained one of the most backward areas, industrially and economically. But its strategic importance is great today. Chaos and anarchy cannot be allowed to prevail here. And as the motives of His Highness in wanting to assert his independence are anything but altruistic, I am all for Diwan Popatlal Shah taking control, until His Highness sees Sardar Patel and signs the Instrument of Accession. It is your duty to persuade him to hand over control to the Diwan before he goes. Otherwise he will get nothing from Sardar Patel, not even his privy purse.’
The substratum of ugliness and vulgarity that was in Bool Chand’s soul shone brightly as he waxed eloquent, an unhealthy, evil glow that transformed his small face into a spurious vitality. Even the horsy snort that might have ruined his declamation was kept in control and did not arise to demoli
sh his new dignity.
‘That is what I came to say to you,’ he added.
Angry and stiff against Bool Chand, and full of self-disgust, I did not bend even as I said ‘Acha’. I did not know how I would tackle Victor, because that would be a positive step, and, for the while, I was only full of negation, of rejection and refusal. A putrid bad taste for the whole of life filled my mouth at being part of this filth, and I felt myself an empty shell. And yet I knew that I ought to remain human for this last phase of my life in Sham Pur, the phase that would become recorded history. For, it was no good, having been a willing part of the putrescence, not to take the punishment of eating the dirt which one had helped to pile up, of going through the murky waters of the dark river of this hell, if only in the hope that somehow one would come clean at the other end.
‘I must have a bath,’ I said to Bool Chand. ‘And then I will go and see Victor.’
He snorted like a satisfied horse and went.
Despairingly, I turned towards the bathroom, shouting, ‘Koi hai?’
Brigadier-General Chaudhri Raghbir Singh was still with His Highness when I went in to see him. I retreated from the door involuntarily on seeing the two cousins together, but Victor beckoned me in, from where he was standing, listening to Chaudhri Raghbir Singh, who was walking about the room with a military stride.
‘. . . They have never forgotten the old quarrels they had with your father. And now they are spreading the rumour that the deceased Maharaja Sahib was publicly humiliated by the British Sarkar, as you are being insulted by the Congress Government. They have dug up an old story. It is being said that, some years ago, the late Maharaja Sahib had gone to Delhi, accompanied by Thakur Parduman Singh and Thakur Mahan Chand, to attend a Durbar held by the Viceroy, where all the princes and nobles had been invited to discuss their part in the formation of the Chamber of Princes. At the Durbar, so they say, your revered father was placed below the rulers of Kapurthala and even Mandi. He took umbrage at this and walked out of the meeting. The Viceroy was angry and is said to have ordered him to return to the State and deprived him of his salute of thirteen guns. I think we were children then and did not know about the brave act of your father in defying the Sarkar. . . . But the essence of the story is that the two Thakurs, our enemies, went sycophantly to the Viceroy, and it was thus that Thakur Parduman Singh got his knighthood; and it was then that Thakur Mahan Chand began to assert his right to carve an independent kingdom away from the suzerainty of Sham Pur. And they have egged on Thakur Shiv Ram Singh ever since. So that for years, as you know, he has led the band of primitive tribes, the Sansis, in daily raids on the villages near his own estates. Whole areas near Panna and Udham Pur have been in a state of panic. The ryots have been reduced to destitution. As Shiv Ram Singh paid good huckster’s profit to Thakur Parduman Singh, he was not only left in enjoyment of his loot, but encouraged to intensify the banditry!’
Classic Mulk Raj Anand Page 72