by Tahir Shah
The next morning Osman went out early to hang about on the street corners of Connaught Place. At lunchtime we met up and he announced that his old contact, Iqbal, was still in Old Delhi. We would take a rickshaw and go to meet him.
Osman suggested that we try to cross into the park at the centre of Connaught Place to hail a rickshaw. Motorbikes and Ambassador cars swerved in all directions to miss us. A white buffalo with wide-stretching horns was moving in slow straight lines across the park. Deliriously, it heaved at a Webb lawn-mower, a boy with a sharp stick prodding at its behind.
Osman jumped into the road and wrestled with a speeding blue rickshaw, bringing it to a hasty stop. We clambered aboard and ordered the driver to take us to the Red Fort. The driver stared into the air blankly and muttered, “Airport... vich airport do you vant?”
“Red Fort! You idiot! In the Old City,” Osman yelled.
He and I had become very irritable in Delhi. I put it down to too many positive ions in the air, but did not dare begin to explain the concept of the electrical charging of ions. The possibilities for confusion were too substantial. Mumbai’s citizens, however, seemed much more easy-going than those in Delhi.
The Red Fort appeared on the right. I passed the driver two rupees. Osman had assured me that was the rate. But the driver chased after us, shouting how disgusted he was that we should be so miserly. Osman picked up the unfortunate man and threw him into a paan stall. Prideep fell down on the ground laughing as Osman dusted himself off and led the way into the Red Fort.
Inside the giant walls, package tours mingled with curio dealers. A brace of small shops had divided the forecourt territorially so that the owners could benefit equally from the visitors. The existence of such intrusions would have made the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, (“King of the World”) the fort’s founder, turn in his grave.
Osman hastened between the assorted curio sellers and pickpockets in an attempt to find where Iqbal might be. After scurrying about for twenty minutes, he announced that Iqbal was now in Chandni Chowk Bazaar. We would go to meet him at once.
Chandni Chowk sprawls behind the great Jami Masjid mosque — the biggest mosque in India. Rickshaws and bicycles dodged a group of sacred cows, languidly raiding an apple stall. Holy men blew magical smoke into the air, blinding both the cows and cyclists. Roasted peanut sellers ambled about with burners aiding the pollution and confusion. What made the holy men’s smoke more divine than that of the peanut sellers? Osman thought it was a ridiculous question.
Each street was bordered by rows of stalls, crammed with odds and ends, dating back a thousand years. We pressed deeper into the labyrinth. Men would nod and point when Osman whispered Iqbal’s name. The word seemed like a special key, capable of opening any lock.
Outside a modest silk shop a donkey stood in silence, as donkeys do, as if waiting for the world to end. We paused, as Osman sent the shop’s junior to fetch his master. Silks in pink and red fluttered under the sluggish ceiling fans. Then Iqbal appeared.
Osman and he bear-hugged. Prideep and I were introduced, before taking places on a mound of white cotton cushions. Tea was brought.
“Peace be upon you, my friends,” said Iqbal. “You are welcome to my humble house, anything that you wish I will have brought.”
Then Iqbal rubbed at his orange-hennaed beard, which glowed in the darkness of the shop. He was perhaps in his late sixties but somehow his age was irrelevant. There was an air of rectitude about this man. I had expected to meet another arms-dealing Dervish type. Iqbal seemed wizened by the experience of many years, but calm, at peace.
Pulling out a watch on a chain from his trouser pocket, he began to wind it up. I could make out Russian lettering on the dial. Iqbal noticed I was staring at the instrument and, to break the silence, I began to talk.
“You are most gracious, I hope that we did not disturb you. We have just returned from Jaisalmer; I am on a quest in search of treasures.” I spoke with a formality which somehow appeared appropriate. “I have been residing in Mumbai, Osman and Prideep have assisted me in my search to find hungry people who might be necessitous enough to help us secure such objects as jeweled daggers.”
“My friend,” said Iqbal, “you must understand that a hungry person who has nothing is only interested in finding one crust of bread. If you give him that crust then his stomach is full and he is satisfied. You see, poverty is common in India; you can say that when a person finds one rupee in a gutter may be so happy that he feels rich. Hungry people are not the solution to your problem.”
“Then what is the solution?” I was interested by his observations.
“My boy,” Iqbal spoke each word with precision, “this country is filled with very greedy men. You cannot blame them for being like that. They have crawled from the sewers and have climbed from the degradation which consumes much of this land. A man becomes very cynical here, the poor and ill die on the streets. The injustices of the caste system still haunt many unfortunate millions of people. Do you realize that if the very shadow of an Achhoot — an “untouchable” — falls on the food of a Brahmin, the Brahmin must throw that food away?
“I myself did have a remarkable collection of priceless objects until a few years ago. Then men with guns came one night and threatened to kill my wife and boys if I didn’t hand the collection over. There is nothing left. You never know who will inform on you if you keep even one ring. At last I can sleep well at night, knowing that our lives are safe from the clutches of desperate men. The memory of such wondrous artefacts still brings me happiness. I am content that I could hold such things, if only to be their keeper for a while.
“Delhi has been robbed of countless wonderful treasures. They are now in the Arab Gulf or in the West. Go and see our new museum here near Janpath, they built it recently and filled it mostly with new or forged pieces! I will try to assist you because I don’t want to see a friend of Osman’s get hurt by vicious men. Will you come back to me in four days? I shall see what I can do.”
Before I left the shop I shook hands with Iqbal and sensed a curious energy from his touch. He seemed happy that I had gained something, although at the time I was not sure what.
* * *
Osman treated Prideep and me to ice cream at Nirula’s Café on Connaught Place. There was an uneasy atmosphere. He and Prideep kept looking at each other and then at me. I asked them what the matter was. Osman stopped licking at the cone.
“There is nothing really the matter,” he said without looking at me. “But we know that soon you will be leaving India, and it shall make us sad.”
I listened to his words and, instead of thumping him on the back and joking about or denying it, I said nothing. Time spent in India has a extraordinary effect on one. It acts as a barrier that makes the rest of the world seem unreal. I would read Time magazine each week, but India was strangely removed from the photographs and stories. At the same time I knew that my adventures there were close to an end. I was ready to move on. Characters flashed through my mind: Blake my guru, Rachana my date, Prideep with his imp-like looks and, of course Osman, who had become my closest friend of all. Together, we had explored the darkest regions of Mumbai and traveled across the Great Thar Desert.
India, with its nine hundred million people, is often referred to as the largest democracy in the world. The British once controlled the vast country but had little lasting effect on its people. I felt they never really came to grips with what they claimed to control. As they strove to dominate the subcontinent, it slipped from their grasp without them ever realising why.
The British failed to penetrate the culture and understand its dangerous capacity for absorption. This, at any rate, is the very widespread opinion of many Indians, scholars and others. I have heard it from Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs and Zoroastrians, as well as Christian converts.
In India, where all is possible, contradictory beliefs nestle together. An Indian friend, whilst talking of his nation, once looked at me squarely and said:
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nbsp; “How can you conquer a people with the self-confidence of the Hindus? India is a place where the cow is sacred: supposedly because once there was once nothing: no world, no people, not a thing... just a cow floating about in nothingness. One day — although there were no days — the cow let out an enormous belch and from that, all you see around you comes. The stars and sun, the planets and the grass beneath our feet, all came from the cow’s gigantic eructation. How can you even begin to influence, to any depth, a people such as this?”
Four days after visiting Iqbal, we returned to his shop in Chandni Chowk. The doors were locked and none of the silk was displayed.
Osman rapped on the door, calling “Iqbal Sahib! Iqbal Sahib!” A bolt on the inside rattled, and the door opened. Iqbal’s son greeted us, his eyes red from crying. Osman bent down to his level and asked what the matter was.
“My father, Iqbal Jamal, died this morning in his sleep. He has not been well for a long time. Before he went to bed last night he gave this to my mother and said that when you come back to give it to you. It is for the man from Englistan.”
The child held out his right hand, it was clasped around something. I could just make out a silvery gleam between his fingers. He placed his hand in mine and I felt the object. It was Iqbal’s Russian pocket watch. Osman, Prideep and I were too moved to speak: we stood for a moment in silence.
The boy asked us if we would like some tea. Osman replied:
“No, thank you, we shall leave you now. When you have grown up and are in Mumbai, go to the Colaba Tailor Shop on the Strand. I shall be waiting there for you.”
The child nodded and went back inside the shop.
We left Chandni Chowk and took a rickshaw back to New Delhi. Each of us was silent. The watch sat firm in my palm. It was still ticking. Although I had only met Iqbal once there had been a click of understanding between us. I sensed Iqbal’s energy around me. The watch was almost like a gift in return for housing something of his spirit.
Osman looked at me quizzically. I knew what he was thinking, and I nodded as if to reply to his unspoken question. Yes, I did realize the honour and exceptional responsibility, and respect it.
A message had been slipped under my door at the hotel. It explained that, in accordance with the regulations of the establishment, where we had been resident for a week, we would have to pay double the normal rate from now on. I went down to the clerk and counted out some dollar bills. He consulted a calculator and stapled the money to an ornate multiple form. Exhausted with fighting the system, I almost admired the man’s steadfast application of policy, irrespective of logic and without customary rewards. In some peculiar way, indeed, the rules were now beginning to seem quite logical. It was then I knew that I had been in India long enough.
At the Special Number One, I began the ascent to the umpteenth floor with the usual necessary dedication of a mountain climber. I stopped in at the laundry part-way up. There was no reply when I knocked, so I pushed the door open. Reflected in the flickering light of a black and white television screen I discerned about ten faces. The chefs and security guards scurried off back to their jobs, worried that I might report them. The laundry assistant was the only person left. I asked for my clothes. There was something strangely familiar about the man. It was not his face nor his build. Suddenly I realized what it was: he was wearing my best clothes, and had obviously dressed up ready to go out on the town.
Prideep and Osman were waiting for me outside my room. They were smiling. Prideep was whistling as if he was covering something up. Osman had spent weeks teaching him to whistle, and his broken set of teeth was very effective. They shuffled their feet and looked at the ground to hide their smiling cheeks. I muttered that I had been invited to the Japanese Embassy to dine. Osman sighed how unlucky I was. He, of course, had attended many such boring occasions whilst working at the American Embassy. I reminded him that he was only a janitor there. He pledged that while nominally only a concierge, he had had many special privileges. The way he put it, I was almost tempted to think that he had been the ambassador: undercover, of course.
The thought flashed through my mind that the Americans had perhaps appointed Osman Chief of Mission, rather in the manner of the old Soviet Unions, when the chauffeur or gardener was the real kingpin of their embassy. Anyway, Prideep and he were going out to find girls and enjoy a wild evening in Old Delhi’s most amoral nightspots. Osman had put on his tie with spots and Prideep had donned his best shirt.
Osman and Prideep returned to the hotel at breakfast the next day. Their evening had been very different from my own. I had eaten sushi and was in bed by ten. Their story, I feared, could not have been more contrary.
Osman strode along the corridors like a soldier, and Prideep shuffled behind, chortling. They banged on my door to give me their report. It had been a night of debauched behavior unrivalled in history. They recounted every detail. Osman decided to write the adventure down in English and give it to me for the book I was to write. The events of their evening, alas, were far too sordid. They went off to get some sleep, burbling like schoolboys after lights out, revelling in their impropriety.
At the telex office on Janpath there was a power cut. Indeed, I had the feeling that no electricity had been supplied to the premises for a very long time. Five ladies with large red bindis, red dots worn on the forehead by Hindu women, moved about behind the smoked-glass windows clutching candles.
One of the women, on seeing me, began frenziedly waving a sheet of paper above her head.
“It came! It came!” she screamed.
Her colleagues huddled round while I signed assorted receipts for a telex from my sister, who was living in Pakistan. The communication had been received weeks before, when electricity was briefly available. It had taken many days to get here, forwarded by land from Mumbai. It read:
COME TO PESHAWAR STOP WILL MEET YOU AT GREENS HOTEL STOP
HAVE GOT EXTRAORDINARY TREASURE COME AT ONCE STOP SAIRA
An audience had gathered, as there had been no other telecommunications for weeks. The crowd insisted on being told where Peshawar was, what my sister did and when I would be leaving.
“Leaving?” The idea of getting away from the chaos of India, and up to the North West Frontier Province — the Hindu Kush and the lands of my ancestors — was extremely appealing. What was this treasure of which she had written? I knew that telephoning to make inquiries about matters such as this would have been inappropriate. I would fly straight to Pakistan to see what the treasure was. Perhaps I had been looking in the wrong country, and some benign fate was luring me northwards to the Afghan borderland. Besides, I would still be in Gondwanaland...
The PIA office was nearby, so I booked myself on a flight to Islamabad leaving in two days. Then I set about making arrangements for my departure, and perhaps the saddest thing of all: preparing to leave Osman and Prideep.
I called Blake in Mumbai, he was sitting on the rooftop, “Hey Man, how is it up there? The vultures are taking chillies from my hand now, you”ve got to see this!”
“Blake, I have to go to Pakistan to see my sister for a while. I’ll try and get back here sometime.”
“Man, I’d like to visit, but these vulture suckers are taking up all my time!”
The spindly line crackled and Blake faded away.
Osman and Prideep were eating breakfast. It was nearly five-thirty in the afternoon. I joined them, but said nothing. They knew it was time for me to leave them. I felt like a fledghng bird, about to jump from its nest for the first time. Osman looked across. I averted my eyes and he asked, “When are you going?”
“In two days’ time, I have to see my sister in Peshawar.”
“We must get back to Mumbai anyway, our families will be waiting for us. It has been a long time since we walked down Marine Drive,” said Osman. He paused for a moment but began again when Prideep nudged him with his elbow. “Tahir Sahib,” he said, “will you come with us? We have something to show you.”
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nbsp; We took a rickshaw to Old Delhi, where it pulled to a stop deep inside the maze of Chandra Chowk. A door opened and we ascended a staircase, then turned right into a huge studio.
On one wall hung a vast painting — the type that advertise Hindi movies — with powerful heroes and heroines, gods and armies. The faces and acts were familiar, all too familiar. A group of men on camels were riding off into the desert. A steam train was rushing out of control. Gaylord’s and the Chateau Windsor stared down, oozing with servants and tradition. In the centre there were three men, standing like cowboys, in lavish costumes. Prideep on the left, Osman on the right and me in the middle. Osman spoke jerkily, almost choking:
“Our words of thanks will dissolve,” he said, “but maybe this will help you to remember the good times. They were the best times we have ever had.”
EIGHT
Here Comes the King
Wrathful then was holy Lingo,
At those wanton Giant’s daughters
Rose the flame of indignation
From his boots up to his top-knot.
War correspondents sat about eating chicken shashlik and making up the news.
They swapped tall stories in the darkness of Lala’s Grill at Green’s Hotel. Mercenaries and missionaries ambled about, stranded in the border town after the end of the Soviet-Afghan war.
A Danish prosthesis expert had befriended me. He said that as long as I ate chicken I would probably be all right. I thanked him for this first tip on survival in Peshawar and he wandered off to fit an artificial limb.
Peshawar had been a crucial base during the Soviet-Afghan war. Mujahed commanders, international aid organizations, drugs dealers, Russian spies and a bevy of journalists, transformed the ancient border town into a thriving metropolis.