by Tahir Shah
Beside me sat a gangling young man with wetted-down hair. He was as keen as a whippet. His olive eyes stared agog at the world. His shoes were well-polished, his shirt free of stains, and pants pressed with razor-edge creases.
We began talking. The man’s name was Maruti, which is one of the names of Ganesha, the Hindu elephant god. He had recently qualified as a professional mahout, and was now traveling to a job interview in Ghaziabad. The position was for a junior elephant driver at an elephant “taxi” service in New Delhi. Hired by the city’s wealthy for weddings, parties and ceremonial journeys, the elephants could be provided painted with elaborate colors, or decorated with religious motifs.
Maruti rattled on about the training course he had done in the enchanted forest of Pecci, near Kerala’s Malabar Coast. A hardback manila envelope on his lap contained the graduation certificate.
“Down there in Kerala,” said Maruti enthusiastically, “people love elephants very much. A mahout from Pecci will see to his elephant’s well-being before that of his eldest son. You see, for a mahout, an elephant is a father, brother, son and best friend, all rolled into one. Give an elephant love and respect, and he will return it ten times over.”
Maruti glanced out of the window. But he didn’t see the traffic jam which now gripped the bus, or the roadside guava-sellers. He saw elephants instead.
“When sitting in position, steering with his feet,” the youth continued, “a mahout from Pecci will never order his elephant to do something. You would never order your best friend to do something. No …” said the young man pointedly, “the mahout will invite the elephant courteously to move.”
In late spring each year, as a cooling breeze streams in eastward from the Malabar Coast, the Pooram Festival takes place at Thrissur, in central Kerala. At the town’s maidan, central park, beside the ancient Vadakkunnatha Temple, a crowd of many thousands gathers. Then a cavalcade of thirty great tuskers marches out of Pecci Forest towards the magnificent temple. Richly adorned in ceremonial finery, the elephants – ridden by students from the Mahout School – have colossal Hindu idols strapped to their backs.
The procession of caparisoned elephants parades forward. Music blares from loudspeakers, children caper about in the moonlight, and fireworks shoot into the night sky.
“Pooram is our moment of glory,” said Maruti sentimentally. “But the elephants also love the grandeur just as much. They may take slow, dignified steps towards the temple, but inside they are dancing!”
On a self-imposed crusade to teach all mahouts to be friendly to their steeds, Maruti had much to say about evil elephant-handlers.
‘Some mahouts beat their elephants and goad them with sharp spikes,” he said. “If they won’t get up, the mahouts make them go without food. The saddest thing of all,” continued Maruti, anxious to share his knowledge, “is that over time even the most abused elephant will begin to love its master.”
With no easing of the traffic jam, I wondered how much more elephant talk I would be able to stand. My own deep fascination, conjuring, had made me realize that an obsession is often a good thing. Everyone should be obsessed about something. In the hope of redirecting our conversation to my own interest, I told Maruti that I was heading for Burhana to begin an apprenticeship in conjuring.
Staring out of the scratched window, Maruti clasped his long spindly fingers together, and sighed loudly. It was not a sigh of boredom. For he had not heard a word I had said. It was a sigh of true love. Love for his elephants. His fixation seemed to run very deeply. Here was a man whose whole life had been mapped out – steered by a single devotion.
Maruti prodded me eagerly in the stomach. He had more trivia to vent and was in need of a captive audience. I was that audience. He revealed to me that elephants are the only animals to have four knees; they have “fingerprints” like humans, and they make different sounds to express their emotions. It seemed as if there was little to tell us apart.
But then, enough of the trivia. Maruti had a more pressing message to pass on.
“Innocent wild elephants are being attacked daily in Assam,” he reported mournfully. “When I have enough money, I’m going to go and protect them.”
“Why are they being attacked?” I asked.
Lowering his head like a vulture, the lanky-framed youth told me of the conspiracy.
“People say the elephants are drunk – that they’re out of control and stampeding in massive herds!”
“Is it true? Are they drunk?”
“Well, it’s no secret that elephants – like all mammals – enjoy a drink from time to time. They don’t mean any harm. Humans don’t behave well when they’re drunk either.”
“How do they get the alcohol?” I asked, picturing a smoky saloon bar filled with tuskers, slurping stout from gallon glasses.
“They come across illegal stills hidden in the forest, and they have a little sip,” Maruti replied, sniffing. “One misdirected foot, the still falls to pieces, and liquor’s all over the place. They’re thirsty, so they drink it up. It’s not their fault if they become a bit delinquent.”
Some time later an Indian newspaper headline caught my eye: “DRUNK ELEPHANTS RUN AMOK”. Maruti had severely underestimated what had become a national problem. A herd of three hundred and fifty inebriated elephants had descended on a small Assamese village, trampling thirteen people to death, and causing destruction on an unknown scale. The report said the creatures had pilfered a vast quantity of rice beer from a “tea garden,” and that alcoholic elephants were ravaging communities across India’s north-east every week.
At long last, as the knot of traffic cleared, we sped toward Ghaziabad. At the bus stop in the town center, Maruti clasped his brown manila envelope to his chest and set off in search of his interview. Just before he disappeared into the frenzy of bobbing heads, he turned. Then, sweeping his right arm in the air like a bull elephant’s trunk, he saluted.
THREE
Land of Warriors
The bus jarred its way towards Meerut. Sprawling pipal trees lined the route, their whitewashed trunks hinting at the days when the region was a cornerstone of the British Raj. It was hard to imagine that May morning in 1857 when discontent led the Bengal Army to revolt. It was harder still to believe that the great Indian mutiny had begun right here, in the city of Meerut.
History records that the rebellion began when a batch of new Lee Enfield rifles arrived for the Indian Troops stationed at the Meerut barracks. When the cartridges were handed out – smeared as they were with Pig and Cow fat – the troops could not contain their fury. The ranks, comprised of a large number of high-caste Hindus and pious Muslims, saw the fact as a direct insult to their religious beliefs.
Once north of Meerut, the bus turned left, detouring onto the minor road. Thirty miles further along, heading north-west towards Karnal, and we arrived at the small settlement of Burhana.
Without wasting time I hurried from the bus stop through Burhana’s back-streets towards the sepulcher of my ancestor. Hafiz Jan had described the town in extraordinary detail. But there had been no order to the information. He had reported, what he remembered, in random sequence. I fought to piece together the best route to the shrine.
I crossed the grassy paddock to the right of the main street. Beyond that, buried in a copse of date palms and encircled by the low wall, stood a large square building. Despite the surrounding foliage, I could make out its basic structure. Fashioned from dandelion-yellow stone, and replete with Mughal-style arches, it was capped by an exquisite dome. This was the mausoleum of Jan Fishan Khan.
Approaching slowly, I made my way to the entrance of the tomb’s enclosure. The tall wrought-iron gates were open. A sudden gust of wind moved the fronds of the surrounding date palms. Several Islamic tombstones poked out from the undergrowth around the main memorial. Inching forward, I walked down the narrow path to the shrine’s portal.
On a stool in the doorway sat a figure dressed in a khaki salwaar kameez and buffalo-hide
chappals, with innumerable bandoleers and a black cotton turban. His face was dominated by familiar features: a hooked, aquiline nose, deep-set eyes and ears brimming over with tufts of hair. And longer than ever was the profusion of now graying beard. I stood silently, observing my childhood hero, the incomparable Hafiz Jan.
The Pashtun was honing a bayonet on a smooth block, gritting his teeth as the knife’s edge rasped again and again across the surface of the whetstone. So engaged was he with sharpening the blade that he had not seen me. I continued to stare, capturing the moment.
Unsure of what to do, or how to greet him, I shuffled my shoes firmly on the cement path. The sound rose above the rustle of palm leaves and the scrape of metal on the stone. Hafiz Jan stopped grinding. Jumping to his feet, he snatched the bayonet to his chest. Then he looked me full in the face. His mouth opened wide and gasped air. His features seemed to knot together. I said my name. Still mute, he nodded, dropping the bayonet, his black eyes brimming with tears. In slow motion he struggled to push forward, like a man moving underwater. Then, in a single, awkward movement he picked me up and tossed me into the air.
It was some time before Hafiz Jan recovered from the shock of the reunion. We sat quietly for several minutes as he hyperventilated with satisfaction. I apologized for not providing advance notice of my visit, but the ancestral guardian waved my apologies asides.
“This is your home,” he said over and over. “Why should you tell the humble guardian of your plans to come? Welcome to this land, your land – the Land of Warriors. Welcome! I have waited for this day from so many years.”
I replied that I, too, had long dreamt of making the journey to the mausoleum of my great ancestor.
Hafiz Jan was eager to serve refreshments and introduce me to his wife and sons. But more important duties came before the pleasantries. Removing his chappals, the guardian led me inside the great sepulcher.
As my bare feet took their first steps on the cool stone floor, I sensed the wave of energy. The chamber was illuminated by light, streaming through a lattice window set into the wall opposite the door. Tilting my head backwards, I scanned the room. As I did so I sensed a great, unyielding force. It seemed to help me collect my thoughts. Perhaps it was the spirit of Jan Fishan.
The Pashtun pointed at the broad rectangular cenotaph in the center of the chamber, beneath which lay the crypt. The curved marble was inscribed in Persian lettering.
Hafiz Jan read the legend:
The Prince, Lord of Magnificence, exalted and full of virtue:
From whose aroma itself Paghman was swelled with pride;
He was of the children of Ali Musa Raja,
A resplendent sun following as auspicious dawning.
From Kabul he came to visit India –
His steps turn Burhana into a garden of paradise.
When the inner urge of a return to Heaven took hold of him:
He left this abode of mortality, taking nothing.
For the date of his going, O Sidq, weigher of words,
Say: Sayed Mohammed Jan Fishan Khan.
As dusk fell over Burhana I sat and reminisced with Hafiz Jan on the veranda of his house. His teenage sons served us with pomegranate juice and khishmish, a mixture of fruits and nuts. His wife busied herself arranging an elaborate feast of welcome. The evening muezzin rang out over the rooftops, and as it did so, Hafiz Jan grabbed his older son by the cheek.
“Mohammed is now fifteen”, he said, as the boy withstood the vice-like grip of his father's hand. “And what do you want to do when you grow up, Mohammed?” he probed.
“I want to guard the tomb of Nawab Jan Fishan Khan,” came the reply.
Hafiz Jan raked his huge fingers through his beard, satisfied that his son was prepared to continue the family tradition.
A meal of leviathan proportions followed. Three enormous mounds of pilau rice were bought in on brass trays. Chunks of mutton were buried in one, chicken in another, fish in the last. Hafiz Jan’s sons invited me to eat. Their mother remained in the kitchen. An Afghan naan, the size of a lambskin, was ripped up and also set before me. The Pashtun would pick out the largest chunks of meat and hand them to me one by one, like nuggets of gold. Only when I had finished my third helping did my hosts begin to eat.
“This is a blessed day!” Hafiz Jan repeated continually. “Every anguish passes but the anguish of hunger! You are honoring us. Eat! Eat! Eat!”
Although desperate to ask whether the great conjuror would take me on as trainee, I bit my lip. The time for such questions would come once the prolonged formalities were at an end.
When the lavish meal was over, Hafiz Jan rubbed his finger in his beard in his own inimitable fashion. He stretched backward and thanked God again that I had come. Then he thanked Jan Fishan Khan for drawing me here.
I replied by saying that Jan Fishan Khan had been one of the two magnets that led me to Burhana. The order, I confirmed, had been Hafiz Jan himself.
Then I seized the moment. Charged with a much enthusiasm as I could muster with several kilos of assorted meats digesting inside me, I inquired about the Pashtun’s fascination for magic and illusion.
Hafiz Jan seemed confused for a moment. Then, twisting his ear tufts anti-clockwise, he replied: “oh, those old tricks. Silly, weren’t they?”
“What do you mean, silly? They were incredible! You taught me how to do so much – how to eat glass... how to suck red-hot pokers as if they were lollipops...how to....”
The Pashtun cut me short: “How to almost kill the great- great-grandson of Jan Fishan with giant ball of fire.”
Silence pervaded as we both though back, reliving the horror of that moment.
“That was an unfortunate miscalculation”, I said weakly.
“The blunder brought shame on my family,” asserted Hafiz Jan. “From that moment forth I vowed never to perform another illusion. What if something had happened to your father?”
“Aga,” I continued,” I have come here to Burhana to ask you to teach me all you know about illusion and conjuring. Please consider accepting me as your pupil.”
Thrust into an uncomfortable position, the Pashtun rubbed his beard between his palms. Only when it had furled into one long, rope-like fiber did he reply.
“Tahir Shah,” he said,” you honor me by requesting any favor. Ask me to be of any service, however great, and it is truly a privilege. Make any request – however impossible, I will rise to the challenge. But Sahib, you are asking me to break a solemn oath which I swore on the grave of Jan Fishan Khan. Nearly twenty years have passed since I made my pledge. I have married since, and brought up two sons. I have forgotten – forced myself to forget – all that I knew. I'm sorry.”
We sat in silence for several minutes. I understood Hafiz Jan’s position and respected his sense of honor. The hush was awkward. Not because I felt any vein of condemnation – but because, selfishly, I wondered what to do next.
Again thanking God for bringing me to his home, the Pashtun whispered to his younger son to fetch the tea. I attempted to revive conversation by asking about trivial matters. Hafiz Jan did not answer. He was in deep thought.
A magenta porcelain Gardiner teapot, filled with chai-i-sabs, was brought from the kitchens. With great ceremony the tea was poured as if it were a magical potion. Only when he had swallowed three mouthfuls of green tea did Hafiz Jan speak.
“When you were eleven years old,” he said in a rather solemn tone, “I came to your village in England. Together we practiced many illusions and I explained how I had myself been a student of conjury”.
I nodded, rounding my lips upwards in a smile. When the Pashtun had seen that I was listening, he continued.
“Tahir Shah, when I was a child, I wanted to be the greatest stage magician in the world. I thought about nothing else. I dreamt, ate and talked nothing but illusion. My father thought I was insane, for no member of our family had ever been interested in such a subject before. A doctor was summoned. He looked deep into my
eyes. Fearful that I had contracted some potent disease, he ran away. My parents grew more and more worried. They begged God for guidance.
“In the months that followed I searched for a teacher. Only after much hunting did I find a brilliant tutor at Ghaziabad. He was an expert illusionist and conjuror. He was reputed to be the finest of his kind in Asia. I stayed with him and learnt from him. But, as my father’s eldest son, I knew, I could never embark on a career in that profession.”
Hafiz Jan swallowed a second glass of tea in a single gulp.
“Do you understand?” he asked.
“Yes I do.”
Then as I resigned myself to the prospect of an early return to Europe, Hafiz Jan addressed me again.
“I have an idea,” he said. “It is a humble, worthless idea, but you may consider it.”
“What is it?”
“In those days when I was fascinated with conjuring,” he said reflectively, “I knew that nothing could satisfy my craving but hard study with a tutor.”
Faltering, as if resolving whether to continue, Hafiz Jan inched his way forward.
“My teacher…” he went on, “left Ghaziabad many years ago. He traveled east and made his home there. I think he now lives in Calcutta. Go to him. He will teach you every trick and illusion ever devised. His name is Hakim Feroze.”
* * * *
That evening another sumptuous meal was borne forth from the modest kitchen of Hafiz Jan. But my mind wasn’t on food. I was considering the Pashtun’s suggestion that I trace his own teacher. I would have preferred to remain at Burhana rather than embarking on what was sure to be a wild-goose chase. Even though the prospect of studying under such a renowned magician was intriguing, would he accept me as a pupil?
On each night that followed, as I deliberated harder, the feasts grew more opulent. The Pashtun insisted that every meal was another special occasion: honoring yet another battle which our forefathers had waged side by side. By the fourth night, the platters of pilau were so heavy that Hafiz Jan’s sons could barely lift them. Beneath the great mound of rice were buried whole marinated pigeons, an Afghan delicacy. On the fifth evening an entire roasted sheep was trundled in, still attached to the spit. The chunks of tender meat were served on a bed of special rice, floured with saffron, pine kernels and cardamoms.