Gods, Kings & Slaves: The Siege of Madurai

by Venketesh, R.

  Zafar had finally been avenged. Malik’s victory against an enemy who had killed his greatest general played on Alauddin’s mind. Successive victories at Deogiri and against the Mongols had Malik longing for some rest, but the Sultan sent him on a new assignment, a very different one from waging war.

  The Sultanate’s espionage channels had been clogged with details about the gatherings at the Sufi saint Nizamuddin’s weekly prayers. Nizamuddin was a teacher who had migrated from a place called Badayun when he was very young, and now lived in a quaint village called Ghayaspur just outside the capital. Sheikh Nizamuddin Auliya, as he was called by his devotees, held his own darbar, one that rivalled the Khilji court. The cream of society converged on his site hours before the meeting to find a seat near him. But they weren’t expected to just listen; the community’s kitchens were staffed with men from all strata of society and the rich and mighty did not mind when asked to wash dirty plates. Most of them sang the poet Amir Khusro’s songs as they laboured at the ovens.

  To the ever-suspicious Khiljis, such a large gathering surely warranted some attention. It was a possible channel for fomenting revolt, since the cream of administrators and the business elite would converge at the hermitage. Besides, Hindus, who were not allowed to build any new places of worship or to repair any temples that had been destroyed by the Muslims, would gather regularly at the darbar.

  Alauddin at first discounted the number of people crowding there as grossly exaggerated. When subsequent reports disproved him, he wanted to harass the saint by having a darbar on the same day, so that people would be forced to express a preference in loyalties. But on second thoughts, he wanted some first-hand information. He discussed this in detail with Malik.

  ‘Spies will not work. What we need is a one-to-one meeting with the saint,’ Malik said.

  ‘Then it must be you who has to go,’ smiled Alauddin as his favourite walked into his trap.

  A trap it was, for this assignment would have made anyone shiver. Alauddin had instructed Malik to spy on the holiest man alive in the Sultanate. The memory of a saint trampled to death by Alauddin’s predecessor on charges of sedition was still fresh, and so was that of the plague of locusts that had descended on the city that night.

  ‘I want you to find out if Nizamuddin is preaching defiance.’ The Sultan’s brief was short but succinct. ‘Amir Khusro, our court poet, is a follower of Nizamuddin,’ he continued, hinting at where Malik could start his investigations.

  Amir Khusro, a poet and musician who had been given the epithet ‘the parrot of Hind’, was toasted in the gatherings of the rich and famous. His real name was Abdul Hassan; his father was a Muslim and his mother a Hindu. Malik had heard Khusro’s poetry in Hindavi and Persian, which he felt was a curious blend of barbarity and sophistication. But Khusro was loved by the masses. It seemed that he wrote such verses to appease the kings for a living but pleasing poetry for the rest. Everybody knew the couplet by Khusro:

  The night of separation is

  As long as the tresses of my lover.

  Nizamuddin lived at a time when Delhi had witnessed the rise and fall of several kingdoms. Some of the sultans had been the saint’s devoted followers, others his avowed enemies. Despite many influential kings wishing to pay homage to him, Nizamuddin Auliya never entertained them, his famous saying reverberating throughout Delhi: ‘My khanqah has two doors. When a ruler of Delhi enters through one, I leave through the other.’

  Malik doubted whether the saint would talk to him. It had to be the poet who made the approach.

  *

  Khusro had served as the court poet for four successive sultans and had written a masnavi, a poem, in praise of each of them after they had murdered their predecessors. Malik had observed his hypocrisy first-hand, for Khusro had been commissioned by Alauddin to write a poem on the love between Khizr Khan and Kewal Devi. Kewal had been snatched from her refugee father, and was certainly not in love with the homosexual Khizr. But Khusro’s poem Mathnawi Duval had already been acclaimed as a masterpiece. To Malik, Khusro was nothing but an opportunist.

  When Malik instructed him to arrange a meeting with Nizamuddin, Khusro hesitated. He was respectful as he was to anybody who held power; one would have to be if one had lived through the reigns of several kings. Malik said, ‘I know why you hesitate. I would not like your chisti to exit through the second door when I enter from the first. You have the right to ask his permission. If he doesn’t want me to, I will not come. But tell him I am no highborn. I am a converted Muslim and have been a slave most of my life. His rule of not entertaining rulers will not apply to me just because of who I am today.’

  Khusro smiled. ‘I don’t need to explain this to him, General. If he wants you to come, he will know who you are.’ But even he was surprised when the saint agreed to see Malik.

  They rode together to the hermitage on a cool morning. Delhi’s heat had retreated, and horse-riding was now a much more pleasant task. As the riders got closer to the hermitage, Malik could feel Khusro get excited. He couldn’t help but ask, ‘You must be seeing him every week, yet you are so glad to see him once more. Who is your true master, Khusro? The Sultan or the saint?’

  Amir turned, his eyes glowing. ‘General Malik, I came here when I was eight years old. At that tender age, I was coerced by my mother to visit the saint’s monastery for the first time. I was as plagued by doubts as you are now. I wanted to test him. Imagine that – a student testing his master! I sat down at the gate and composed the following lines:

  You are a king at whose mansion’s door,

  Even a dove in the form of a hawk could earn.

  To your gate has come a traveller poor,

  Should he cross the threshold, or return?

  ‘Nizamuddin Auliya at once asked one of his servants to come out and narrate the following lines to the doubtful boy sitting at his doorstep:

  Oh you, the man of reality, most welcome,

  So I may for some time be your mentor.

  But he should return to where he came from

  If foolish is the man who wants to enter.

  Hearing this, I knew I had come to the right place. Since then, though on the payroll of sultans, my real master has been the saint.’

  Malik could not restrain himself. ‘How can I believe you, Khusro? You lie so often. I can enter the harem which you can’t even view through a window, and yet you wrote about Khizr’s love for Kewal. Khizr has not bedded her once and never will he, for he lusts for boys. What is this “love” you write about?’

  Amir smiled and spoke out a few lines spontaneously:

  Utter a truthful word

  That goes against the king,

  Your tongue shall be the sword

  That does your own beheading.

  Malik was still unconvinced, but he knew Khusro would continue to be the poet-laureate for the next man on the Delhi throne as well.

  When they neared the hermitage, Khusro briefed Malik on the ethics of the saint. Sufis had a long tradition of adapting to the local culture of the places they travelled to. A Sufi taught through the high moral standards he set. Rivers of wealth flowed daily into the khanqah, and was given out freely to the poor and the destitute, but Nizamuddin Auliya continued to wear just a torn cloak. Banquets were prepared every day, but Nizamuddin subsisted on the sparsest of meals.

  Food was a primary concern at the saint’s. Dervishes were advised to ‘first greet, then eat, and finally talk’. It ensured those who needed food would be able to eat as soon as possible. They were not allowed to ask whether a visitor was hungry. The rules made it impossible to discern who was in need and who was not.

  At the hermitage, Malik was surprised to see a crowd so large that not a hair’s breadth of space was empty. Nizamuddin sat at the helm of the crowd; Malik immediately recognized who his favourite was, as the saint looked at the poet with tenderness and love. Soon thereafter, he turned his gaze at Malik and their eyes met. His eyes seemed like two pieces of glowing char
coal. Malik could not return the glare and turned his eyes to the ground.

  Khusro introduced the saint and the general. The saint kept his hand on Malik’s head in a show of blessing and instantly a tremor ran through Malik’s body. Then Nizamuddin instructed Khusro, ‘Show him around. We will meet for lunch.’ Malik was given a guided tour; nobody recognized him, but everybody seemed to know Khusro. They approached a spot where somebody was playing a sitar in accompaniment to a tabla. Khusro looked on proudly – the invention of both musical instruments had been attributed to him. Somebody recognized him and thrust a sitar in his hands. Accompanied by the tabla, he sang:

  Love is the god my heart worships,

  I may be a pagan, the Islamic tenet I need not

  Every vein of mine is like a rigid string,

  The Hindu holy thread I seek not.

  As he finished his song, he handed the sitar over amid cheers and applause and hastily led Malik away. ‘They would not let me go till the evening if I stayed.’

  It was lunchtime and the food served was exquisite. Malik, everybody assumed, was there to spy on the khanqah to investigate. Nizamuddin, after inviting Malik for lunch, teasingly ordered his dervishes to expand the menu with delicious dishes of tahiri – a rice dish, qurs – round cakes – halwa and samosas. Malik, on seeing the food being served, asked to dine with the Sheikh himself; if this was what they served the masses, surely the saint would have an extraordinary menu! Khusro tried to discourage him, warning that he would regret his decision, but Malik insisted on eating with the saint.

  Though a generous spread was laid, Nizamuddin did not eat any of it. At last, after the dervishes and the guests had eaten their fill, he invited Malik to sit. A bowl of bitter greens was set before them and Nizamuddin picked out the toughest roots and stems for himself, offering the tastier leaves to his guest. Stunned, Malik asked, ‘Are there any other dishes to follow?’ The saint replied, ‘This is all that will be served to me. I have invited you only because you have insisted.’ Malik tried to eat the leaves, but could not.

  Nizamuddin laughed. ‘My son, this is what I mostly eat.’ It was customary for the saint to give a blessing or a prophecy, and sure enough, he told Malik, ‘Don’t worry, don’t turn back. You will have your history written by your enemies, my son.’

  CHAPTER 19

  THE ENEMY'S SON

  Emperor Veera Pandyan paced across his private terrace listlessly. The sun was setting behind the hills in the west and a veil of darkness was hastily descending on his empire. He observed three figures walking across his garden slowly, casting long shadows behind them. He stared at the trio as they headed towards the temple. Ever since his crowning three years ago, the queen mother, Sunanda and her son had huddled together, whether in the temple or at a function, and it seemed they were the odd people out in the kingdom – a consequence of being the closest relatives of a proclaimed offender.

  What irony! They could have been the three most important people in the empire if history had willed otherwise. But now they were exiles in their own home, battling ostracism within the palace.

  The queen mother had no choice in the matter. If she had accompanied her son in exile, she would have been named a conspirator in the assassination of her husband, the ultimate insult for a chaste woman. Sunanda was glad that she did not have to endure Sundar, but seeing Veera and Radhika every day hurt her.

  When the boy had come to pay his respects to Veera after his coronation, he had been so overwhelmed with emotion that he was afraid people around him would notice. Veera had staggered and had to press his palms on a nearby wall for support. After all, it was his own blood in the guise of his enemy’s son. The boy was reserved, knowing that his father was the arch-enemy of the emperor.

  Veera now had some tough decisions to take. As he always did, he needed to consult Radhika. He talked to her that night as she was getting ready for bed. After removing most of her jewellery that the queen had to wear as custom ordained, she was replacing them in an engraved teak box inlaid with ivory. As she carefully assembled her jewellery, Veera said, ‘Is it not sad that the queen mother, Sunanda and her son have to live like aliens?’

  ‘They are reaping in the evening what they had sown in the dawn,’ she said non-committally.

  ‘Remember Radhika,’ his voice rose, ‘the queen was not in Madurai while Sundar was king, Sunanda did not leave with Sundar when he fled and as for the boy…’ He stopped abruptly.

  Radhika shut the box with a snap. ‘Yes, go on, my dear husband, what about the boy?’

  Veera fumbled for words.

  Radhika retorted, ‘Why should he go with Sundar when his father is here?’

  Veera looked aghast. ‘How long have you known?’ he asked hoarsely. ‘And how?’

  ‘He looks exactly like you, if you haven’t noticed. Except he is fairer.’ She said nothing more, for she knew if she had given birth to Akshayan’s child, Veera would have accepted the child as his own. She knew about Chandran, Vani’s son, too. The two boys had been born on the same night, perhaps conceived too on the same night. They had been delivered by the same midwife, but only Radhika knew their father was Veera.

  ‘We have to do something, Radhika. I don’t want to do anything that hurts your sentiments. So why don’t you tell me what is acceptable?’

  ‘Sunanda sacrificed her love so that you may become king. Otherwise they could have killed you. The queen mother let you become crown prince first, which gave you the legitimacy that you longed for. The boy is yours and your wife is barren. What other reason do you want?’ Radhika finished. Tears filled her eyes as she thought of her own inability to give a son to Veera. She was a woman past her childbearing years and a thousand nights had not caused her womb to swell. Veera gaped at Radhika even as she summed up the need of the hour. Even he could not have charted out the reasons so candidly. As he watched helplessly, she wiped her tears with the edge of her sari and told him what he had to do. A message was sent to the queen mother and Sunanda that the king and queen would visit them just before dusk.

  ‘Why dusk?’ Radhika had asked.

  ‘It might conceal our tears, as well as our fears,’ he murmured, remembering the ambushes the Lankans launched at dusk.

  When the message reached the queen mother and Sunanda, they were frightened. Aliens in their own country, they had not transgressed any rules. It was the first time the royal couple were visiting them at home. The initial unease they felt was readable on their faces, but the queen mother got everybody at her disposal to spruce up the palace. She had been a queen long enough to keep her composure. Sunanda by now had almost come to detest Veera.

  Veera and Radhika arrived an hour before sunset. The queen mother and Sunanda welcomed them at the entrance, as protocol demanded. Veera immediately noticed that Sunanda had aged and was no longer the beauty that she was in the past, although she still looked stately. They were ushered into a large hall, which triggered off many memories. It was the same palace he had come the night he was made crown prince, and this was where he had confronted the queen. If there was one event that had led him to the throne, it was that. From a bastard, he had become a scion.

  When they were seated, the boy stood next to his mother. Veera thought Radhika was right. The similarities were definitely there. Parakrama was a young man with fine features, a fair complexion, and a high intellectual brow, which made him look older than he really was. Luckily, nobody had drawn a portrait of Veera when he was the boy’s age. He had inherited all of his aristocratic features and his mother’s complexion.

  After the formal enquiries about each other’s well-being had been exchanged, a heavy silence enveloped the room. Veera meaningfully cleared his throat. The queen mother and Sunanda looked puzzled, for they had no idea what was in the offing.

  ‘I have come to see Your Excellency regarding your grandson,’ Veera began tentatively.

  They had not expected this. The queen had feared that Sundar had been killed and Veera was coming t
o break the news gently.

  ‘What about him?’ she enquired.

  ‘He has to be trained in warfare and statecraft. He is, shall I say, spending too much time in the ladies’ chambers. I think the best place for him to grow up is in the main palace. I want him to move in with me and observe me and the court at close quarters.’

  There was no need for the king to express regret, and he certainly exercised the right. He was stating his proposal as if he was acquiring a property for the state. Their faces became grim when they heard his tone – high-born that they were, they disliked being pushed around. Veera could sense the antagonism from the two ladies, more so on Sunanda’s part. She was suspicious. Veera planned to take her son away. Was she to be left alone to face the future? She had little else to live for and sixteen years of motherhood had been her only solace. She had never expected Veera would seek to hurt her. Tears brimmed in her eyes and threatened to spill out.

  Veera waited patiently. Finally, Sunanda hissed, ‘Is he a hostage, Your Highness?’ Her mind screamed, Don’t you know he is your son? It was the first time she had spoken to him in fifteen years.

  He replied to her for the first time in as many years, ‘No, Sunanda, he is being anointed my heir.’

  *

  ‘What did you think of Sunanda’s reaction?’ Veera asked Radhika while they were returning.

  Radhika, like a mute spectator, had only watched Sunanda and her expressions: the flutter in her eyes when Veera entered and an equally keen hatred for her in them; fear when Veera had stated that Parakrama would be taken away from her and both sadness and joy when she was told the reason. Radhika had observed the anger of a woman scorned and the repentant gratefulness when she realized her mistake. She wanted to congratulate Sunanda on her performance.