Frontiers

by Medha Deshmukh Bhaskaran

  Sayed remains alert, scanning every building and its windows like a hawk. His quiver is full, his bow hangs over his left shoulder and his pata sword is safe in his scabbard. Sayed knows his master hates crowds.

  ‘It has taken me half my life to get over this rotting smell of food,’ Sayed hears his master say. He has heard this before and knows why. He glances at Afzal Khan, looks straight ahead, his eyes shining, perhaps with tears, or with memories.

  Afzal appreciates Sayed’s silence. Nothing has come easily to him. Little Afzal had to run and jostle for every bit he had achieved. He had shed tears of blood and sweat for things other boys had taken for granted. His mother had worked at the palace. While she had washed and cut heaps of vegetables, he had run errands to get meat or spices; while she had cleaned a roomful of pots and pans, he had dried them with a cloth till his hands had ached.

  ‘The late king has given me a new life,’ he murmurs while Sayed looks at him with reverence.

  That was so true. Afzal was going through a phase of severe depression which was abated only by eating. However, that had slowly turned him into a fat lump. This went on until one day Mohammed Adil Shah spotted him and urged his queen to remove him from the kitchen and put him up for military training. Afzal had loved the camp and had enrolled to learn construction and demolition tasks, wrestled with charging bulls, dragged wheels at the oil mills to turn his bulk into hard muscles. When other boys’ fathers had come to see their sons’ progress, he had scrambled to hone his skills in sword-fighting and archery, seemingly watched by none. The day he was appointed a soldier, he had gone to meet his mother. But she had long since died, and nobody had bothered to inform him.

  ‘The late king used to call me a farzand, a son,’ he says wistfully, glancing at Sayed.

  Mohammed Adil Shah had done more than that. He had asked Ranadulla Khan, the general of the Adilshahi army, to take Afzal under his wings. Afzal had worshipped the general and the general had also liked him. He had honoured Afzal by first making him the subhedar of Karnataka and then of the Wai province in Maharashtra. But the general had also passed away all too soon. Khan Mohammed, an African Muslim, was made the grand wazir and the army general of the sultanate. The new wazir hates Afzal Khan and is a Bhosale supporter. A single stroke of fate changed Afzal Khan’s destiny. His dream of going up in the military ranks is shattered. As long as Khan Mohammed lives, Afzal’s dream cannot turn into reality. But now the time has come to correct the state of things and put them in the right order.

  Afzal dismounts at the entrance and a few men rush to take his horse. He can only go alone and on foot. Briskly moving towards the ruler’s court, the khan prays for success. The many-pillared court is well lit. Twenty-year-old Ali Adil Shah sits on the gilded throne, his dark skin gleaming in the yellow light from the twinkling chandeliers. Beyond the translucent curtains, he can make out the silhouette of the Badi Sahiba, Ali’s mother. They are waiting for him. He first bows in the direction of the curtain, and then to the young king.

  Ali Adil Shah is closely watching the subhedar of Wai. Bidar has fallen and other cities are under threat. What’s the reason for Afzal Khan to rush to the capital?

  ‘Khosh amadid, Afzal Khan ji, speak,’ Ali welcomes his warrior in Farsi.

  ‘I have rushed from the frontiers with news that is far worse than the defeat we have suffered at the hands of the imperialists,’ Afzal says softly.

  Ali blinks. His head buzzes with doubt.

  ‘Speak your mind,’ the Badi Sahiba speaks aristocratically from behind the curtains.

  ‘We had once succeeded in besieging Aurangzeb and his squadron, cutting off their water and food supplies. Soon they would have had to surrender to us . . .’ The warrior speaks carefully, choosing each word with utmost care.

  Ali stares at his enormous commander whose voice is effeminate, a contrast to his appearance. The man wearing a jewel-studded headgear is bull-necked, dark-skinned and abnormally tall and muscular.

  ‘I do not quite understand,’ Ali says. There is silence behind the curtains.

  ‘The Mughal prince was in our hands. A message had come from Aurangzeb, I have seen the epistle. I was there when they read it out loud. Aurangzeb had begged for mercy, he had promised to retreat.’ Afzal Khan waits for some reaction, perhaps a comment, but the duo seems speechless with shock. Afzal glances around as if uneasy.

  ‘Go on,’ Ali is listening very attentively. He is irritated by Afzal Khan’s deliberate delay in revealing the information.

  ‘The letter was replied to in a strange manner. It said, “Early tomorrow morning, get your men ready, make a forced escape. We will let you go.”’

  There is a gasp from Badi Sahiba. An excited Afzal continues, ‘Our siege was broken at places. Aurangzeb was allowed to escape. Very few from our camp know the truth.’

  ‘Who signed the order? Who was in command?’ Badi Sahiba demands in fury. What a waste of an opportunity! Years of tension, crores spent in keeping the Mughal at bay, Aurangzeb’s humiliating letters calling them the Shia rulers, the heretics, the misbelievers . . .

  ‘It is not easy for me to spill his name. I have already endangered my life by having a major argument with him on this issue,’ he says evenly.

  ‘You have our protection. Spit the name,’ Ali retorts, thumping his right hand on the throne’s railings.

  ‘Khan Mohammed Sahib, the sultanate’s esteemed general and grand wazir. But for him we would have had Aurangzeb in our hands like a lamb,’ Afzal says loudly, wiping his forehead with his large hands.

  There is a dazed silence in the court. Even the chandeliers look pale and disenchanted.

  ‘Fetne kardan!’ Ali curses in Farsi, accusing his general of instigating sedition.

  Afzal expects a barrage of questions, and one mistake might take him where he does not want to go. He needs to change the subject quickly. He suddenly says confidently, ‘Shivaji Bhosale and his men have attacked the Mughal territories.’

  ‘We know of that,’ Badi Sahiba snaps. ‘He attacks them while they are ruining us.’

  ‘Afzal Khan,’ he hears Ali Adil Shah’s words laced with scorn. ‘Had Shivaji Bhosale been with us, we may not have lost strongholds like Bidar and Kalyan.’

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1

  The courtyard of Bidar Fort is busy with labourers finishing the repair work. Inside the courtroom, Aurangzeb sits on late Siddi Marjan’s throne worth four crore rupees, his fingers counting the beads of his tesbih. He glances at his scribe who sits behind a small wooden desk, surrounded by piles of papers. He winces. All those letters written and received to and from his military officers are as good as autumn leaves. His fierce battles with the Shia kingdoms have been an utter waste of time.

  Aurangzeb’s mood is as gloomy as the weather outside. Something is seriously wrong. He has received a farman from the emperor telling him to stay put at Bidar. His mansabdars like Mahabat Khan, Rao Chatrasal, Nasiri Khan, Kartalab Khan and his artillery chief Mir Jumla have been contacted directly and have been called back along with their contingents. They are already on their way to Dilli. Shaista Khan has been asked to go back to his province and is already at Burhanpur. The emperor has also played dirty by directly establishing contact with the Adilshahi rulers for the tribute money. He, Aurangzeb, the subhedar of the Mughal-occupied Deccan, who has struggled to take over military strongholds of the Adilshahi sultanate like the fort cities of Bidar and Kalyan, has been sidelined, as if he bears no significance. What kind of message will the Adilshahi rulers get? These events will leave him without a work force, respect and funds in an enemy territory! He will be a military destitute—the worst insult for a prince . . .

  ‘There is a rider at the gate. He wants to see you in person, my prince,’ Mutamad informs Aurangzeb.

  ‘Let him come, with our guards,’ Aurangzeb becomes alert. The message has surely not come with the daroga-e-daak, the official imperial postman. An official postman would never insist on delivering
the mail personally to him.

  Several moments pass before Aurangzeb hears footsteps. A man appears and bows. He seems exhausted by his task.

  ‘My Imperial Highness, the message is from Dilli, given to me at Burhanpur by khan-e-khanan Shaista. It is tied to my chest.’

  Aurangzeb glances at the owner of the drained voice. The messenger has fallen on his knees. His turban is filthy and his jacket is soiled. On a signal from him, the guards pull the man up like a rag doll, make him stand and pull out his jacket. The strings run from his shoulder to his back. One of the guards shoves his fingers below the strings and yanks hard. The messenger cries out in pain, as the skin near his neck is pinched. The epistle is free. One guard hands it over to the prince.

  ‘Take him away,’ Aurangzeb says curtly. His hands tremble as he reads the letter:

  The emperor is shifted to Agra. He is ill, kept in a curtained chamber at his private quarters in Agra Fort. Only two hakims are allowed in. The area is heavily guarded by armed tartar women. Dara Shikoh spends most of his time with the emperor.

  The farmans that have the emperor’s seal have probably been written by the first prince, Dara Shikoh, who has taken it for granted that he will be the next emperor!

  There is the symbol of a crescent moon where the signature should be.

  Aurangzeb understands instantly that the letter is from Isa Beg, his trustworthy envoy. He starts shaking in fury and shock.

  The epistle becomes an obsession. That evening, Aurangzeb reads the message several times in the privacy of his apartments in the Rangeen Mahal. What must he do? Obey the emperor’s latest farman and stay put at Bidar? But that may give Dara bhai the time and means to muster an army. It is risky not to obey the official decree. What if Father has recovered? What if the farman had been really sent by him?

  Aurangzeb tries to calm his mind while he paces like a caged tiger. A few lamps burning in their tiny glass bulbs throw dim light over the walls. Suddenly, his new acquisition, the Bidar Fort, feels like a dungeon, a pit. He needs to get away, go north. He wants to be a bird and fly this very moment to the room where the emperor lies, to know what has happened to his father. Is the old man really sick or already dead?

  The intricately carved wooden pillars throw long shadows on the mosaic floor. They look mysterious, as if beckoning him to find answers in their bellies. Something flashes in his mind. What if he finds a legitimate reason to leave Bidar, a reason strong enough to overrule the royal decree? Is it possible?

  ‘La ilaha illa’llah!’ he prays loudly. There is no God but Allah. As the chandelier shimmers, walls with exquisite floral designs gleam, and the shadows on the intricately carved wooden pillars keep drawing long beams of darkness over the floor. He is startled to see Mutamad walk in, with another epistle. This time the man with the slight feminine sway in his walk is sobbing. Aurangzeb instinctively knows what the message is. Father is dead! He stands below the chandelier to read the letter. His hands feel a slight tremor and his stomach churns as his eyes move from one word to the other. It is about his beloved wife. She is dead. The woman he had gradually fallen in love with is dead. The mother of his three daughters and two sons has become ‘beloved of Allah’. His Persian wife Dilras Banu, his only Muslim consort, whom he had married in a grand ceremony twenty-four years ago, when he was barely seventeen, has died of ‘childbirth malady’ in Aurangabad. His children born by her, including their newborn son who still is unnamed, need him direly. Aurangzeb feels tears streaming down his face. This is not the message he was waiting for, but in his pain his thoughts move in another direction. The woman he loved and who loved him has posthumously offered him possibilities of escape! He has finally found a perfect reason to leave Bidar, so faultless an alibi that even the emperor’s farman will fall weak in its wake.

  He wants some fresh air and moves towards the pillared corridor of the Rangeen Mahal. Torches flicker in iron baskets mounted over small marble platforms. He hears footsteps. It is Jaffar Khan, his regional mir bakshi. The paymaster general, who is also Aurangzeb’s late mother’s sister’s husband, has probably heard the sad news. Before the man can open his mouth Aurangzeb raises his hand and stops him.

  ‘I will proceed to Aurangabad. We have ten lakh rupees in the vaults of Bidar. You stay put here. Establish contacts with the jagirdars and deshmukhs of the region. Pay them huge amounts and win them over to our side. Whoever agrees to be with us, send them and their armies to Aurangabad. We need the military manpower there.’

  Jaffar Khan whose beard is almost turning white, bows and leaves.

  Aurangzeb looks towards the sky. The moon, almost full in its circle, hangs over the eastern skyline, its silvery coin afflicted by pale shadows—like past memories that haunt the present. Looking at the moon, he remembers faintly something that Shivaji’s vakeel had said: that they had plans to invade the sultanate’s region of north Konkan, the region that initially had belonged to the Nizam Shah of Ahmednagar! He strides towards his official chamber, crossing several closed corridors lit by torches. The guards are surprised to see him. They scramble, throwing their chillums away and stamping the burning sticks with their sandals. The prince arrives at the courtroom where his scribe is still at work in the company of a lone shamdan. The clerk is about to call it a day and is surprised to see his master at this hour. He takes a fresh paper and opens a new inkpot. Aurangzeb starts dictating. The letter is for Badi Sahiba.

  Our association goes back to your late husband Mohammed Adil Shah agreeing to be the vassal of the empire, and pay the yearly tribute, as was agreed upon, to us. That makes the Adilshahi sultanate a tributary state of the empire. Keeping that in mind, we would like to renew the old peace treaty. I, as the imperial subhedar of the Deccan, assure you that my army will stop further invasions on your terrain. If you agree, you must do two things immediately: Clear all the old tribute dues, and cede some of the Nizam Shah’s territories occupied by you to us, as you have recently decided to give us the port city of Kalyan and the surrounding territories in the north Konkan. Do not establish contact with the emperor by bypassing me. I have been kind enough to recognize your adopted son as your legitimate king, despite the fact that it is not recognized by Islam. Obey or else.

  After finishing the dictation, Aurangzeb ponders over Kalyan, the latest Mughal conquest. The subhedar appointed by the Adilshahi rulers will soon leave Kalyan, but Aurangzeb does not have an able man who can go to the port city and take over. Kalyan will remain without an administrative head for a while, he thinks with dismay.

  2

  The hills of the Sahyadri Range gleam in the receding evening sun. Five hundred men led by Abaji Sondev move gingerly through a narrow trail adjacent to the frightening cliffs of Tailbaila. His eyes scan their surroundings to catch any movement in the thickets, and his ears strain to pick up even the faintest sounds echoing in the hills. All he hears is the whispering streams, shuffling foliage, droning insects, whistling hornbills, screeching parrots, squeaking langur monkeys—the usual jungle sounds.

  He has received the information from tribesmen of the village of Tailbaila hidden in the mountains that Kalyan’s subhedar, Mullah Ahmed, has planned to take this route to reach Bijapur. His scouts had sneakily followed the caravan from Kalyan till Sudhagad Fort. The caravan is coming from Kalyan and has to cross the mountains to arrive at the plateau. They will then travel more than one hundred kos south-east to reach Bijapur. Abaji has other plans. He has to take the caravan back to Kalyan. Raja Shivaji has given him his first major assignment and he has to do it right. Feeling agitated, he leans back to balance his weight on his steed and lets his horse canter through the steep, grassy, cattle trails. It is then that his ears pick up what he is waiting for: human voices and the rattling of carts. The caravan has arrived somewhere near the temple of Goddess Waghjai, a short distance away from him and his men. His heart pounds with excitement as he stops his horse and dismounts. At his signal, there is a hushed flurry of activity as half his horsemen dismount and
quickly tie their horses to the nearby trees. The others, the backup force, remain on their saddles.

  Mullah Ahmed, sitting in his palanquin, yawns. Five hundred armed horsemen in metal helmets and chest armour ride ahead of him and about two hundred follow his caravan. It was his idea to use this mountain trail. Most of the mountain trails from Kalyan to Bijapur either pass through the Mughal terrain or through Maval. This one is a less-travelled route, not frequented by the caravans, so the dacoits do not usually wait here in ambush. Plus he has his armed horsemen. He is not worried about the journey; he is worried about the future that he and his family might have to endure. Kalyan has been his home for the past several years. The region is the merchant’s paradise and the tax collection is good. Over the years, he has created wealth for the rulers of Adilshahi. Now the same rulers, to save their sultanate from total ruin, have given away his beloved Kalyan to the Mughal. The old peace treaty has already been renewed. The Badi Sahiba has signed the document. A Mughal subhedar is soon to arrive. So his king has ordered Mullah Ahmed to return to Bijapur in a hurry.

  ‘The haraam politics of the royals!’ he mutters angrily under his breath. It was not his doing that the Adilshahi army has failed to protect their north-eastern strongholds. Suddenly his ears pick up swooshing and cracking sounds as his slaves whip the oxen carts that follow his covered palanquin. He sticks his head out from the small window to look back. Yoked together with large wooden beams, several pairs of beasts try hard to climb the steep slope and bear the lashing mutely. The cart drivers are unaware of the contents of swollen sacks they are transporting. The sacks contain all the gold, silver and precious stones from his treasury. Several men follow the carts. He can see his son riding parallel to them to watch over the bearers who carry the women of his family. Something makes him glance ahead. Their track ahead has taken a turn only to disappear into a thicket. The subhedar of Kalyan is suddenly filled with a sense of foreboding. The rising hills looming over the trail, the dense woods, the strange jungle sounds and the frighteningly lonely path make him edgy. He notices his son ride ahead, crossing the caravan and catching up with the horsemen riding in the front. He hears some people shouting. He watches as his horsemen stride ahead with caution, removing their swords from their scabbards. Anxious now, he observes some of his horsemen turn left and disappear. But something is seriously wrong. A bunch of strange-looking men emerge from the bushes. Terror makes Mullah Ahmed’s bones go rigid. At least two hundred men have suddenly jumped out from the woods like kernels popping out of fire. The short, muscular and dark men wearing folded turbans like Turkish caps scramble like infuriated honeybees. He sees them running after his horsemen. They hop and sprint, taking strange stances with their swords. Mullah Ahmed can hear their cries, rhythmic, almost a battle cry. Their shrieks ride on the wind and echo in the valley. His horsemen return in haste. The enemy has started dancing around them, like tribals around a fire. His Arabian horses start neighing in panic. He watches as the strange footmen hit their swords in vertical blows, striking his horsemen on their knees or ankles, parts of the body that are not covered with armour. His men try hard to reach the footmen by slumping forward, but their curved blades are too short. Some of the enemy footmen wrench out his men’s metal helmets in frenzy, hold their swords upside down and strike the hilts of their swords on to their exposed heads. The hilts seem to have spikes. His horsemen fall on the ground, limp. Within minutes there is complete chaos. Those who are trying to crawl away are caught. His palanquin bearers have stopped, frozen with fear. He jumps out, his hand on the hilt of his sword. But before he can pull out the blade a few men pounce on him. He is soon shackled. He trembles as he notices his son surrounded by men brandishing swords with those long, fearsome blades.