A Season for Martyrs

by Bina Shah

  “We’re not too late, hurry, hurry!” shouted Jeandal Shah, as he dug his spurs into the flanks of his horse. He jumped down from his mount, but the unfortunate Sikandar Shah could not move as quickly, and had to be helped off the cart by two servants. The quick climb down to the riverbank elicited much moaning and groaning from Sikandar Shah, while Jeandal Shah danced impatiently around him, his sword half unsheathed; he was not sure whether he wanted to use it on the British interlopers, or on his own cousin, so slow was his progress.

  Jeandal Shah could not see if Burnes himself was standing on the deck of the ship, a fine British galley with proud sails that were now unfurled and filled with wind. A second ship was moored behind them, and men clambered up and down the masts, across the decks, readying both vessels for the journey north. Jeandal Shah instructed one of his men to approach the ship and summon Burnes to the shore.

  “Do you think he’ll come himself? Or send a lesser man?” asked Sikandar Shah.

  “He’ll have to. We’re here, aren’t we? Protocol demands that he meet us himself,” said Jeandal Shah. He’d brought his full cortege, including his drums and the official drum-beater, although he usually liked to leave them behind when making visits to his home. He was not a man who enjoyed the pomp and circumstance of royalty, preferring to keep a low profile and a simpler appearance when moving among his own people.

  But this was a circumstance that demanded as much show as could be summoned up.

  Sure enough, within fifteen minutes, Sir Alexander Burnes was on the shore, climbing up to meet them on the small path that led up from the bottom of the riverbank to the top of a dusty knoll. The British spy was a man of medium height and average appearance, and Jeandal Shah wondered how this ordinary-looking man could be the head of such an important operation. Sayed Sikandar Shah was at least three hundred pounds and Jeandal Shah himself was six foot, four inches tall; their magnificent stature, at least, announced their importance, while this man looked no more significant than a twig on the branch of some not-very-tall tree.

  After the necessary courtesies were exchanged through an Indian interpreter whom Burnes had brought with him from the ship, Sikandar Shah stepped forward with a letter in his hand. “It is my duty as an officer of the government of the Mir of Hyderabad to inform you that you do not have permission to sail upriver. An embargo is laid upon all your vessels: you are confined to your boats, and urged by my master the Ameer to abandon this journey and take a land route instead. Here is a letter explaining all of this.” He did not reveal that the letter had been written by Jeandal Shah that morning.

  The British man spoke a few words to the interpreter, who translated, in Hindi, “We have come from Bombay bearing a gift of horses from our King William IV for His Highness the Maharaja Ranjeet Singh of Lahore … we have sent letters to the Ameer to request permission for this trip. …”

  Jeandal Shah said, “We know all about this gift. Tell him he’s to take them by land or not go at all. You’ve sent the letters, but they haven’t arrived, and we’re not fools.”

  The translator whispered, “Honored sirs, I can’t say it that rudely!”

  At the same time, Sikandar Shah spoke up. “If your agent desires, he can make an appeal to the Ameer in person, but that will require him to moor the ships and come to Thatta next week to discuss the ships’ safe passage with the proper state ministers. Perhaps the ship will be allowed to sail, without yourselves on board, of course.”

  “His Highness the King will be very displeased to hear that his gift, offered in good faith, is being delayed in this manner, and will lodge a complaint with your leader the Mir. …”

  “Tell him we’ll take very good care of his gift!” said Sikandar Shah.

  “He doesn’t trust us?” Jeandal Shah growled, his hand on his sword.

  “No, honored sirs, it’s not that at all,” stuttered the translator, a small, dark-skinned Goan who had no desire to return to Goa without his head. “It’s just that he’s concerned for the welfare of the horses; they are very fine steeds, they cannot take the heat; this is why they couldn’t go by land, and he won’t leave them alone, he says …”

  All the while Alexander Burnes was examining the two Sindhis as if seeing them through the wrong end of a telescope. His eyes narrowed, and Jeandal Shah realized the British man thought they were lying, or at least bluffing, and that there was no real impediment to their plan of action. But he did not venture this opinion and instead nodded curtly, agreeing to come to Thatta to negotiate the terms of his ships’ passage. Then he burst out in English, “How the bloody hell do you expect twenty horses to go up the river to Lahore by themselves?”

  “What did he say?”

  The translator, shivering, related this last sentence to the two men, while Burnes fixed them with a cold, angry stare. Jeandal Shah was getting ready to draw his sword, but after a pause, Sikandar Shah said earnestly, “Well, if they’re such special horses, as you say, surely they must know how to sail a boat?”

  Nobody spoke for a full minute. Then suddenly Jeandal Shah guffawed with laughter and slapped his cousin on the back. “That’s a good one, cousin! That’s a good one!” Then he bent forward and said to the translator in a low voice, “How many horses are there, really?”

  The translator shivered. “One dray horse and four dray mares.” At this, Jeandal Shah clanked his sword menacingly. The translator turned tail and ran, and Alexander Burnes cast one last furious glance at the two Sindhis before following him back to the ship.

  Jeandal Shah and Sikandar Shah rode back to Matiari, congratulating themselves the whole way on having aborted the infidel British spying mission. Sikandar Shah celebrated by throwing a huge feast in which he gave several drums of biryani to the poor at the shrine of Shah Abdul Latif Bhitai, a distant ancestor of both men. The great Shah-Jo-Risalo was recited, with its grand verses telling the story of Marvi and her long captivity under Prince Umar Soomra; and as it was a Friday, two healthy young rams were brought to the maidan and made to fight. Everyone retired to their beds, full, happy, and suffused with a glow of patriotism. The honor of Sindh had been saved!

  But only God knew what magic Alexander Burnes used on the Mir’s ministers at Thatta, because in eleven days’ time, Burnes received permission to travel up the Indus as originally planned.

  Jeandal Shah had been appointed Burnes’s official host or mehmandar, and he and another man of rank, Sayed Zulfikar Shah, were assigned specially to escort him out of Sindh by the Mir’s head minister. But Burnes sweetly replied that he would neither return to the sea, nor go to Hyderabad to put his case before the Mir, since, he claimed, he already had permission to traverse the water route to Lahore. No amount of argument, cajoling, or appealing to the man’s sense of decency or honor could make him change his mind. “I do not care if my honored host is a descendant of the Prophet,” said Burnes, in fluent Hindi—another sign of witchcraft, thought Jeandal Shah to himself, smarting mightily from the insult to his lineage. Burnes continued: “I have been insulted, abused, starved, and twice turned out of the country by persons of low rank. But if you wish, I can go to the Mir and inform him that your detaining me has breached the treaty between the Sindh government and the government of Britain.”

  Sure enough, he appeared before the Mir, and in front of Jeandal Shah’s disbelieving eyes, spoke with the tongue of a snake until the Mir agreed to let him use the water route beyond Hujamree.

  Burnes departed from the court in triumph, back to his ships, and they sailed away, sails heavy with wind, the Union Jack proudly fluttering above. His parting shot to Jeandal Shah before he left: “We have entered, in the course of our voyages, all the mouths of the river, and we now have a map of them, and the land route of Thatta besides. I must thank you most sincerely for helping us to overcome our ignorance of Sindh. You are most definitely a friend of the British Empire.” And he bowed low to Jeandal Shah, smiling a cold smil
e that did not reach his eyes.

  “The Honored King requires your presence tomorrow morning in his private chambers to discuss important matters of state. Leave your cortege behind and present yourself at the Hyderabad Palace at seven.”

  When Jeandal Shah received this message, a month after the Burnes incident, he was puzzled. Everyone knew that the Mir had lost face in the episode, and Jeandal Shah himself feared that he had lost favor with the Mir, but perhaps the king had had time to reconsider and decided to take Jeandal Shah back into his fold. He said a prayer of thanksgiving to Almighty Allah, then went to his bed, leaving instructions to his servants to wake him just before the fajr prayers.

  Jeandal Shah arrived before dawn at the palace in Hyderabad, where he was met by a servant who guided him to a darkened chamber and bid him wait. “But you are not to wear your sword in front of the Mir this early in the morning,” the servant instructed him. “He is slightly unwell and the sight of your sword would disturb his harmony.”

  Jeandal Shah did not want to give up his sword, a beautiful steel blade inscribed with the names of his father and grandfathers; he was one of the few men allowed to wear his sword in the Mir’s presence. But he was a man of honor, who had sworn obedience to the Mir when he’d joined his darbar. He relinquished his sword to the man, who promised to polish it and bring it back to him in even better condition than he had left it.

  Jeandal Shah stepped into the chamber and realized that he was not alone. In the darkness, two eyes shone out at him, glowing like amber stones. And from outside he heard the voice of the servant man, who put his mouth to the keyhole of the door and said, “O Sayed Jeandal Shah, this is your reward, for daring to touch a Talpur woman! Now defend your honor or die trying!”

  Jeandal Shah’s heart nearly stopped. He knew exactly which woman they were referring to. It was no good pointing out that he had never laid eyes on her; he knew that the accusation was merely a pretext to get rid of him.

  As the sun seeped into the chamber, Jeandal Shah could begin to make out the form of the creature locked in with him: the Mir’s pet cheetah. The cat had been circling around in the dark, but now that it was growing light it could see him, too, and it began to lick its lips in anticipation of its next meal. So this is what honor gets you, thought Jeandal Shah to himself.

  The cheetah hissed at Jeandal Shah, who flattened himself against the wall, cursing at the cheetah to stay back. The animal padded around the room and stared at Jeandal Shah with malevolent eyes, its fangs bared, its powerful muscles tensed underneath the silky yellow coat. It was the favorite plaything of the Mir, who kept it chained to his throne and threw it scraps of meat from his lavish meals. His courtiers liked to whisper that it was the reincarnated spirit of a great warrior, perhaps even one of the defeated Kalhora kings. It never went without meat for more than a few hours, but they’d starved it for two days before putting it in this bare room in the palace and then ushering Jeandal Shah in to face its wrath.

  Jeandal Shah edged carefully away from it into a corner of the room, and looked wildly around for something to defend himself with: a chair, a picture frame, anything. But the room was completely bare.

  The cheetah kept pacing back and forth, back and forth, its powerful shoulders rising and falling with each step. It lowered its head and sniffed the floor, catching the scent of its prey, then stopped and slowly turned to face Jeandal Shah. It lay down on its haunches, head raised, eyes fixed on the man, as if taking the measure of him before deciding when to pounce.

  Jeandal Shah avoided looking into its eyes, knowing that a direct stare would be seen by the animal as a challenge. Nor would he call out for help to his enemies, who were standing just outside the door, waiting to enjoy themselves on his pleas for mercy. But he began to pray under his breath: “Allah Saeen, please help me, o Allah, save me from this disaster. Indeed, my lord! I am overcome, so help me …”

  Then he looked down at his feet, and saw the means to his salvation: his enemies had left one thing behind in that room. A plain rug, a roughly woven durree approximately six feet long and four feet wide. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do.

  Jeandal Shah murmured one last prayer, then began to recite Ya Fattah, Ya Fattah, Ya Fattah, over and over again, growing in strength and volume until the whole room seemed to be filled with the holy name. In one fluid motion he scooped up the rug, then made a running lunge for the cheetah across the room, leaping high as he neared the great cat, who’d risen to its feet and was preparing to spring. But Jeandal Shah’s height gave him the advantage: as he jumped, he unfurled the rug and brought it down onto the cheetah, trapping the animal in its folds. He landed on top of the cat, which struggled wildly to free itself from the rug, and used his enormous girth to pin the animal to the floor. The cat screamed and shrieked, but Jeandal Shah never stopped shouting “Ya Fattah! Ya Fattah!” as he held the cheetah down. And he caught the cheetah’s neck in his bare hands and squeezed until the last breath left the cheetah’s body with a mighty groan.

  He was breathing heavily, great ragged gasps, sweating and trembling with the effort of having saved his own life. Only after a full ten minutes had passed did he dare move off the cheetah’s body, which was still warm. But it was perfectly still: he pulled the rug away and saw its amber eyes staring back at him, glassy and unblinking. Then he sank to his knees and wept.

  The men who were waiting outside began to tremble when they heard the great tumult coming from inside the locked chamber; they couldn’t tell whether the piercing shrieks and screams were coming from the beast or the man. In the silence that followed, one of the courtiers reached for the lock and undid it, his hand shaking so badly that it took him several minutes to free the bolt. The door swung open, but they all shrank back, too terrified to witness the mayhem that lay behind it.

  Suddenly, the cheetah’s body fell out of the door and landed on the stone ground with a thud. And then Jeandal Shah stepped over the body and emerged into the light. His face and arms were scratched, his clothes were torn, and blood trickled from a wound on his head. But he was standing upright, in full possession of all his limbs. He looked at the courtiers and servants, all of whom were staring at him in terror, and spat at their feet.

  “Here,” he rasped, still breathing hard. “Here’s the lover of your master’s wife.” And he prodded the cheetah’s body with his foot. “Now bring me what belongs to me.” The courtiers scurried off and ran in different directions, fearful of his revenge. But Jeandal Shah was not interested in revenge, only retreat. He took his sword back, and then he left the Mir’s palace, never to return again.

  He gladly gave up the riches and the power that came with a seat at the darbar of the Mir, and spent the rest of his life in his village of Matiari, overseeing his farmland and his fruit orchards, ensuring that his haris were well taken care of for the rest of his days. Perhaps he married and raised a family; perhaps he died a childless bachelor not long after defeating the cheetah. Either way, it was a far more peaceful pursuit in which to spend his life than dancing attendance in a palace where honor was a commodity to be bought and sold like a bushel of grain.

  November 12, 2007

  KARACHI

  Ali was beginning to feel that the process for obtaining his US visa was going to be as painful, if not worse, than the root canal treatment he’d endured three years ago. It took five trips to the dentist and seven shots of Novocain, and he’d bled so much that he’d considered asking the dentist for a blood transfusion. “This just isn’t normal,” said the dentist, shaking his head, which shattered whatever little bit of confidence Ali had left in the man.

  Having to come clean to his family about his plans to study in America was only the first part of the procedure. Looking back on that evening, after he’d turned off the television and had to face the accusing stares of his mother and brother, he could see now that it was not just the first, but the easiest part.

&
nbsp; “Why didn’t you tell me?” said his mother, for once her eyes dry as stones. Usually she wept easily, tears trickling down her face no matter where she was, in the middle of preparing dinner or going in a car on the way to a shopping plaza. She just wiped them away with whatever was handiest—the end of a dupatta, a tissue, the back of her hand—her tears as natural as digestion or breathing. To see her without the usual rain clouds surrounding her was strange for Ali, speaking to him of days before she’d been weakened by her demanding, larger-than-life husband and boisterous family.

  “You know why I didn’t tell you,” Ali mumbled, squeezed into a corner of the sofa, his arms crossed mutinously across his chest. Jeandi had been sent to bed but Ali felt as though he’d taken her place as the youngest, not the eldest, child of the house. It was unnerving, this reversal of roles, with Haris now cast as the most obedient child and Ali himself the black sheep.

  “Because you knew I would never agree.”

  No, because I knew you would harass me to death about it. This answer was only in Ali’s imagination; he didn’t dare say it out loud to his mother. The years of living with their father, tiptoeing around his volatile nature like stepping around shattered glass, had made Ali cautious about revealing his true feelings to anyone. It was safer to keep them hidden, even if they festered inside. Better to bear the discomfort of suppressed dreams and repressed hopes than to endure the storm of recriminations they would create, once brought into the light.

  “But how could you do this without even asking me—consulting me?” said his mother.

  Haris added nothing to the conversation; he just followed the words coming out of their mouths, his eyes moving from one face to the other as if he were watching a tennis match. Ali could see that a sense of grudging admiration for his brother’s daring battled with the huge resentment that once again Ali was making plans to go away, plans that didn’t include taking Haris with him. He’d suffered through that once before, when Ali had gone away to Dubai, and Ali knew well the chorus that would be replaying itself inside Haris’s head right now: Why does he always have to do this? He’s so greedy, so selfish. Only thinking of himself. Never thinking about how we’ll cope if he goes away.