River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  “See, brother,” he replied a trifle sheepishly, “If you don’t mind, I belong to the Order of Mukloom Jehanian Jehann Gasht . . .”

  “So?”

  “He has written in his Malfoozat that once, when he was staying in a hospice in Dehli, one of Sultan Feroze Tughlaq’s ministers sent him dinner. He ate it, and he records that his prayers didn’t reach On High that night because he had eaten food sent by a king’s man.”

  “So?”

  “You are a Royalist, too,” he replied.

  “Yeah, but I am also a Syed and so is the King.”

  That did it. The young fellow began to eat meekly. I think these Sufis are crazy.

  It was a Wednesday evening. When I reached my lodgings I resolved to buy the customary perfumed red notepaper upon which wedding proposals are written. I’ll buy it from the neighbourhood stationery place and compose an elegant epistle. According to custom I will address this letter to Bano’s father, to the effect that since my pater is not in India I myself take the liberty of requesting you to accept me as your son-in-law and so honour me. This is the set language of proposals. The following morning I went to the library, sat down at my desk and began thinking of really flowery phrases for the proposal which I was going to send to Bano’s pater on Friday. Right then a footman came in.

  “His Majesty wishes to see you. At once.”

  The King was sitting in his Music Room, tuning his tamboura. I stepped in and salaamed in the usual courtly manner. He nodded and smiled. That put me at ease, but I was still nervous.

  “Have you made any progress in your study of the Sanskrit language?” His Majesty asked.

  “A little, Sire,” I replied.

  “I have just been informed that some pandits in Ayodhya are in possession of a very ancient treatise on classical music. Go there at once and find out all about those manuscripts. Seek the pandits’ help in deciphering the texts. Off you go.”

  I bowed again and beat a hasty retreat.

  13. “Champavati”: A Sufi Allegory

  Al-Hind is rife with myths, legends, folklore and old wives’ tales. In Ayodhya the other day, I came across an inordinately long grave situated under a leafy tree. A local Muslim told me in his Oudhi dialect, and in a matter-of-fact tone, that it was the last resting place of Prophet Sheth, son of Prophet Nooh. How on earth did Sheth come to be buried in Ayodhya?

  “Well,” said the local Muslim, “There was this Big Flood—say yes.”

  “Yes. But it happened in Iraq, etc.,—those areas . . .”

  “Only in Iraq? The whole world drowned in it—say yes.”

  “Yes.”

  “And Noah’s Ark stopped at Mount Judi, didn’t it? Well that was, in fact, Ayodhya.”

  “But where is the mountain here?” I argued.

  “There must have been one all those thousands of years ago. Physical features of a place can change. Why, one stream has changed its course near my village. And the Hindus say they had a flood in the time of Manu. So Manu may have been Noah, for all you know.”

  I gave up, though I also often wonder about the nine-yard-long grave in Jeddah, supposedly of Mother Eve who gave the name Jeddah or Ancestress to that port town.

  Well. Allah knows best.

  I went on to meet a wise Brahmin. I live in a well-appointed Ibrahim Shahi serai, and in the mornings I go to this pandit’s mango grove. He discusses Sanskrit texts with me, sitting at a safe distance for fear of pollution. I ought to find it very insulting but the Lord Prophet has enjoined upon every Muslim man and woman to go even to China to seek knowledge. India is en route, and in China the Buddhists may behave even more strangely. As Amir Khusro said—every country hath its own customs.

  Now this pandit has a younger sister called Champavati. She is very attractive and intelligent and naturally I have fallen quietly in love with her. I can converse well with her in Oudhi which I have picked up with ease. I get a chance to talk to her because she is also her brother’s student.

  Champavati is utterly enchanting, so different from Bano. No regal airs, no jewellery, no make-up, no silks and brocades. She wraps herself in an unstitched piece of cotton cloth and goes about barefoot. When I want a glass of water she brings it in a clay cup and places it on the ground, then rushes back to her cow-dung plastered hut. I have not seen Rajput princesses, they must be different. But they live in purda.

  And let’s admit, a fellow wants variety. I’m afraid I have almost forgotten princess Bano. These infidel women have a charm of their own. They are faithful, shy, docile. They worship their husbands as demi-gods and touch their feet in obeisance every morning. They put the man on a pedestal and sing songs in his praise. That’s how it ought to be. We developed this Cult of the Lady in Hispania and introduced the concept of romance and chivalry into the rest of Europe—gallant knights fighting in honour of their ladies and young poets singing to lutes on moonlit nights while the lady sat on a trellised balcony. Here the roles are reversed—man is the beloved, the woman pines for him and is forever waiting for him. That’s very flattering indeed . . .

  I am foolishly waiting for her. She may not turn up at all. It wouldn’t be a bad idea to save her soul and show her the path of the True Faith but—

  Kamal closed his book and looked at the sky. It was high noon, and the wind had become warm. He started writing again.— I am not a missionary. I am here on His Majesty’s Service, and in a hurry . . . The other day I asked her obliquely if she would like to live in a town house by the Rose Lake in Jaunpur. She asked me as cryptically, “What would I do there—play chess and teach the parrots and mynas how to say Good Morning?”

  Suddenly he heard a rustling in the tall grass and looked up. There she stood before him, like a tree sprite, laughing like the wind.

  “You still around? I thought you had left for Behraich.”

  “I have waited for you all day to say goodbye—”

  “Why? Won’t you come back?”

  “His Majesty is too busy waging his wars. I may have to go to the Front with my report.”

  “You Turks have a hard time of it, always fighting.”

  “I am not a Turk.”

  “All Muslims are Turks,” she said in a tone of finality.

  Kamal again recalled Kirtilata in which Vidyapati had described the Muslims of Jaunpur: “The Turks salaam one another, drink wine, address each other as Abay, and read the kitab—”

  Champa noticed Kamal’s sword lying on the grass.

  “Throw it away in the river and relax, soldier,” she said amiably.

  He was annoyed. “I am not a soldier, you know that. What was I doing at your brother’s place? Brandishing my dagger?”

  “Then why do you carry this fearful thing?”

  “A scimitar is the ornament of a man. Have you never seen a Rajput warrior?”

  “I’m not too happy with Rajput warriors either.”

  “Who are you happy with, then?”

  “Sant Kabir—”

  “Who—?”

  “Sant Kabir of Kashi—”

  “I know about him. He spent some time with the eminent Sufis of Jhoosi and Jaunpur. And I have heard you sing Kabir songs with the bhaktas. Look, that’s no way for a young girl to spend her time, singing hymns with all those morons wearing orange skull caps. They are a peculiar people—all these chaps, qalandars, sanyasis, the lot.”

  Champa flushed red, “Don’t ever make fun of holy men. Some day they may rescue you from your delusions. Right now you are riding the high horse, captain—oh, sorry, scholar!”

  “You’ve become quite a sadhavi, too!” he responded sarcastically.

  “No, I’ll get married, that is if Mars is not too strong in my house.”

  “What the hell is that? How would Mars come to your house? Do you know when you tie the knot with a man of your own society, and if he dies, they will either shave your head and you’ll be shunned like a pariah the rest of your miserable life, or they’ll push you alive onto his funeral pyre. Deck yo
u up as a bride, put you on horseback and take you in a procession to the cremation ground with much beating of the drums. First they’ll burn you alive, then they’ll worship you as goddess Sati.”

  “If such is my fate, so it shall be.”

  “Listen, as a Muattazalite I must explain to you . . .”

  “Motijala—what?”

  “Never mind. Look, I am a believer in free will; Ibn-i-Rushd has said . . .”

  “Who?”

  “Ibn-i-Rushd of Andalusia—he says except for revealed religion everything should be examined scientifically.”

  “Revelations are a mystical experience too!”

  Kamal looked at her in amazement. “You are too clever!”

  “No. I merely listen carefully when my brother and his erudite friends have their discussions. Reason has nothing to do with mystical experience.”

  “Have you ever had any?”

  “The Cult of Radha and Krishna is a Mystery.” She picked up some flowers. “And, anyway, everything is in the hands of Destiny.”

  “No, you can make your choice here and now. If you agree to marry me you’ll get such an interesting fellow in this life and as a Muslim, you will be safe in the Hereafter.”

  “If I was married to you in my previous janams, I’ll marry you now, too.”

  “This is nonsense. There is only one birth and one death. The rest is speculation.”

  “If my karma and sanskaras are such, I’ll become a Muslim and be your spouse.”

  She gathered some more flowers. He was rattled.

  “Sanskaras or no sanskaras—will you wait for me?”

  He thought he saw her nod but he was not very sure because a shower of magnolia blossoms fell between them like a floral curtain. He took it as a good omen and thought it best to leave instead of tempting fate by arguing with her some more. He packed his saddle-bag and asked, “Why were you so late in coming? You must go too, before the villagers come this way.”

  Then he recalled that somebody had told him, if you throw a coin in the translucent waters of the Saryu you can see it lying on the river bed. Promptly he took out a Hussain Shahi silver tanka, flung it in the river, and saw it sparkle on the soft blue-grey mud several feet below. He grinned like a schoolboy and turned towards Champa.

  She stood there almost motionless, under the flowering magnolia tree, looking sad and pensive. The traditional picture of the woman in Indian rain-songs: the man is going away on a distant journey leaving her forlorn and unhappy. The Raga Malhar sung by Hussain Shah Nayak visualised such mournful, doe-eyed damsels . . .

  “I’ll come back soon, Insha Allah, and I leave you in the safe-keeping of Almighty God,” he shouted against the wind and galloped away without looking back.

  Life had certainly become very complicated.

  14. The Cavalcade

  A full moon sailed over the extensive ruins. All was eerily quiet. Moonbeams lit up the faint decorative designs on the floor of a roofless house. A trident, a lotus, a wheel, a ‘pillar of fire’ . . . what did those remote people mean by such symbols, Kamal wondered, yawning, and lay himself down upon an elephant-head made of stone.

  A ghostly sound rose out of the silence—as though chariots were passing through the deserted lane outside. Strange men who wore gold earrings stood on ancient vehicles. The chariots stopped right in front of him and the men peered down at Kamal. Their teeth shone like phosphorus in the dark. The fish-eyed stone woman came alive and began to sing in an unknown tongue.

  A phantom appeared in the broken doorway and announced hoarsely, “The Moon among Men, Emperor of Aryavart.”

  How could he be here? Kamal rubbed his eyes. This infidel king had left the world three hundred years before the birth of Prophet Isa. He had become a Jain ascetic and starved himself to death. But here he was, standing among the fallen pediments, grinning. Now another man craned his neck above the shoulders of Chandragupta and jumped out. He addressed Kamal gently: “My name is Ashok Priya Darshan. Emperor. I ruled over all of Bharatvarsh once. When I died I owned only this one-and-a-half amla.” He opened his fist and threw bits of an Indian olive in front of Kamal. Then the invasion of the spirits began in full force . . .

  They stepped out of the chariots, hung from the rafters, climbed the pillars and did somersaults in the dry tank of the forecourt. Twittering like birds, they encircled Kamal and danced around him, chirping—

  ‘I am Bharat Muni, Canons of Dance and Drama fame.’

  ‘Vishnu Sharma. In case you need any advice on polity.’

  ‘Raja Bhoj.’

  ‘I am merely Gangwa, the oil-presser.’

  ‘Clouds are thundering in the dark skies. Kalidasa.’

  ‘Bhavabhuti . . .’

  ‘Bhartrihari! As I said, All the world is a stage and we the actors. You are an actor, I am an actor, ha— ha—”

  Playwright Shudrak quietly drove past in a clay cart. A lot of pretty women trooped in, jingling their anklets. They looked like queens.

  ‘Princess Rajeshwari . . . I outwitted the scholars of China!’

  ‘Prabhavati!’

  ‘Ratnavali!’ This woman was heavily made up and coquettish.

  Playwright-king Harsha, who had been sitting meekly in a corner with his pen behind his ears, raised his eyes when he heard the voice of his celebrated heroine. He took the cue and declaimed: ‘We were called Sri Prithvi Vallabh . . . beloveds of the goddesses of Wealth and Earth . . .’

  The fish-eyed stone-woman remained nameless and continued to sing.

  All of a sudden, swords clanked and the courtyard lit up with their terrible lustre. There was a hailstorm of chopped-off heads.

  “We are the Chandela Rajputs!” they were shouting. “We are the Baghelas. We are the Rathors. We fought among ourselves and the Huns turned up—and the Turks!” They began to hop around on one leg each. “Like we did, you will go too. . . .” Most of them were headless, and they began singing the Ballad of Alha-Udal at the top of their voices.

  Kamal thought his eardrums would burst. Trembling, he opened his eyes. Dawn had broken on the horizon and outside, some peasants were going towards their fields merrily singing the Ballad of Alha-Udal. Kamal looked around quickly, greatly confused. He could not remember where he was. Then he tried to gather his violently disturbed thoughts. This was Behraich. He had been sleeping fitfully in the desolation of Shravasti. He had had a dream, populated by all the shadowy figures he had been reading and hearing about. The Sufis have a lot to say about such dream-phenomena.

  He rubbed his eyes again and began to ponder. Allah, Allah—he was all alone in a ghost-town and surrounded by ancient apparitions. Reason fails on such occasions.

  What was it—a visionary dream? Or simply a nightmare?

  Sheikh Mohyeddin Ibn-ul-Arabi . . . Yes, that clever Spaniard, may come to my rescue. That illustrious Sufi philosopher dwelt at length on creative imagination. He said whoever did not have an active imagination could not reach the Heart of the Matter . . .

  Is my fascination for Champavati making me mystically inclined? Do I need an invisible mentor, the “Silent Speaker” of Ibn-ul-Arabi? Do I need a guide? A murshid? A living sheikh? Much perplexed he thought of the Prayer of Protection. After all these years he remembered the incantation his Shia mother had taught him when he was a child. After he had tied his turban he raised his right forefinger, waved his right hand seven times around his head and recited: “The Lord Prophet is before me, Fatima is above my head. Ali is to my right. The Imams and the Companions are all around me.” Then he repeated the invocation for Ali’s aid: “Call Ali, the Manifester of Wonders. Just call him for help and see . . .”

  Fortified thus and feeling reassured, he came out of the roofless hall. His faithful black horse stood outside tied to a pillar, neighing. Perhaps he was saying, let’s get out of here, master, as fast as we can! He patted the animal and gave him some grass for breakfast. Then thoughtfully, he walked down to a pond for his ritual ablutions and early-morning prayer.<
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  The sun came up. While Kamal was crossing the dhak forest which surrounded the nearby stupas he saw a Shaivite sadhu hovering over an old grave. The ascetic went around the grave once and looked up. He had red eyes and matted locks. His fearsome face displayed marks of white ash. He wore a red tiger-skin and seemed to have emerged from last night’s nightmare. ‘I need not be afraid of this Tantric.’ Kamal quickly told himself, ‘but what on earth is he doing over here . . . it’s as though he were whispering to someone.’

  “Maulana,” the yogi who had noticed Kamal’s pedagogue’s turban, spoke sternly, “Go back to town at once. You have bad news waiting for you. Do not tarry.”

  Kamal was incensed. This fellow is trying his sorcery on me. He knew one should never annoy powerful Tantrics so he asked politely, “Baba, what are you doing over here, near this grave?” (The Turko-Persian word Baba, father, was generally used for Hindu holy men.)

  “Don’t ask questions.”

  “No, you must tell me. Are you in touch with the departed?”

  “We have our own relationships and our own channels of communication. Don’t poke your nose in our affairs. Go away.”

  Kamal knew about the belief that Sufi saints have their own unseen, parallel spiritual administration of the world, their own ranks and grades, and so on. They have high-ranking women saints too who are part of the occult government, and the Khwaja of Ajmer is the Supreme Monarch, Sultan-ul-Hind. Was this yogi in touch with them, too?

  “So you were conversing with this gentleman who was buried here four hundred years ago? Do you know who he was?” Kamal argued. The yogi glared at him, looking very cross. Kamal went on recklessly, his rationalist mind had taken over once again. “He was one of the soldiers of Salaar Masud’s volunteer army—some adventurous youth from Afghanistan or Georgia or Azerbaijan. There had been a skirmish over here, too, against Sohal Dev. He must have fallen in battle and been buried here. I am a historian, so I know.”

  The yogi raised his hand solemnly. “You are an ignorant and arrogant young fool. Go away! There is a messenger awaiting you with bad news,” he repeated and turned his back. Kamal’s bravado vanished. He was scared once again.