River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  “Yes, I do indeed,” she replied sharply. Her mood had changed and she looked angry. She did not like to be rebuffed.

  “Do you know that he has a wife?”

  “Either you are very naive or a plain damn fool, Sikatarri Baboo. All the gentlemen who come to see me have wives. So? Is that what you wanted to tell me urgently? Don’t waste my time!” she said imperiously and walked rapidly towards the arena.

  1 This song and its variations are still sung in Uttar Pradesh at childbirths and weddings.

  23. Farewell to Camelot

  Gautam was contrite. He must apologise to her and he must tell her about Sujata Debi.

  Being a man-eater, Champa was going to be the ruination of poor Cyril Ashley. He was fond of his Saheb and should try and save him. At the Residency he had learnt that Mr. Ashley was due to come here, probably as the next Resident. He decided to confide in Nawab Kamman. The young nobleman already knew that Cyril Ashley was his rival.

  Gautam went to see his friend one afternoon. “You know, Nawab Saheb, if you don’t act now, Cyril Saheb may take over.” He told Kamal Reza Bahadur about Sujata. The young man thought for some moments then said, “I’ll ask Champa to give us a concert in her garden house next week. There, you can talk to her undisturbed.”

  Kamman sent for his pen and ink-stand. The servant came back. “Huzoor, I can’t find a fresh quill, you have rubbed them all off, writing your ghazals.”

  “Get a fresh stock from the stationers at once.” The fellow left hastily.

  Gautam Nilambar grinned. “Nawab Saheb, for want of a pen you may lose Champa Jan. We have a saying in English about how for want of a nail a kingdom was lost—”

  “For want of a chair a kingdom was gained over here, Nilambar Mian! We are not losers.” Kamal Reza laughed. Chobdar brought fresh hookahs. Gautam was becoming quite a fop of Lucknow, he was even wearing a muslin angarkha and dopalli topi. After that unpleasant encounter with Champa on the way to Ramna, he had decided to indulge himself. Why not? And he could plant his feet in two boats simultaneously—one Indian, one English.

  “Nawab Saheb, how for want of a chair did you gain a kingdom?” he asked munching a paan.

  “See, uptil now the rulers of Oudh were officially designated the prime ministers of India—Nawab Vazirs. They owed nominal allegiance to the weak Mughal Emperors at Delhi. From Jehangir’s time the English ambassadors had to stand in audience before the Mughal Emperor in the Diwan-e-Khas at Agra and Delhi. They were not considered worthy enough in rank to sit on a chair like subedars, generals and other dignitaries of the Empire. After your East India Company became the virtual ruler of the land, Lord Myra the Governor-General expected to get a chair in the Durbar but Akbar Shah made him stand as usual. Lord Myra was furious. He asked the Court of Directors to elevate the Nawab-Vazir of Oudh to the status of a full-fledged monarch in order to cut the poor powerless Mughal Emperor to size. Now our Ghaziuddin Hyder is His Majesty the King of Oudh, so we have two kingy-wingies—one at Delhi, one at Lucknow . . .”

  The servant brought a fresh quill.

  “Now, I ask you, Gautam Mian—as Betaal used to ask Vikram at the end of each story—you being a budding thinker, was it chance or fate or foolishness and arrogance or hurt pride on the part of the poor figurehead Akbar Shah II, or the Cleverness of the English, or the good fortune of our Ghaziuddin Hyder, that all this came to pass?”

  Gautam thought for a while then replied. “A combination of all.”

  “Right!” Kamman scribbled a note to Champa asking her to arrange a musical evening in her garden house on a certain date.

  Gautam met her after the garden-house soiree was over and repeated the rather tiresome story of Sujata Debi.

  She listened carefully, then said, “Tell me, even if I do not meet Cyril Saheb, how would it help since he has lost interest in her? I know men. They are by nature promiscuous. Some get a chance to be unfaithful to their wives, some don’t. And that poor woman is not even legally married to him.” Champa sighed sympathetically and offered him a betel-leaf, indicating that she had dismissed the subject.

  Gautam saw her several times again in the garden house. They talked for long hours for she was a brilliant conversationalist. He sought out intelligent, educated females and had found one in Lucknow. She never enticed him to sleep with her. “Ours is a Platonic friendship,” he told her loftily.

  “Platonic, my foot,” she retorted. “It is a foolish kind of friendship, basically because you are a coward. But so be it.”

  Then he stopped seeing her altogether, there was no point. It was one of those absurdities of life—we meet the right people in the wrong places. “So be it,” she had said stoically while feeding her rabbits.

  The monsoons were about to set in and Gautam Nilambar got ready to return to Bengal. All his friends in the Residency came to the gate to see him off. A maidservant tied a little velvet band on his left arm entrusting him to the safe-keeping of the Twelth Imam. He was to take the ship from Cawnpore.

  He bade adieu to Lucknow with a heavy heart. When the horse-carriage reached the Naka, he suddenly said to his coachman, “Let’s go to Chowk first. I would like to buy some perfumes to take home with me.”

  Gunga Din understood. He drove to the Street of Perfume-makers, but stopped in front of Champa Jan’s house.

  She was amazed to see him. “You’ve come!” she exclaimed.

  “No, I’m going away, and I’m in a hurry.”

  “All men are in a hurry. I don’t know what they want to achieve.”

  “I just came to say goodbye, it was nice meeting you.”

  “Kind of you to say so.” She salaamed politely.

  “And I apologise again for my occasional rudeness.”

  “That’s all right. I, too, have realised that, after all, I am a mere singing woman. I liked you because you were different. Novelty is always attractive!”

  “I was merely a fake Englishman.”

  “No matter. We have a fake English king. He dresses up like William IV and marries Englishwomen. He even has his tazias made in England.”

  Gautam looked at her in silence. What an exceptionally intelligent, sensible young woman she was. He was going to leave her here, alone with her thoughts in this room full of silver lamps and damask curtains, and return to his dreary little hole in Manektala, to be alone with his thoughts.

  “You say you are a phoney firangi.”

  “Yes, and you meet real ones . . . That reminds me, I request you once again to keep Sujata Debi’s plight in mind when you see Mr. Ashley next.”

  “Oh, not that boring topic again! Have a heart! Who keeps my plight in mind when they see me?”

  “Are you unhappy? I thought you were on top of the world, as Lucknow’s prima donna.”

  “Are you happy as a successful young man? I have always seen you in a pensive mood.”

  “Well, I have my problems. I am trying to build up my life, find a place for myself in the sun, as they say.”

  “Indeed! Even if you think you are master of your destiny, it is ultimately Fate which decides your life.”

  She crossed over to the balcony and looked out. A wedding procession was passing by, a comic play was being enacted on a float, jugglers displayed their tricks in its wake. An orchestra played merry tunes upon another “mobile throne” and was followed by the bride’s lavishly decorated palki.

  “Lucky girl,” Champa mused aloud. After a few minutes she turned towards him.

  “Well, sir,” she resumed the formal stance of the day she had first met him. “You must not delay your departure. You don’t belong here. You must reach Calcutta before the rivers are in spate. And may God give you no other sorrow except the sorrow for Hussain. This is how we bless one another in this city but I repeated this phrase out of sheer habit, for you know neither Hussain nor sorrow. So, goodbye!”

  She made a bow with a faint smile and disappeared behind a damask curtain.

  Gunga Din drove back to the main roa
d. Gautam looked out at the busy street scene. Gallants swaggered in the lanes, officers of the Negro women’s platoon marched past. Female crooks loitered in the alleys, opium-eaters had assembled in front of their dens. How fascinating the world was! Shakespeare had called it a stage, Bhartrihari, too.

  They came out of the bazaar. The highway was full of camel-carriages, horses, elephants and sedan-chairs. The old yogi still sat under the tree outside the city gate. A log was burning in front of him. Gautam got down from the carriage and walked up to the shrine of the goddess. So far he had known her in the form of Kali, now she had shown herself as Jog Maya, Illusion, as well.

  The yogi addressed him, “Going away too soon, traveller!”

  “It is foolish to linger on the shores of a mirage, baba. Your city is an illusion. Jog Maya extended her ten arms to ensnare me, but she let me go. I am returning intact.”

  “None of us is intact, son,” the ascetic said. “We are clay dolls made by the Potter and we keep breaking all the time. Do not be so sure of your strength.” He picked up a little earth. “Look how fragrant it is. Take this handful of earth with you and place it in Jog Maya’s temple in Cuttack . . .”

  Gautam hesitated. Perhaps this fellow was a Tantric, and he was rapidly losing faith in his ancestral religion anyway.

  “Take it, this is the dust of Lucknow, carry it with you. For the spell of this city is such that it keeps haunting you forever. You think you have come out of the Imambara Asafi’s maze, but you are mistaken. Go . . .”

  The coachman told him, “This yogi baba was a general in Ali Janab Shuja-ud-Daulah’s army. He took sanyas after our defeat at Buxar . . .”

  Here was another strange custom of this country. After the Indian allies’ defeat at Buxar, Nawab Mir Qasim of Bengal had put on the garb of a fakir. How did that help? Gautam wondered.

  At nightfall they stopped at a serai which had been built by Raja Taket Rai, Asaf-ud-Daulah’s famous Minister of Finance. The armed sepoys in Company uniform provoked much comment at the inn. “A baboo on his way to Fort William. Ask him, when is the Company Bahadur reducing our taxes? He would know.”

  They surrounded him in the courtyard. Most of them were peasants on their way to Lucknow, carrying their petitions. How innocent and good these people were. He felt sorry that he was leaving Oudh.

  Torches flickered in the wind. Gautam was confused. He tried to reflect and analyse. Had there been lawlessness in India before the British came, commerce and industry wouldn’t have flourished to such an extent that it attracted the European powers. True, we had no Roman Law, but did the English abide by the book when they broke their treaties with native rulers?

  Neem leaves rustled in the gateway as Gautam lay awake on his cot. The inn-keeper’s sharp-tongued wife was busy cooking for the night-runners of the King of Oudh who had arrived with the royal mail and were on their way to Delhi. Gautam had learned in Lucknow that Shuja-ud-Daulah’s despatches used to reach the Peshwa’s Court from Fyzabad to Poona in one week—well they were not as benighted and inefficient as the English claimed.

  Why, why did we go down?

  Because we are fatalists. King and commoner, ascetic and courtesan, all resigned to their fate. The night-runners’ shadows were moving about on the quadrangle’s walls. The point is that the Europeans have become devotees of Reason. We are still medieval and emotional. The English are surprised and say that the natives were happier under their mad kings than they are now. But perhaps these kings were not all that mad, really . . .

  He felt a pang of sadness when he realised that this Faery Kingdom of Oudh, this Camelot, was probably not going to last long knowing, as he did, the might and shrewdness of the government he worked for in Fort William. After the death of Saadat Ali Khan the present-day Sultanate of Oudh was a sham and a farce. But this kingdom’s candles burned at both ends and they gave out a lovely light . . .

  24. The Pagoda Tree

  12th September 1825

  Honoured Sir,

  I beg to state that I am Maria Teresa Thomas, licencee of “Pagoda Tree”, Armenian Street, and I am pleased to inform you that I have now opened Tea Rooms in Ranee Mundy Galee, wherein the best Chinese beverage is served to August Personages of Calcutta. I am sending this epistle and the humble gifts to your office in Fort Willian so as not to cause unnecessary Annoyance, Suspicion and Speculation in the lofty mind of Lady Ashley, who I am told is in the family way, a delicate condition indeed.

  As they say, once bitten twice shy. When I first came to Calcutta twenty-five years ago and sent you a letter through a harkaru, your native Bibi bribed him and took the letter from him. Obviously she never gave the said epistle to you. Later I sent letters by Dawk. She intercepted them and through her native spies threatened me with Dire Consquences. Being a worshipper of Kalee, quoth she, she would get me eliminated through her sorcerers if I ever tried to contact you again. I gave up. No disrespect to you, Sir, but I thought it was not worth it. I mean Tour Honour were not worth getting murdered for.

  I came to this City from Madras when my Annabella was full 10 years old. My Papa had died, also my only brother (in the war against Tipoo Saheb in Seringapatam). After the death of my mother, my father’s Armenian partner sold our tavern and we shifted to Calcutta. Uncle Aratoon Aram Artoon opened an alehouse in Armenian Street and called it “The Pagoda Tree”. Then we opened a punch house in Bow Bazaar Road and also employed a number of chee chee girls to entertain the Jacks. I did not marry as per the Force of Circumstances and led a Loose Life. Annabella is a Beauty. I did not want her to grow up in the bawdy house. (She is your daughter, Sire, but I do not press the point because you may not believe it.) However, I put her in the Convent of the Holy Cross in the French Territory of Chandernagore. In Calcutta I have not told a soul about you. As for poor Uncle Aratoon, he knew the whole story. He went to Dacca on business and died there. But Annabella I did inform, and she never evinced any desire to meet you. Being of a deeply religious bent of mind, she was more interested in the Holy Family. Eventually she took the veil and at the age of thirty-five, as Sister Eliza of the Holy Cross, she looked a sad old woman when I went to see her last year. She is shut up in the nunnery, cut off from the Vile World which usually ill-treats us Females. Annabella prays to the Virgin for your salvation. Being a Protestant you should have little hope of Salvation, anyway, but even a wicked man like you may be forgiven because your saintly, though illegitimate, daughter is praying for you day and night.

  Now, why I am writing this letter is due to a happy occasion. The other day some journalists who frequent my Tea Rooms were discussing with much gusto and excitement your recent knighthood and also your marriage to a horsey aristocratic lady (no offence meant, Sir, I am only repeating what the above-mentioned journalists guffawed), and that you had safely come back to Calcutta and may soon be sent as Resident at the Court of the King of Oude. So, in order to congratulate you and in celebration of these Good Things happening to you (including your native Bibi’s demise by snake-bite—served her right—pardon me, Sir), I herewith forward to you (you need not send me a thank-you note) a box of the best Assam tea and bottles of Scotch Whiskey.

  Arise Sir Cyril, ha, ha.

  Yours faithfully,

  Maria Teresa

  of “The Pagoda Tree.”

  Cyril finished reading the letter, took off his glasses and had a momentary blackout. He feit dizzy and his hands trembled as he tore the note-paper into bits. He bent his head and sat very still, as if in deep meditation, although he had never prayed. For him the Bank of England had long been more important than the Church of England.

  He stood up, walked about in the room, stopped before the mirror of the hat-rack and looked at himself. Then he hissed aloud—“Rat!” The orderly on duty outside rushed in with a stick.

  “Where is it, huzoor?”

  “What?”

  “The rat.”

  Saheb, who shot tigers, had become so scared of a mouse that he was trembling. The order
ly looked under the table and all around the vast, high-ceilinged room.

  “Come out, you susra!” he hollered in Bihari Urdu, beating the floor with his stick.

  Meanwhile, Cyril took control of himself and said, “Never mind, Abdul, it came out for a moment but it’s vanished again.”

  “Huzoor, we need a new office cat. Tom has become too old.”

  “Yes, yes. You can go now, Abdul.”

  The chaprasi left, still quite perturbed.

  Cyril went back to his chair and closed his eyes. Now he had terrifying visions of Maria Teresa sending out copies of her letter to the Calcutta press. She had chosen the right time to appear, after thirty-six years, in order to blackmail him. He felt his heart sinking.

  Abdul went straight to the Saheb’s Man Friday, Joseph Lawrence.

  “Saheb is behaving strangely, Sir. I think he is not well at all.”

  Jo, the old faithful, hurried to his boss’s office and caught sight of Maria’s gift basket placed upon the mantelpiece. Then he noticed the torn letter lying on the table. He grasped the situation in a moment. He had learnt about Maria Teresa recently when she shifted to the respectable tea-shop in Rani Mundi Gully. He had met her and, being a fellow Eurasian, also sympathised with her. She had said calmly: “It was my destiny that I suffer. Why did I allow myself to be seduced by him? Now I know that all men are like Cyril Ashley—why blame him?”

  At Joseph Lawrence’s request she had kept her story a dead secret. He realised that she was a thoroughly decent woman and would not dream of blackmailing Sir Cyril. Her servant had brought the hamper and letter to him in the morning. Now he wished he had told Cyril about her earlier and saved him this massive shock. Anyway, right now, what the boss needed was a good strong drink. Lawrence took out a bottle of Scotch from the beribboned basket, while the newly created knight stared at him blankly.

  It did not take him long to announce, “Joseph, I am drunk like a lord,” after which he passed out.