River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  “Gradually he withdrew into his shell. His mother’s death, his long formative years in exile, the way Madame Nina had robbed his trusting father, his unwanted betrothal, all this was enough to make him an introvert. He grieved quietly for his Dad who lay buried in a snow-covered Lutheran cemetery in the Alps.

  “Once Amir visited his mother’s grave in Kalyanpur. He said to me that he now realised how important it was to die in one’s own country and find a plot in one’s own graveyard. One would not feel lonely in the Hereafter—he had discovered some sort of nationalism via dolorosa.

  “He joined La Martiniere College which both Hari and I also attended. La Mart was established in Lucknow in 1848 by General Claude Martin’s Trust for the education of European boys. The children of the Indian elite also studied there. I had no older brother, so I hero-worshipped Cousin Amir, even proudly wore his hand-me-downs. He spoke English with a French accent and he was a born lady-killer. However, his only friend and confidant was the loyal coachman Gunga Din, perhaps because the humble servant was the last remaining link with his father’s ruined household, and Amir’s childhood.

  “My sister Tehmina knew he didn’t much care for her, and was too proud to let him see that she was quite genuinely in love with him—for, wasn’t he going to be her husband in the near future?

  “Tehmina attended La Martiniere Girls’ High School. Perched up on a green hillock across the river, the school was housed in a medieval-looking ‘English’ castle surrounded by a moat. The castle was called Khurshid Manzil and had been built by the Anglicised Nawab Saadat Ali Khan for his queen, Khurshid Zadi. I often saw Tehmina standing in one of the castle windows talking to some classmate. It all somehow reminded me of Byron and Walter Scott.

  “Then Amir Reza reached the University. The campus was known as Badshah Bagh, King’s Garden—for it had been laid out by King Nasiruddin Hyder in 1828— and Amir was known as ‘Shahzada Gulfam of Badshah Bagh.’

  “Let’s face it, he was no intellectual giant. The main aim of his life was to become Triple Blue of the University. I continued to be his ADC till I grew up and replaced him with Jawaharlal Nehru.

  “Then Champa Baji entered the scene and complicated our unruffled lives. Amir Reza was engaged to my sister, Tehmina, but fell in love with Champa Ahmed. He graduated from Canning College and joined the Royal Indian Navy. He was too glamorous to have become a civilian or a boxwallah. Now if you put Charles Boyer in uniform the result would be devastating. Champa too responded to Cousin Amir’s subtle overtures. Slowly, the plot thickened. Now, whenever she was mentioned, Tehmina laughed hollowly and Hari Shankar looked foolish and lit a cigarette. Champa Baji was the interloper.

  “This Hari was a rascal. He was well aware of my calf-love for Champa. He would tell Amir darkly, ‘You have made your conquest, sir, but some people I know have the delusion that they can also attract Champa Baji’s attention.’ Then he would proceed dutifully to tell Amir that girls like Champa came to the University by the dozen, how could she be compared to our Tehmina? Hari was concerned about Tehmina who was his rakhi sister. See, both Hari and I belonged to rural areas where these traditions and old values were very strong.

  “Champa was not one of us. We all came from the same background. Hari Shankar’s family and my people had been friends for generations. Champa had come from Banaras and joined the Isabella Thoburn College for her B.A. in 1941.

  “In 1944, Tehmina did her M.A. It was the fateful summer when her ‘childhood engagement’ with Amir was broken.

  “I am wondering whether I can ever give you the complete picture of the time when all this happened? There are so many things . . . the royal gate-house in King’s Garden which was now the University post office, the malins passing by, jingling their anklets. Queen Qudsia Mahal used to live in Badshah Bagh and her chief malin carried a khurpi with a bejewelled handle.

  “Mir1 said:

  Kaha main ne, gul ka hat kitna sabaat?

  Kali ne ye sun ke tabassum kiya.

  ‘I asked how long the rose would last. The rose-bud heard me and smiled.’

  “Sorry, I digressed. Where was I? I was going to tell you about our convocation. You see no one can convey to others a particular atmosphere with all its associations and overtones. No artist, no painter, no writer can do so. Consider these very insignificant details: at night a humble lantern burned in a niche of the historic gateway of Badshah Bagh. An old woman who wore a red lehnga picked up fallen tamarinds on Faizabad Road on hot summer afternoons—she was killed by a passing train near the railway crossing. Our old cook, Noor Ali, looked like Ali Baba and recited the Khalif Bari Sarjan Haar although he was illiterate.

  “Look, here I am sitting on a high balcony of Bennet Hall giving you a running commentary of the Convocation. The green lawns are hedged with red and yellow canna flowers, the shadows of the red-stone buildings, colourful saris, the gold embroidered gowns of the faculty have all mingled in a sunny haze. Time is flying, I can hear the swish of its wings.

  “The boy in charge of recorded music has put on Pahari Sanyal’s New Theatre song on the loud speaker—Whose voice do I hear in the depth of my heart as the caravan leaves. This ghazal is being played especially in honour of the famous singer-actor from Calcutta. Clad in a silk kurta and white Bengali style dhoti he is sitting in the front row, busy talking to his friends from the faculty of Marris College. The song resounds—

  Yeh cooch ke waqt kaisi awaz

  Dil ke kanon mein a rahi hai—

  Caravan after caravan of young hopefuls arrives to receive their degrees before entering the market-place of life.

  “Now I hand over the microphone to my comrade, Hari Shankar . . . Hello . . . hello . . . Little Sir Echo, how do you do, hello . . . hello . . .”

  Hari Shankar replies: “Hello . . . This is Hari Shankar, Hari Shankar Raizada, Kamal’s double and alter-ego. The only brother of Laj and Nirmala, Champa Baji’s stooge. But I’m quite a significant character, too, playing so many roles. How shall I begin, where shall I enter? All this is very confusing.

  “The new graduates of Isabella Thoburn College arrive, led by their Principal and the American faculty. They are all wearing caps and gowns and look very elegant, indeed.

  “Now Vice-Chancellor Habibullah arrives, accompanied by senior professors who have already become living legends in India’s academic world.

  “In front of me,” Hari Shankar continued, “the panorama of the Convocation is bathed in soft winter sunshine. Tehmina looks radiant in her cap and gown. Soon it will be evening, the girls will stroll down to Hazarat Ganj and have their photographs taken at C. Mull’s studio. That was also an annual ritual. Year after year, throngs of young women in their caps and gowns trooped down to C. Mull’s for their photographs. All year round, tall and handsome Mr. Mull could be seen standing in his doorway. He was always impeccably dressed in a black suit with a carnation in his collar. He stood at his plate-glass portal in such style as though it were a studio in Paris. Mind you, Lucknow was called the Paris of India, anyway. The Mulls were as old as Whiteways of Hazrat Ganj, the former abode of Begum Hazrat Mahal.

  “Kamal’s sister, Tehmina, was a close friend of my sister, Laj. They often ganged up to persecute us. Allah! Please, Hari Shankar, get us tickets for Sadhana Bose’s dance at the Mayfair; take us to see Waterloo Bridge; get my library card renewed . . .

  “I remember one evening I was about to leave for Hazrat Ganj when I noticed these two sitting on our riverside terrace. They also saw me and one of them promptly shouted, ‘Hey, Hari. take us Ganjing too. We would like to see Gaslight.’

  “‘Forget it,’ I yelled back. ‘I have an important appointment to keep in the coffee-house.’ ‘And my pink sari from the dyers,’ Laj added. ‘Just make a detour to Aminabad.’

  “‘Big deal! Pipe down, bye!’ I climbed on to my bike. Then a certain sadness overtook me. There they sat on the balustrade, dangling their feet, looking so fragile and vulnerable despite their bravado and N
ew Woman stance.

  “‘Go on. Shout at her,’ said Tehmina reproachfully. ‘The poor thing is a guest in your house for two more months’. Then in an over-dramatic manner, she broke into Amir Khusro’s2 wedding song—

  Kahey ko biyahi bides, sun Babul morn.

  ‘Why did you send me to an alien land, O Father mine.’ For the last six hundred years this song has been tearfully sung in north India at the time of the bride’s departure from her parental home.

  “Tehmina continued to sing: ‘Father, O Father, we are birds of your courtyard who fly away. We are cows of your field only to be driven off whenever you say.’

  “Laj wiped a tear.

  “Father, O Father, you gave double-storeyed mansions to my brothers; an alien land to me.’

  “I pedalled off briskly, feeling very emotional myself. The song followed me as I came out of the gate. Tehmina was perhaps thinking of her own uncertain future because of Champa Baji’s sudden intrusion in her fiancé’s life.

  “Laj was married in 1943 and went away to Delhi. Now we had to run errands for Tehmina, Talat and Nirmal.

  “Often Talat stopped by our house in the evenings when she returned from Marris College. I sat in the window of my turret and watched her carriage descending the slope. At this particular moment all used to be perfectly still and sad and fragrant. The silent music of the river reached my ears, and my heart sank. Mir Anis described the violet hour as the time when the river stopped flowing:

  Jhut-puta waqt hai, behta huwa darya thehra.3

  “My alter-ego, Kamal, sometimes said that sunsets depressed him too. He was ultra-sensitive, too much beauty made him nervous. I knew what he meant.”

  Kamal started to speak again. “When we returned to Lucknow from our fun trips, the train stopped first at nearby Sandila in the cool, early morning haze, and we heard the familiar cries of the vendors selling the famous laddus of Sandila. Country gentlemen dressed in snow-white, very wide pajamas and dhotis, white angarkhas and dopalli topis strolled to and fro, waiting for the next train. The platform was covered with the bright red bajri of finely ground bricks. A number of palkis always stood by in a row for purdah ladies. The railway station was surrounded by flowering trees and mango orchards and it was utterly peaceful, interrupted only by the cries of laddu-sellers.

  “In July ’44 when we were returning from Mussoorie, the train halted at Sandila as usual. A laddu-seller appeared in the compartment’s window. ‘Huzoor! These laddus are waiting to be tasted by your honour.’

  “‘Are they fresh?’ asked Shankar teasingly.

  “‘Upon my honour, your honour. This is Sandila, sire,’ he said with such pride as though this was the very heaven! We bought a clay handi covered with red tissue-paper. The train moved. A village bride was ambling down towards the gate, crying profusely. The rustic bridegroom grinned from ear to ear. He was dressed in turmeric yellow, followed by jovial baratis.

  “‘Hope Nirmal gets married soon, like Laj did,’ remarked Hari Shankar lightly. ‘Now she has taken over from Laj—don’t chase girls, don’t smoke. Don’t do this. Don’t do that.’

  “‘You ought to be ashamed of yourself,’ I replied remorsefully. ‘You want even Nirmal to go away soon so that you can have the time of your life, with nobody to check or disapprove.’”

  Hari Shankar said, “We have an ancient folk belief in our country, that if you stand under a tree at twilight or at high noon, you may be ‘captured’ by the sprite resident in that tree. Also, according to a Muslim folk belief, a good-looking young man can be ‘touched’ by a passing fairy and lose his reason. Or if a virgin goes up to the roof to dry her hair after her bath a wayward jinn could fall in love with her and ‘possess’ her . . .

  “In Agha Hasan Amanat’s Urdu opera Inder Sabha, ‘Prince Gulfam of India’ was asleep on the roof of his palace in Akhtar Nagar, which was the poetic name for Lucknow, Capital of Vajid Ali Shah ‘Akhtar’. Subz Pari of Raja Inder’s celestial court happened to fly past. She fell in love with Gulfam and had him ‘abducted’. Raja Inder was furious. He banished her from his court. The Prince was cast in a well in the Caucasus Mountains. She put on an ochre robe and became a jogan. There was a happy ending.

  “Raja Inder was played by Vajid Ali Shah himself. Handsome men came to be called Gulfam, Rose-face. Our Cousin Amir was also referred to as Prince Gulfam of Badshah Bagh or Gulfam of Gulfishan.

  “Amir played tennis against the top players of India, Ghaus Mohammed and Miss Khanum Haji. He was captain of the Boat Club. He also joined the Forward Bloc for a short while then left it. He was groping for an emotional anchor which he probably found in Champa Ahmed. It was promptly said in India Coffee House in Hazrat Ganj that Gulfam had been abducted by Subz Pari.”

  Now Kamal resumed speaking: “Sorry, I was telling you about Amir and Tehmina. Hari and I had been urgently called home from Mussoorie to persuade Tehmina to say ‘yes’. The Doon Express was now reaching the pleasant suburbs of Lucknow, and the long miles of Alam Bagh rolled out beside the running train. Railway lines glistened in the rain as the train slowly steamed in at Char Bagh Junction. My heart always sank a little when the train entered Char Bagh—we had come home.

  “Hari Shankar said from his berth, ‘We have this rehearsal at the radio station tomorrow—go along today to Champa Baji’s cottage and give her the script.’ Then after a pause he asked, ‘Why has Tehmina done this? I mean why did she refuse to marry Bhaiya Saheb?’

  “I looked at him in anger. Whatever I thought somehow reached his mind through some kind of telepathy. I just couldn’t get rid of this fellow. He was like my invisible other self. My humzad. My heart sank.

  “Qadeer was waiting for us in my D.K.W. motor car outside in the portico. I dropped Hari Shankar at Water Chestnut House, and went home.”

  Silence fell, as though the memory-candle had been blown out. Slowly the black-out lifted and Kamal began speaking again: “I reached Gulfishan and wandered from room to room in the strangely silent house. I didn’t know how to ask Tehmina the reason for her refusal. I knew the reason. As did everybody else.

  “I took the radio script and made for Champa Baji’s cottage in Chand Bagh. I found her sitting under a garden umbrella on the tiny front lawn.

  “My cousin Amir sat on a cane stool and he rose to his feet when he saw me coming. ‘Hello, Kamal! When did you come? Just now, eh? I must scoot. Have to go somewhere.’ Quickly he crossed over to the gate, got into his red sports car and drove away. He looked quite shaken. Obviously, something terrible had happened at Gulfishan.

  “I sat down awkwardly. ‘Baji, this is your part.’ I gave her the papers of the humorous Hawapur University programme we used to write and broadcast over AIR, Lucknow, every now and then.

  “‘Who thought of this title?’ she asked curtly.

  “‘Talat. She is the budding writer locally, as you know.’

  “‘Very apt. You people are so windy,’ she said with scorn.

  “‘You mean windbags, ma’am.’

  “‘Well, my English is not good. No La Martiniere, no nothing. Besides, you all think you are the cat’s whiskers—correct? That’s the phrase I have picked up from you baba-log only,’ she continued in her Indian English. She looked furious, so I had no choice but to take her leave.

  “Talat’s friend Gyanwati Bhatnagar was singing over the radio. Her voice poured out from the house and undulated in the sun. Were there still some certainties left in life, and peace and some kind of hope?”

  Talat resumed speaking and picked up her own thread:

  “The carriage descended on the slope of the kutcha road and entered the compound of Water Chestnut House.” She paused, and said, “Don’t you see, this is so useless? My past is important only to myself. Others can find little meaning in it,” she said to Kamal.

  “Like pious thieves we evoked our special gods but they betrayed us,” said Talat. “Our Thieves’ Kitchen has closed down. I tiptoe up to the confluence of light and darkness thinking
of new names for things—like the golden, architect-god Prajapati, or like Adam and Eve.”

  “Now I remember nothing,” said Kamal Reza, raising his face. “Passing years float around me like soap bubbles. Lights glisten on rain-filled streets of the night. The moon is rolling over sleeping chimneys, slipping away towards the sea. Sharp winds whistle tipsily over southern moors. Birds of the night are circling over the oily waters of heaving harbours.

  “Crowds pass by. Canoes sail on shaded streams. I am on the shore.

  “I have to search for a ship. A ship whose lights have gone out, which will quietly enter the dark ocean. A ship which is going towards a place where, I have this gut feeling, there is nobody to say, ‘Welcome home, Kamal Reza . . .”

  1 Mohammed Taqi Mir (1722–1810), one of the Four Greats of Urdu poetry.

  2 Amir Khusro, 14th Century Sufi poet and musician. He was the chief disciple of Hazrat Nizamuddin Aulia, the patron saint of Delhi.

  3 Urdu poet Mir Anis (1805–1874).

  32. A Spray of Roses

  Lucknow, July 1939.

  Lanterns lit up the boats passing under the bridge. Sitting in the porch of Water Chestnut House, Talat and Nirmala were now discussing their music lessons. Master Suraj Baksh was about to come and Nirmala had not yet practiced her lakshan geet. Trilochan came upstairs, grinning. “Surdas-ji is here,” he announced.

  Master Suraj Baksh came upstairs with firm, confident steps. He was a young, sightless graduate of Marris College who always wore a checked coat. He came all the way from Baroodkhana to Nirmala’s house on foot, for his tuition. When he walked his head moved from side to side as though he was witnessing scenes hidden from the sighted. He entered the veranda. Nirmal touched his feet. He enquired pleasantly of Talat what she had learnt that evening in the music college. She replied, took his leave, wished everybody goodnight and ran downstairs.