River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  During Moharrum big ‘majlises’ were held in the Imambara. The events of the martyrdom of the Prophet’s grandson Hussain were recounted and elegies recited. Indigent Christians lived in the basement rooms and the women did brisk business during the Forty Days of Mourning, looking after the mourners’ shoes and collecting charity. A white-skinned Anglo-Indian community also flourished in Lal Bagh and had their own club in Hazrat Ganj. A number of blonde Eurasian girls were professional Kathak dancers—Vajid Ali Shah’s culture still held sway in Lucknow—and one of them, called Rosie, lived with her parents in a bungalow near Tatterwalla School.

  In the monsoons when the students sang Gaur Malhar in the music class above the gate-house, and the greenery outside was drenched in rain, the world seemed to be full of liquid music. The easterly wind brought the sound of Rosie’s ghungroos to the tower-room as she practiced in her bungalow. Her teacher was a shishya of Shambhu Maharaj of the House of Vajid Ali Shah’s Kalka Binda Din.

  The matric candidates left for Banaras in March 1941. Kamal and Hari Shankar came to Char Bagh to see their sisters off. “You go ahead,” said Kamal gleefully, “we’ll join you there for sight-seeing as soon as our own exams are over. We have always wanted to visit Sarnath.”

  “I am told, on reliable authority, that some absolutely stunning females study in the colleges of Banaras,” observed Hari Shankar with a wink.

  “What would your poor students think if they overheard their Junior Maulvi Saheb talking like this!” Nirmala admonished her older brother.

  Thereupon Hari Shankar turned towards his students gathered on the platform, and solemnly began explaining some important points about Mirza Ghalib’s poetry for their Urdu paper.

  34. The Maharajah’s Rolls Royce

  Champa Ahmed looked out of the window of Besant College’s library. It was a hot and dusty April morning and a whirlwind was dancing in the distance. Yellow laburnum leaves flitted about in the compound. Mrs. Annie Besant smiled soulfully out of her oil portrait which hung right above the head of the frowning and harassed librarian.

  Bye-bye, Mrs. Besant, if I get a first class I won’t be coming here again, Champa said quietly and quickly sent up a little prayer: ‘Please, Allah Mian, give me a first division in my intermediate arts exam for the sweet sake of Mohammed and the Children of Mohammed. Amen.’ Then she hastily added— ‘My mother’s name is Nafisa Begum.’ She had always been told that the angels who convey the prayers On High only require the name of the supplicant’s mother.

  Her friend. Lila Bhargava, returned her books and said to her as they went downstairs, “My cousin Kusum has come from Lucknow for her high school exam. She has studied in that quaint place called Master Saheb’s Tatterwalla School. Let’s go to the University and meet her.”

  Upon a huge, canopied terrace girl students of the Theory of Music paper were softly humming their answers before writing them down. The humming could be heard outside where Champa and Lila stood under a flowering mango tree, waiting for Kusum Kumari Bhargava. The sun became more intense. “This is the time when lucky people go to Mussoorie,” Lila remarked wistfully. Champa said nothing. She had learnt to accept her lot. Year after year she had spent summer in the same heat and dust, in the same congested mohalla of the city of Banaras.

  Kusum walked towards the canopy.

  Champa’s parents belonged to the genteel white-collar class. Her father was a briefless lawyer. He came from the western district of Moradabad, and had set up his legal practice in his wife’s home-town. Her mother’s people were comparatively better off. Champa was an only child and her father had already received several proposals for her marriage. But she had not been to a convent school and she did not know how to roller-skate. Champa’s father took a mild interest in Muslim League politics and especially went to meet Amir Ahmed Khan, Raja of Mahmudabad, when he visited Banaras. The Raja was financing the new Pakistan Movement.

  Banaras was also the centre of Hindu revivalism. Champa’s ambitious mother was not concerned with politics—her plan was to send her daughter to Lucknow’s Isabella Thoburn. A girl’s social status was elevated overnight by attending this American missionary college, and upper-class girls from all over India came here to study. Champa’s father wanted her to join the Muslim Girls’ College, Aligarh, but Nafisa Begum put her little foot down firmly. “No,” she said, “my bitiya will go to I.T. College like the daughters of Rani Phool Kunwar and the Begum Saheb of Bilari.”

  Kashi Naresh’s white Rolls Royce glided by soundlessly like the Chariot of the Sun. Two beaming young men stepped out and glanced around blithely. One of them was of medium height, the other tall and very fair with curly hair. Both were highly presentable and seemed much pleased with themselves. Obviously, strangers to the campus. The Fair One stuck his thumbs in his trouser pockets and whistled softly, not unlike an English youth. Then they noticed the pretty girl in a white sari who lingered under the mango tree. The Fair One stopped whistling. Both of them realized that she was also observing them intently and looked away, embarrassed. The girl was amused and smiled faintly. Another young woman came along, fanning herself with a notebook.

  The young men covered their very high-class noses with their handkerchiefs in order to protect themselves from windblown dust. Two lanky, frock-clad kids bounced down the staircase of the canopied terrace and ran towards them. One of them shouted breathlessly, “Bhaiya, Bhaiya, can you imagine an examination hall where everybody was humming away to glory while doing their papers?” This child was pale and thin and resembled the dusky youth who addressed her as Nirmala. The rose-pink one with wavy hair seemed to be the sister of the Fair One. All four were speaking rapidly in English and in very pucca tones. The liveried chauffeur kow-towed before the girls and opened the royal limousine’s door.

  The Sun-Chariot vanished in the shining noonday haze. Lila had come back after briefly meeting Kusum and had taken a long, hard look at the boys.

  “His Highness doesn’t have sons or nephews of that age, so who were they?” she wondered aloud.

  “Loafers,” answered Champa primly.

  “So carefree and happy, as though they owned the world.”

  “The Rolls Royce has done it. If they had come here on an ekka you wouldn’t have thought twice about them,” Champa told her friend sternly.

  These two students of English literature had just finished their Bernard Shaw. Lila continued, “They stood there with such aplomb and poise—like Caesar and Antony.”

  “Listen, Cleopatra, the sun has affected your mind. They were merely a pair of snooty young Brown Sahebs who thought they had arrived in a native pathshala by mistake.”

  “And the kids were so bright and chirpy,” Lila remarked.

  “They were just a bunch of spoilt brats, all four of them. Educated in English schools in the hills, a different breed altogether. No concern of ours. Stop envying them.”

  Lila changed the topic. “Listen, Champa, this cousin of mine, Kusum, has invited us for the musical play that the Tatterwalla Lucknow gang is going to stage at the place they are staying. Kusum is also going to join Marris College in Lucknow.”

  Champa frowned. Marris College of Hindustani Music. Colvin Taluqdar’s College. La Martiniere. Canning College. Loretto Convent, Isabella Thoburn. Karamat Hussain Muslim Girls College—the Golden Circle. The magic world of Lucknow, inhabited by such Charming People as she had just seen. Suddenly she was struck by a wave of resentment and frustration, annoyed with her friend Lila, a poor schoolteacher’s daughter, carried away by the glimpse she had caught of those enchanting creatures.

  On her way home, however, as her rickety tonga passed through noisy bazaars, she found herself comparing her own lowly existence with the grandeur of the denizens of Quality Street. The tonga entered a lane and stopped before a modest homestead. This is where I live, she told herself resignedly. Those two uppity lads who were stunned by her looks, if they were to see her in this depressing petit bourgeois locality, how disappointed they w
ould be! Who were they? She could lecture a guileless Lila on the futility of being envious, but she secretly yearned for all the good things of life herself.

  35. The Last Song of Vajid Ali Shah

  In Banaras, Master Saheb’s flock was staying in an ornate three-storeyed red-brick mansion, surrounded by a neglected garden. Its windows were heavily grilled, its balconies and spiral stairs made of wrought iron. A pair of wooden dwarpals with saucer-like eyes and fiercely pointed jet-black moustaches ‘guarded’ the main entrance. They wore sola topis and their quaint uniforms were painted a garish blue. They held wooden guns in their hands and were typical of post-1857 Indian kitsch.

  The landlady was a pious Brahmin widow who lived on the third floor and was popularly known as the Panditayin. When, in 1856, Sultan-i-Alam Vajid Ali Shah was being taken to Calcutta, he stopped over in Banaras and gave a large sum of money to his host, Maharaja Ishari Parsad Narain Singh, for a specific purpose. The shehnai players of the city were traditionally Muslim and were often employed by temple priests to play their wind instruments in the morning for the ritual of ‘waking up’ the deities. The deposed king set up a trust for the shehnai players to play in the main temple of Kashi every morning—the parting gesture of a monarch whose predecessors had created an exquisite composite culture during the 166 years of their reign over this land.

  Students of Hindustani classical music used to sit under a tamarind tree in the garden and practice for their examination. One morning the tiny Panditayin strolled down and handed Talat an old copy book. “See, bitiya, when Jaan-i-Alam came here he gave some of his rare compositions, his thumris, to my grandfather who was an acharya of Shastriya sangeet.”

  Talat was thrilled. She opened the tattered book gingerly. It had a few lines scribbled in it in Hindi and Urdu. “We have kept it safely, it is so precious,” the Panditayin said. She retrieved the book from Talat and trotted back to the house.

  At meal times a dining-cloth was spread on the floor in a hall. A fat Brahmin cook trundled in, followed by his thin assistant who carried a brass pail full of curd. The chief Misra ladled out curd and poured it into the girls’ brass cups from a great height so that he was not polluted, for the girls belonged to all manner of castes and creeds. Vegetarian food was served on banana leaves.

  When the examinations began Master Saheb’s wife gravely posted herself at the exit every morning and observed the propitiating ceremony of Oil-and-Lentil, and Fish-and-Curd. These customs, signifying good omen, were followed by Hindus and Muslims alike. Passing through the door on her way to the examination hall, each girl looked at her reflection in the pot of oil, and a drop of curd was applied to her forehead. The words “curd and fish” were repeated by everyone. Fish was a symbol of good fortune and adorned the royal crest of the Nawabs of Oudh—the gates of their buildings displayed a pair of fish facing each other in bas-relief.

  Kamal and Hari Shankar turned up on the morning of the Theory of Music exam. When Talat and Nirmala came out of the canopied terrace, they saw the two jokers standing before a sparkling Rolls Royce. They were looking in the direction of a mango tree and the object of their appreciative attention was, of course, a senior girl in a white cotton sari. She had a golden brown complexion and was very pretty indeed. The schoolgirls gave her a quick once-over and ran towards the limousine.

  Kamal and Hari were staying with the chief minister or diwan of a princely state across the Ganga. They had come to the University in one of the royal motor cars to take their kid sisters to the estate for lunch. The Diwan Bahadur was distantly related to the Reza family.

  “I have to buy a Banarasi sari and lots of bangles for Qamrun,” said Talat as they reached the bridge-of-boats. “For Hussain’s wife, Ram Daiya, and Susan also. Give us some dough.”

  “Are you under the impression that we are tycoons? That we operate some kind of a private bank? We are two destitute bachelor-students who subsist on charity ourselves,” said Hari Shankar piously.

  “But in spite of our poverty we can be large-hearted like nawabs,” added Kamal. “If you tell us who that vision was that we saw in the fragrant arbour, we will buy all the bangles of Banaras for you two.”

  “What’s that?” asked Talat. “What vision? Where is the fragrant arbour? Give us some dough, quick.”

  “Only if you find out about her first,” Hari Shankar haggled.

  They spent the day behind the khas screens of the Diwan’s large bungalow, and gossiped with his daughters who had come down from their convent school in Nainital. Though still a student, 20-year-old Hari was a prize bachelor. The chief minister’s begum was in her element suggesting suitable matches for him. “There are so many Rajas in Poorab Des with marriageable daughters, but they are all Thakurs. We’ll find a nice Kayastha girl for you, daughter of some ICS official . . .” The Kayasthas had retained the tradition of their caste, and now manned the British administration.

  After the examinations were over the girls, escorted by Master Saheb and Didi, shopped in the mysterious by-lanes of the old city. At nightfall they went boating on the Ganga, the next day they visited Sarnath in the blazing sun. Little brass lamps shone their light on the marble floor of a newly built Buddhist temple, and row upon row of golden statues of Prince Gautam Siddhartha glittered in the semi-darkness of the hall.

  “How peaceful. Shanti. Buddha’s Shanti,” remarked Talat thoughtfully. They were sitting on the cold marble floor.

  “Ahem . . . ,” Bano nodded and smiled wisely, for now she was about to reveal the truth: “We have come in here after roaming in the hot sun; we are bound to feel restful. And the hall is so cool.” Suddenly Talat got up and started to dance, and the other girls joined in.

  A day before their departure for Lucknow, a tiny stage was set up in the courtyard of the Panditayin’s house and decorated with plantain leaves. Cotton carpets were spread on the floor for spectators to sit on and a printed calico hung as a backdrop. There was no time to produce a regular play, so it was decided to present the story of Mira Bai. Instead of dialogue, the plot could unfold through the 16th century mystic-princess’s famous bhajans. The girls knew the popular story so well that they could ad lib. Shahida was playing the role of Mira’s stern husband, the Rana, who was against his wife’s total devotion to Krishna. From time to time, her moustache fell off. Kusum was the Emperor Akbar, though her untimely laughter spoilt the scene a little, and consequently was thoroughly enjoyed by the audience. Gyanvati Bhatnagar was a famous radio artist and an accomplished singer—naturally, she played Mira Bai.

  Talat was director and general handyman, and would ascend the stage whenever there was an unforeseen shortage of actors. In one scene she was Akbar’s prime minister, in another, Mira’s friend and confidante. In the scene where Mira Bai was married to the Rana, she borrowed Akbar the Great’s white moustache and, as a pandit, entered the ‘wedding canopy’ uttering some supposedly learned mumbo-jumbo. In the grand finale the gopis sang and danced around Bano who stood in the classical pose of Krishna, the Divine Flute Player. Farida, whose face had been decorated with little dots of toothpaste, made a very demure Radha. The audience sat under a starlit sky, Kamal and Hari squatted in the last row. They did not see Champa who was sitting in the front, near the stage.

  Champa’s prayers were answered. She obtained a first division in her intermediate arts examination and promptly got a coveted seat in Isabella Thoburn College, Lucknow. A well-to-do relative in Lucknow was informed of her forthcoming arrival on July 13. She started packing, but there was nothing much to take apart from the half dozen new cotton saris her mother had bought for her, costing three or four rupees each. One evening while her father was talking to a client in the room facing the lane, her mother came to her room and handed her an envelope. “Evening mail,” she said and returned to the kitchen.

  Champa opened the square, grey-blue, very classy envelope post-marked Mussoorie. The letter was in English. She was addressed informally as ‘My dear Champa’. It read: ‘I am glad
to learn that you are going to join our college this year.’ This was followed by detailed information about Chand Bagh. She was told that depending on her interest, the following clubs would welcome her. If she was an outdoor girl she ought to meet the Sports Director, Jaimala Appaswamy. The Tennis Secretary, Radha Shrinagesh, would love to have her in the Tennis Club in case she played that game. The Drama Society was waiting for her eagerly if she liked to pace the boards, etc. Also that she had been placed in the charge of the writer of the letter who was a student of B.A. final, and would be her official advisor in the coming year. Therefore, when she reached the college on July 14, 8 a.m., she would be met by the writer at the steps of Florence Nicholas Hall and the writer would try to solve all her problems. The letter was signed: Tehmina Reza, Oakland Hall, Mussoorie.

  Champa was flabbergasted. Who was this Tehmina Reza and how had she obtained her address? This was straight out of a story-book. Such mysterious epistles arrived in romantic Urdu novels written by upper-middle-class ladies of an earlier era. Then she remembered a volume of Irish fairy-tales she had once bought for four annas in a second-hand book shop. It had belonged to some English girl student of St. Mary’s Convent, Banaras, and was titled A Password to Fairyland. Was this stranger Tehmina Reza’s letter such a password? She couldn’t quite believe that she was going to enter the fabled world of The Elite. She may even become one of them some day, if God was on her side.

  36. The Moon Garden

  “Pledge we our faith dear Chand Bagh to thee, through years that onward roll . . .”