River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  The Baradari of Qaiser Bagh was Vajid Ali Shah’s Xanadu. Masters of Kathak like Achchan and Shambhu Maharaj dance there, ragas float out of Marris College, there is continuum in the sound of music.

  There was this Ustad they say, who, through his rendering of certain ragas, could cure any ailment, and another who could conjure the psychic forms of ragas and raginis through his singing. When a Maharashtrian pandit of Shastriya Sangeet sings and an Ustad gives a concert, do they belong to two different civilizations? Now this new business of Culture is being redefined as “pure Hindu” or “pure Muslim” by the Mahasabha and the Muslim League.

  Begum Shahnawaz wore a silk sari and her long ear-rings flashed as she spoke in front of the microphone in Qaiser Bagh. The All India Muslim League was revived at that session by M.A. Jinnah and Amir Mohammed Khan, the youthful Raja of Mahmudabad.

  He is young, and he is an idealist, said Kamal’s father. The Raja is financing the new Pakistan Movement. Mr. Jinnah had been a Congressman, once called the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity. His wife, Ratibai, was the exquisite daughter of a Parsi baronet, Sir Dinshaw Petit. The Jinnahs were High Society. When Mrs. Jinnah died, her photograph was published in a magazine with the caption ‘Alas! This beautiful face is vanished forever!’

  In 1938 an industrial exhibition was held on the banks of the Gomti. Kamal sat on the steps of Gulfishan as film songs played on loudspeakers in the evening wind. One of the songs wafted: Kaya ek gharonda hai. The body is a house of clay . . . house of clay . . . , sung by a film actor called Ashraf Khan. Like the Jews in America, a disproportionately large number of Muslim men and women belonged to the entertainment industry and were among the leading performing artistes of the country. Innumerable gharanas had maintained the traditions of Hindustani classical music. The Muslim thread was present in every pattern of Indian tapestry—was all this going to be erased by the demand for Pakistan? The thought disturbed old nationalists like Asad Mamoo. Young people had dreams of their own of a socialist India.

  The Urdu press called Sarojini Naidu Bulbul-i-Hind— Nightingale of India. The Nizam’s government had done a lot for women’s education—Sarojini Naidu was one of those sent to England on a state scholarship. She became a firebrand Congress leader, but at the same time was emotionally loyal to the Nizam—so how could India be defined in general terms? Human allegiance is complex and unfathomable.

  No Hindu-Muslim rift in the princely states—the problem is characteristic of post-1857 British India. Jaipur and Gwalior, both Hindu states, have the most spectacular Moharrum celebrations, patronised by the Maharajas. “So shall we vote for feudalism?” Tehmina had argued fiercely with a relative who had just returned from Hyderabad. “Why do you choose to ignore the peasants of Telengana?”

  The Congress government resigned in 1939, the Muslim League observed a Day of Deliverance. Kamal’s father said: “The Muslims have had a foretaste of majority rule. A little common sense and the Congress need not have alienated them. You mark my words, Asad Mian, the League movement is now going to snowball.”

  The Muslim slogan—“You’ve done the rounds with your begging bowls/If you are a Muslim join the League.”

  Kamal thought he was a socialist, yet when he went to see the illuminations of Shah Najaf on the 8th of Moharrum and read His Majesty King Ghaziuddin Hyder emblazoned across the imposing facade of the Imambara, it brought tears to his eyes. The staff at the Imambara wore the uniform of the erstwhile kingdom as they marched in the spectacular Mehndi procession. This was an extravaganza introduced by the Shia kings of Lucknow. Young Qasim, son of Imam Hussain, was betrothed to his cousin on the eve of his martyrdom and, according to Indian Muslim custom, gaily decorated trays full of henna and gifts were sent to the bride’s home. This procession was part of the many grand rituals enacted to enhance the high drama and tragedy of Kerbala. A colossal black Chup Tazia was taken out in utter, awesome silence on the 40th day of mourning. Hindu officers and men of the U.P. Police Cavalry dismounted as a mark of respect to Imam Hussain, as they accompanied the Chup Tazia. This was what India and Indian culture were all about.

  The graduating batch of 1937-39 included Anwar Jamal Kidwai, Sardar Jafri, D.P. Dhar, Ali Jawad Zaidi, the Abbasi brothers and Shankar Dayal Sharma. The exceptionally good-looking Mustafa Hyder was simply referred to as T.D.H.— tall, dark and handsome—by the Badshah Bagh-Chand Bagh girls. When he contested the election for the presidentship of the Union, the girls distributed pink leaflets announcing, Indira Nehru says: Vote for Mustafa Hyder.

  Hari Shankar and I joined Canning College in 1939 as young hopefuls and admired the galaxy of brilliant young women at the University—Tazeen Habibullah, Maya Sarkar, Shakuntala Jaspal, Sakina Ali Zaheer, Rita Dey, Nishat Ghulam Hasan, the graceful Minhaj sisters, Sultana, Amina and Khadija.

  Even a traditional demi-mondaine, a tawaif in the mould of Umrao Jan Ada, became a Party sympathiser. Some comrades held their underground meetings at her house in Chowk, and she was called Comrade Hasni.

  In his elegies on the Battle of Kerbala, Mir Anis had turned the Euphrates into the Gomti. In 1878 the Urdu novelist Pundit Ratan Nath Sarshar sent his hero, Azad, to fight alongside the Turks in the Turco-Russian War and promptly transported the city of Lucknow to the banks of the Danube. Now the comrades had brought about the confluence of the mighty Volga with our good old Gomti which flowed politely through the City of Gardens.

  Majaz, Sardar Jafri, Wamiq Jaunpuri and Kaifi Azmi recite their poems in the coffee house. On the morning of New Year’s Day young men and women telephone one another, quoting Sardar Jafri’s latest poem:

  Yeh kis ne phone per disasal-i-nau ki tabniat mujh ko,

  Tamanna raqs karti hai, takhyyul gungunata hai,

  Musarrat ke jawan mallah kashti leke nikle hain,

  Ghamon ke na-khudaon ka safina dagmagata hai.

  Who rang to greet me on New Year’s Day?

  Wishes dance, fancy sings out with joy.

  Young gondoliers of bliss

  Have taken out their boats,

  There rock the barges of the Captains of Gloom.

  Inquilab, Zindabad!—Long Live Revolution!—the Urdu phrase scrawled in English all over, as the new Writing on the Wall has become the war-cry of young people all over India . . .

  During the train’s long and tedious journey, Kamal’s thoughts kept changing track. He argued with his friends or dozed till they crossed into Bengal at midnight. He was asleep when the train stopped at a small railway station. A number of English officers paced to and fro on the platform. The convoy train had no lights and it was all a bit frightening. A Eurasian guard told the students from Lucknow, “Go back to sleep, men. This blooming train won’t budge till the army moves on. This is the Army, Mr. Jones.” He began humming a popular war-time song: This is the Army, Mr. Jones, you had your breakfast in bed before, Now you won’t have it there any more, tra-la-la.

  The Eurasian guard strode to the end of the long platform where a little crowd had collected around a dead body. An English captain alighted from the military train to have a dekko.

  “What’s the problem, men, get lost,” the Eurasian guard shouted at the crowd.

  “A man has breathed his last, sir,” a railway babu answered gravely. “Hungry man. Before he expired he told me his name was Abul Mansur. Said he could not keep body and soul together, so he was returning his soul to Almighty Allah with thanks.”

  The English captain suppressed a smile.

  “Further, the late mortal said, sir, that his wife Amina Bibi who lives in a hamlet yonder, may kindly be informed that he, on account of his untimely demise, could not reach Calcutta and that she should accept it as God’s Will and eat roots. He further said he had two issues, they have already died of starvation. And he is happy that his spouse shall die soon and they’ll all meet by the Fountain of Eternal Bliss in Heaven.”

  “Good Lord!” the young Englishman exclaimed in distress. He was used to the killing fields of the Western Front
but had never seen death by starvation.

  “Now, sir, I must hand over these mortal remains to the Mohammedan constable of the railway police, who shall have the needful done, burial, etc. Before the late Abul Mansur expired he . . .”

  The Englishman moved away, feeling sick.

  “Sir, Indians don’t die, they expire . . .” the Eurasian guard explained apologetically. The convoy was about to leave. The English officer sighed, “Oh, well. Let’s proceed on our way to expire in the jungles of Burma. Goodbye, gentlemen.”

  The military train snaked its way into the dark night. The good-hearted babu placed a lantern near the corpse of peasant Abul Mansur and began his wait for the police constable. As the Howrah-bound train passed along the dark end of the platform, the boys noticed an eerie, silent, red railway lantern burning near a dead body covered with a torn chadar.

  Kamal was awakened by a friend. He sprang up like a jack-in-the-box and felt his coat pocket, then yelled, “Good Heavens!! I’ve lost the letter and that bloke’s address. What’s his name . . . that bloke . . . ?”

  39. Gautam Nilamber of Santiniketan

  Members of the Indian People’s Theatre Association and Communist Party workers were assembled in a local student leader’s house on Syed Amir Ali Avenue. IPTA’s Lucknow Squad had arrived, and rehearsals for the Famine Relief Fund Variety Programme were in full swing. A budding artist stood before an easel, putting the finishing touches to a portrait in water colour. It was to be auctioned at the end of the play. The host’s sister came dancing towards him and stopped . . .

  “Dada . . .”

  “Kee?” he asked dreamily.

  “Go and look after the U.P. Squad.” She flitted past, shouting multifarious orders.

  He put his brush down and glided to the corner of the hall in his flowing Bengali-style dhoti. Kamal and party were practising a Hindustani chorus song, dressed in white kurta-pyjamas of handloom cotton, Nehru jackets and cream-coloured shawls of raw silk—the elegant attire of the middle-class Leftist avantgarde youth of the country. The painter folded his arms and leaned against the wall, trying to look bored and aesthetic.

  Everyone was speaking vociferously in Bengali, and the singing added to the general din. At last the chorus trailed to an end and the lead singer looked up. The artist said, “Adaab arz karta hoon,” in lilting Urdu and added in very pucca English, “You the chaps from L.K.O.?”

  “Ah! Adaab . . . Tasleem! Yes. Kamal Reza of Canning College at your service.”

  “Gautam Nilambar of Santiniketan.”

  They shook hands.

  “The upward brush and the downward brush and the Duality of the Soul?” Kamal chuckled, noting the artist’s somewhat contrived personality. Ringlets fell to his shoulders, he had a goatee beard on the tip of his chin and a faraway look in his eyes. He nodded and smiled conspiratorially.

  So this was the Gautam Nilambar who was to be sought out in Calcutta and presto! here he was! As Jeejaji had already informed Kamal, he was the son of a high court judge in Allahabad and was visiting Bengal for the sake of his Soul. His father was a pillar of the British Empire, a self-made man who had been knighted by the British government. It stood to reason that his only son should join the I.C.S., the world’s most prestigious civil service. The lad, like his peers, fancied himself a rebel, so he refused and chose Santiniketan instead. He had been there for a year and had come down to Calcutta with other students to work at famine relief. He was of medium height, with intense eyes, looking both a bit self-conscious and pleased with himself in Bengali garb. Kamal tried to hide his excitement.

  “I have sung myself silly and need some tea, yaar,” Kamal said to his new friend as he accompanied the artist to the makeshift studio. They established an instant rapport, as young people usually do.

  “Have you heard of Hari Shankar Raizada by any chance?” Kamal asked cryptically.

  “Who is he?” Gautam shook his head, carrying a cigarette to his lips like Robert Taylor.

  “Childhood pal of mine. Star debater, just like yours truly.”

  “Call him here,” Gautam said majestically, like a nawab. “He’s at home in Lucknow at the moment. He is our boat club captain. Fell overboard—ha—ha—and hurt his leg.”

  “Why do you all live in Lucknow?”

  “Where else should we live? In a one-horse town like Allahabad? Look, you’ve drawn the nose all wrong.”

  “It is very difficult to draw lips.”

  “You can be irreverent.”

  “Have a cigarette.”

  “Are you an artist?”

  “No. A ghasiaru.” Gautam used the word ‘grass-cut’ with the typical U.R mannerism. He will do, he is quite mad, like us. Kamal beamed at him approvingly.

  “Jeejaji has written to me about you . . .”

  “Who is Jeejaji?”

  “Our Laj’s husband.”

  “And who, pray, is ‘our Laj’?”

  “Stop showing off, Jeejaji knows all about you.”

  “A lot of people know about me.”

  Kamal regarded him intently. Then he grinned. This fellow appeared to be masses of fun. He was gleefully playing the role of a bearded bohemian (minus a French beret) and spoke English with a public school accent. Probably Nainital or Doon School, and he seemed somewhat unreal.

  “You are vain, too.” Kamal remarked.

  “Yes, of course. Aren’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  Gautam picked up a brush and began adding stroke after stroke to the flaming background of the Santhal girl’s head.

  “If you stay on in Santiniketan for another five or six years you might succeed in becoming a painter of sorts. At the moment there is very little hope,” observed Kamal gravely. “But you’ll turn into an honorary Bong all right.”

  “I am going down south as well, in order to learn Bharat Natyam from Ram Gopal. Na dir dam, tana di re na—Na dir dam . . .”

  “I intended joining Uday Shankar’s Cultural Centre at Almora but my sisters hooted me out of my resolve. As a matter of fact, girls are quite bogus, they simply haven’t the capacity to understand a man’s real self. Do you have sisters?”

  “No.”

  “Then, I was momentarily attracted by Shunyavad.”

  “Are you chaps Buddhists in Lucknow?”

  “When my younger sister went to Banaras for her exams I visited Sarnath. And over there I experienced a sort of inner peace, you know what I mean . . .”

  “No, I don’t.”

  “Anyway, so I thought there must be something to Buddhism. Then it occurred to me that it was extremely hot outside and the Buddhist Centre’s hall was cold and dark and peaceful so I felt peaceful, too. The so-called mysteries can easily be explained likewise. Are you in the Party?”

  “No.”

  “I thought as much. You don’t look like a tremendous revolutionary to me, anyway.”

  Gautam glared at Kamal.

  “Do you know what Mahatma Gandhi said to your Gurudev . . . ? That your house is on fire and you are busy listening to birdsong, or something to that effect,” Kamal added. “You must meet Bhaiya Saheb as well, Syed Amir Reza, my cousin. As a youngster he showed great promise and painted a lot of water colours. But he is much too good-looking—long, curly eyelashes and so on—so he gave it up.”

  “Why?”

  “He thought people might take him to be a queer.”

  “Is he?”

  “Good heavens, no! But he is a loner, can’t relate to people easily. At the moment he is somewhere in the Pacific, fighting the Fascists as a naval officer. I hope the sea brings him out of his shell. Ho! Ho! Now, tell me something. I believe in having very clear-cut views on everything.”

  “Shoot.”

  “What do you think about the class struggle? Do you believe in the Glorious Future of the Proletariat?”

  “Yes.” They shook hands again.

  “If you’re convinced that feudal society will soon die a natural death, then half the battle is won.
Let’s have some coffee at Firpo’s.”

  They rushed out and hailed a cab, two scions of affluent families on a spree in good ole Cal.

  40. Quality Street

  Shanta, wrote Gautam leisurely,

  autumn has arrived, in the lush woodlands of Oudh. The gardener’s daughter is passing by, jingling her anklets. Yellow flowers droop from delicate branches, straight out of a Chinese water-colour. On Sunday mornings sophisticated university women turn into Ravi Varma and Abdul Rehman Chughtai paintings. They spread mats on the floor, tune their tambouras and sing classical melodies. I am writing to you from one of these young ladies’ homes called ‘The Raizadas’ Singhare-wali Kothi’. Friend Kamal Reza lives in ‘Gulfishan,’ not far from here. I met this bloke in Calcutta recently, and thereby hangs this tale—because now I strongly suspect that Kumari Nirmala Raizada’s father and my Dad ganged up to scoop me out of Santiniketan. Dad got me a job as a weekly columnist with this newspaper, for which Winston Churchill worked as a young man! Dad even fixed P.G. accommodation for me on Clyde Road. It’s all happened so fast that I am quite bewildered.

  Upon my arrival in Lucknow I rang up Kamal Reza. The following day he brought me here to meet Hari Shankar and his sister, Nirmala. I don’t think she knows about this ‘conspiracy.’ Anyway, she is too busy talking her head off to take any serious notice of me as her prospective pati-devta. At least that’s what I think. She’s a great girl, vivacious and genuine, like her friend Talat. Her family is also steeped in Old Lucknow Culture. All fine and dandy, the only snag is that I am in no hurry to tie the knot, even after a year and a half when Nirmala graduates.