As for Amir Khusrau, the great achievement of his life was to build a profound cultural connection between the Indian and the Turkish–Iranian streams. His father was Turkish, his mother a Hindu from Braj-country and he was brought up by the Hindu side of his family, which explains his remark that Hindi was his mother tongue. Among his ninety-nine works in Persian, Arabic, Turkish and Hindi is one about Bhagwad Bhakti, the Matul Anwar of 1298. To bigoted Islamists who called him an idolater, a ‘but-parastha’, Khusrau responded with an indignant Persian verse: ‘Khalaq mi goyad ki Khusrau, but-parasthi mi kunad / Aarey-aarey mi kunam, bakhalko aalam kar neste’, meaning: ‘The world calls Khusrau an idol worshipper; yes, yes, I do worship idols, I have nothing to do with the world!’ Khusrau’s living blend of Persian and Hindi reflects the great cross-pollination, the fusion and flowering, never more manifest than in the realm of music. His tender lament, on beholding his murshid Nizamuddin dead, exhibits what came of this difficult harvest: ‘Gori sowai sej par / Mukh par daarey kes / Chal Khusrau ghar aapney / Raine bhayi chahundes.’
Despite the tortured relationship between Hinduism and Islam during the days of the Delhi Sultanate, violent repulsion at its peak and an indeterminate ambivalence at its mildest, and alongside all the genocide, parricide, fratricide of the times and the escalating tension between Hindus and Muslims, Shias and Sunnis, Lodis and Sharqis, Turks and Afghans, Muslims of Indian origin and those of foreign descent, music prospered, albeit at a high cost. The frenzy might have cooled by the Mughal times but in the domain of music Hindu reaction appeared as the dhrupad form, with the Braj-country around Agra and Mathura and the Malwa of Man Singh Tomar as the nucleus, pitted against the khayal-qawwali forms centred in Delhi. But the Mughal kings became enthusiastic patrons of the dhrupad form and the location of their capital at Agra informed their inclination. The dhruva-pad was the musical worship of Hindu gods and goddesses and liberal Mughal emperors encouraged their composition and performance. A certain dhrupad verse declares that only he with whom Saraswati is pleased is fortunate enough to find favour with Shah Jahan. Shah Jahan commissioned a collection of dhrupads for the Persian Sahasrasa. Another dhrupad states that by the grace of Brahma, Vishnu, Mahesh, Ganesh and Vyasa did Aurangzeb become king. Aurangzeb is said to have liked this particular dhrupad immensely. Yet another dhrupad extolled the guru, Saraswati and Parabrahma, by whose grace one acquired a master like Aurangzeb. So while a proxy-war between singers of dhrupad and khayal mimicked the animosity between Hindus and Muslims, with dhrupad singers mocking the intricate affectations of the ‘turushkapriya’ khayaliyas, and khayal singers declaring that only those whose voices had grown coarse and stiff took to dhrupad singing and ‘bhajananandi music’, it is equally true that music served to bridge the divide through a refined synthesis. Of Akbar, Emperor of India, we know. But even minor kings like the Subedar of Kara, Malik Sultan’s son, Bahadur Malik, invited famous pandits from Prayag and Benaras to work on histories of Indian music like the Sangeet Shiromani. So that a king like Ibrahim Adil Shah of Bijapur could dedicate his ‘navarasa’ with a stuti to Saraswati, defying the mullahs of the time. The Avadh nawabs, being Shia, weren’t interested in the Sufi qawwalis, rather they patronized local forms like the thumri, chaiti, kajri. Hindustani music was a gorgeous, intermeshed fabric so closely knit that to pluck at the strands and undo the weave was to irreversibly ruin the entire tapestry. And this was the air that Janki breathed.
One night she too dreamt of a horse. In a state of tremendous mid-sleep thirst she sighted a stately, jewelled beast, draped in ornately embroidered velvet, and waking, she told Samina of her dream. Samina stared at her, awed.
‘And you say you felt great thirst, Baiji?’ she questioned.
‘More than I can tell,’ answered Janki. ‘I felt my throat would crack with thirst.’
‘Do you know what I think, Baiji? You have had a soul-vision. That was Imam Hussain’s horse, none other, and something is being said to you. The martyrs died thirsty and great thirst in your dream is a sign. It is the first day of the month of Mohorrum, recollect.’
Samina was a devout Shia Muslim, as were Jallu Mian and Makhdoom Baksh and in deference to their sentiments a sombre hush pervaded the household during the ten days of Mohorrum. No bright colours worn, no joyous songs sung except those of professional necessity. But Samina’s words must have worked on Janki’s mind because on the fourth day of the ten, in the middle of her morning riyaz, she experienced a profound depression that overcame her like a dark cloud, blocking her song.
‘Samina,’ she said that evening, ‘take me to the Imambara with you tomorrow.’
14
Living among Shia Muslims she was familiar with the wealth of exquisite literature and songs mourning the martyrs of Karbala but the sozkhwani at the women’s majlis left her stunned. The high syllables of ancient pain kept alive in the hearts of generations, like a lamp kept burning for hundreds of years, overcame her as she joined in the old dirges, swaying to an arcane rhythm of grief, her streaming eyes, like those of the others, swollen with weeping. She lived Karbala in her throbbing brain, felt her throat grow parched with the desert’s thirsting, felt her heart break with the anguish of betrayal, a cosmic treachery of all nature against the innocent. Some incurable ache in her soul found its ally and rose agonizing in keening lament, feeding on its own mortal wound. It seemed a high celebration of suffering. She felt she could seize the keenest of knives and deal herself the same fifty-six stabs that the old enemy had done, if only to find herself fatally bloodied beneath that revelling groundswell of grief that surrounded her on all sides. Grief that was holy for it drained the mind and left it empty in the sacred presence of the Holy Five, the Infallible, Immaculate Ones, the Twelve Exalted Ones, the Holy Masters.
Back home she made arrangements to install a tazia in a corner of the courtyard and cancelled all soirées for the remaining days of mourning. Borrowing Samina’s Holy Book, placing it deferentially unwrapped before her, she browsed it in tentative exploration and read of goodness, justice, gentleness and charity, and what virtue was meant to be.
‘Virtue lieth not in bowing to the east or the west. Virtue lies in having faith in God. Believing in the future day. In angels. In the Law and in His Envoys. In lovingly expending wealth in spite of one’s own needs, on those of kith, the guardian-less, the handicapped, the homeless, those who ask, those who are yoked in helplessness. In ever-readiness to do one’s duties and to fulfil one’s every obligation. Those who keep to promises, when promises they have made. Those who persevere amidst adversity and pain, as long as these do last. These are the genuinely virtuous.’
She read: ‘There is a guide for every people. We make no distinction between any of His apostles.’ She read: ‘The entire creation is the family of God and he is loved by God who loves His creation.’ She read: ‘He who does not pity the denizens of the earth, the angels in Heaven have no compunction for him.’ And she read: ‘The Deity of all of you is the One Deity. No other deity is there but He, the Rahman, the Rahim. Your different peoples are indeed one single people, and I alone am Lord of all! Therefore fear ye only Me.’
There are stirring examples of enormous individual bonding in the world of music, of Hindu and Muslim maestros living together in common households. Bade Nissar Hussain Khan lived as a member of Shankar Pandit’s orthodox Brahmin home in perfect reciprocal accommodation, but for the absence of meat in his diet, for which and for opium a silver coin was placed under his pillow every morning by his host. The guest, for his part, put on a dhoti after his daily bath, and sandal paste on his forehead and even carried on a recitation contest in Sanskrit slokas with his hosts. He was given to saying that in his previous birth he had been a pandit named Nissar Bhat. The two visited the Jagannath Temple in Puri and the Kalighat Temple in Calcutta and sang bhajans there.
There is the example of Bairam Khan of Jaipur who lived for twelve years disguised as a Brahmin so as to learn Sanskrit and study the ancient musicology
texts, applying tilak on his forehead and even engaging in rituals like the sandhyavandam, which was the Hindu temple’s evensong. But all the while honourably keeping out of those temples which denied entry to Muslims; and at the end of his stay, having studied texts like the Sangeet Ratnakar and the Sangeet Kalpadrum, confessing the truth of being a Muslim at his guru’s feet, giving his reason for the pretence and asking his forgiveness and blessing, which was readily granted.
Most striking is the example of Abdul Karim Khan singing a Marathi bhajan before Sai Baba at Shirdi, the words of which were: ‘Lord, I ask only this of thee, that in my heart thou may forever be.’ Sai Baba is said to have told those present: ‘See how yearningly this Muslim lad renders this hymn, and with what softness he prays to receive the Lord’s grace—unlike the lot of you who pray as though you are hectoring the Lord to grant your prayers!’ Sai Baba invited Abdul Karim Khan to live in Shirdi with his Hindu wife and children, which he did for a time. When he left he was given a silver rupee with a blessing and asked never to spend it but keep it as a talisman. Abdul Karim sang in Hindu temples and Muslim shrines with the same deep devotion, urging his Hindu pupils to visit Hindu holy places and bearing all their travel expenses. His ‘Hari Om Tatsat’ in Raga Malkauns and his Ram Dhuns were appreciated by Lokmanya Tilak and Mahatma Gandhi, and the latter even expressed a desire to take Abdul Karim with him on his tours to various Indian cities so that Hindus and Muslims, growing increasingly hostile to one another again by British machinations, could hear him and be recalled to their senses.
There have been of course instances of bigotry and partisanship as in the case of the Marathi singer Bhaskar Rai Bakhle, originally groomed by the large-hearted Bande Ali Khan but subsequently entrusted to the tutelage of Fayez Muhammad Khan by the Baroda state. Fayez Muhammad neglected the boy because he was not a Muslim, making him work as a servant, sweep floors, go to the bazaar, cook meals and massage his feet. Once even, it is written, sending him to buy beef and cook it according to his recipe. Which the meek Brahmin boy, who did not eat even garlic and onions, dutifully did in obedient service. The master is said to have tasted the beef and blessed him, declaring that he was only testing his loyalty. Bhaskar Bakhle’s next guru, Nathan Khan, was scarcely more liberal. He preferred to train his own sons and his Muslim pupils in the advanced techniques while contriving to send Bakhle on domestic errands. But he had not reckoned with the fierce opposition of his wife, Jasia Begum, who loved Bakhle like a son, and who personally taught him rare compositions of the Agra–Atrauli gharana. She quarrelled with her husband, refusing to light the fire and cook meals for the family, if he neglected to include her adopted son from the ‘khaas taalim’. In later years Nathan Khan had a change of heart and began regarding Bakhle as his eldest son, even assigning the training of his other children to him. Bhaskar Bakhle continued to look after Jasia Begum in her old age, building a house for her in Dharwad, handing over the greater part of his earnings to her and personally washing the dishes in which she and her family ate to spare the feelings of his Brahmin wife. Such an authentic khayaliya did Bhaskar Bakhle grow into that when the idiosyncratic Rahmat Khan of Indore heard him sing he exclaimed: ‘Not Bhaskar Bakhle but Khan Sahib Bhaskar Khan! Henceforth that is your name!’
It is not to be wondered that Janki, inhabiting such a climate, should have become a divided soul. In the last years of her life when she surveyed the choices she had made, her voluntary embracing of Islam found the same consistent reason that she gave to her mother in that turbulent termination of relations between them.
The fact that all her immediate circle was made up of Muslims, that she had lived and breathed the ambience of Islamic Avadh in her music, in her friendships, in her reflexes of behaviour, in the very slope of her thought processes is what she recorded in her memoirs. But it could not have been an easy decision, nor was it a simple changing of ways.
For her mother, till then the most flexible of women, turned suddenly rigid.
‘All your friends, did you say?’ she demanded caustically. ‘Do I and your brother count for nothing now, my great Bai Sahiba?’
‘How can you ever think that? You are my mother. To whom I can confide that all my life I seem to have stood outside. Outside temples, outside mosques, outside family, outside home. Longing without belonging. The only time I belong anywhere is with these my friends, my staff, my musicians, my poets, and all of them are of a kind—except me. Do you think it shall make me anything less than your daughter? If I were merely to say in front of a mullah that there is no God but Allah and that Muhammad is His Prophet? Amma, I feel alone. There are so many different kinds of believing, I want something simpler . . .’
‘Listen, you.’ Manki swirled around to face her. ‘I am no fool. Longing without belonging, indeed. Fine words! Nonsense. We were women of the kotha, singers and dancers. We practised in our cabins. A kotha-woman did not choose her clients by religion. When I was a mithai-wali in Benaras, did I choose my customers by religion? Life places us where it will, what can we say? But understand this—you are the daughter of an aheer from Barna ka Pul in Benaras, whatever else you may have become. And you are a Hindu. You can’t see that . . . it is too much inside . . . like a mother you quarrel with. Like me whom you scarcely remember when you live out your days among your poets and your singers. You might forget who we are, what went into our making, but you will remain a Hindu nonetheless. As I did, though half my clients were Muslim, some of them good people too.’
‘We are poles apart then,’ said Janki.
‘The problem with you is that you are grown too big for your own good. You imagine you know everything. Soon I will turn into an infidel to you.’
‘I have been reading. The Quran doesn’t exclude earlier and later apostles . . .’
‘Oho, so you are now turned into a mullah preaching to me. Soon you will be sitting on your rump facing holy west and reciting the namaz! My own daughter!’
Anger surged in her heart. ‘You are right, Amma. That is probably what you shall see me doing.’ She turned and walked away in the direction of her room. Manki limped after her, trembling: ‘I know! I know what it is. You can’t deceive me. Most likely it has something to do with some man somewhere who has caught your foolish fancy!’
Janki made it to her room, slammed the doors behind her. She heard Manki shout outside: ‘Go, then. Go your own accursed way and may the blight fall on your head! But never, never call me mother again!’
She needed to discuss this with someone. Janki thought of conferring with Akbar. But Akbar Sahib shruggingly dismissed it all. He was in a mood for laughter.
‘As to Allah, Bibi, Allah is my private business and I have sworn to hold my tongue.’
‘But what makes you a Mussalman, Akbar Sahib? If I may take the liberty of asking?’
‘Arey, madam, mazhabi bahas mainey ki hi nahin / Faltu aql mujhmein thi hi nahin!’
She gave up. The only other individual she could rely on was her lawyer Hashmat Ullah. This Hashmat Ullah had been hired by her to manage the affairs of her ever-expanding properties, her several houses and the village she owned, her taxes to the sarkar, her village tenants and their matters and more recently her new project for setting up a hospice and rest house at Rambagh. From respectful professional advisor and legal representative, he’d slowly changed to protective guardian and vigilant friend, a man of few words who concealed beneath his remote manner a sincere determination to pre-empt the sentimental excesses of his lady client. As when she insisted on setting aside a sizeable sum devoted to marriage expenses for girls of indigent parents, and he’d argued with that soft tenacity which was his manner with her that too many of the indigents who vied for her largesse shied from furnishing proofs of their indigence. As when he opposed, with all the compelling force of his personality and legal experience, that it was much too soon for her to appoint trustees for her properties, she being still of an age when, he delicately hinted, natural successors were not outside the bounds o
f possibility. She had been stung at that veiled reference to her unutilized fertility and had haughtily put him down. Now she braced herself for yet another trying confrontation with him and on a subject that would demand explanations that might prove awkward in the extreme for both.
Requiem in Raga Janki Page 17