Requiem in Raga Janki

by Neelum Saran Gaur

  Gauhar tittered. ‘Not just cats and dogs. I regularly toss a thousand rupees to the viceroy . . .’

  ‘Yes, I heard that story. That the laat sahib of Calcutta fined you.’

  ‘After bowing from the waist and taking off his cap to me as I tore past in my carriage. Six white Arabian steeds, you understand. No less in style and scale than the carriages used by royalty. The poor man thought I was a queen or a princess and bowed deep as I drove past him near the maidan. Imagine his horror when he learnt he’d bowed to Gauhar the songstress not the queen of some native state!’

  ‘A queen of mausiqui, surely,’ murmured Janki, awestruck. She could see that Gauhar was pleased at this homage. She smiled.

  ‘That’s why he slapped the fine on me. A thousand rupees for driving in a six-horse carriage. Made the rule that henceforth only the viceroy and royalty could travel in six-horse carriages, not ordinary citizens. But I do not count myself an ordinary citizen, excusez-moi. A thousand rupees is what I earn in a single concert. Voila! I paid the fine. And continued riding past him, all the way from the viceroy’s palace to Eden Gardens. Every time I was fined I paid it and repeated the offence with the greatest pleasure. So, you see, what’s Rs 9000 to me! But that it should have been my father!’

  ‘So did you pay him? Your father, not the viceroy, I mean?’

  ‘Not a cowrie. The court summoned him and he came. Most meekly. Produced the papers. And all the proof that I was his daughter. I won that round.’

  ‘So that was your unfinished business.’

  ‘I saw the sights too. All there is to see. The Sangam. The temples and mosques and churches. The garden of Prince Khusrau.’

  ‘There’s still a monument you haven’t seen. And that’s the famous Akbar Ilahabadi,’ revealed Janki.

  Gauhar clapped her hands. ‘Wonderful!’ she exclaimed. ‘He used to know my mother. Liked her verses.’

  ‘Your mother was a poet?’

  ‘A very good one. Akbar Sahib admired her.’

  Janki cleared her throat bashfully. ‘He guides my callow pen. I write a few verses too.’

  Gauhar was enthusiastic. ‘Oh, so did I once. In my Benaras days I used to write as Chhaggan-piya and Gauhar-piya and Humdum. Now, tell me, my Jaan-Kee, which “piya” do you suffix your name with? Kaisar-piya, Akbar-piya? Hardinge-piya? Curzon-piya?’

  She shook with girlish laughter.

  ‘No, Gauhar Sahiba. I write only as Janki.’

  ‘Then there is no Janki-piya?’

  Janki joined in the girlish giggling and would not offer a clue.

  Gauhar eyed her with narrowed eyes. It seemed to have struck her quite suddenly that while she had been most expansive about herself Janki had remained a quiet listener, volunteering no information of her own.

  ‘Look how I run on, Janki, while you keep your lips sealed.’

  ‘What to say, Gauhar Sahiba? I haven’t had an interesting life.’

  ‘Then go get a life, for Allah’s sake! We only live once. But you’re a Hindu, no? You’ll get reborn. What’ll you be reborn as, my Jaan-Kee?’

  Again Janki withheld the information that she had converted to Islam. Instead she said, ‘I don’t know. As a raga maybe . . .’

  ‘Oh, subhan Allah! A beautiful thought. A raga in which songs may be sung by a thousand voices. You’re right. Maybe we’re all ragas. Each one made up of notes placed just so, no two alike. And if perchance someone gets the exact placement of the notes that make you up, voila! You’re reborn! Wonderful, my Jean-Qui! So when do we visit this monument of yours?’

  ‘This evening. At five.’

  ‘Then after lunch we’d better get down to the Delhi Durbar song,’ remembered Gauhar. ‘I still have to coach you for it.’

  ‘Yes,’ assented Janki and sent for Samina and asked her to lay the sheet and serve lunch in the dining chamber.

  At Ishrat Manzil that evening Akbar sparkled with verse and witticism. The ladies of his family had arranged a plentiful repast, not without copious commentary from Akbar himself. Tea, now so popular through the length and breadth of the country, was served by the orderlies and bearers, with Akbar grimacing in droll despair, shaking his head: ‘Gaye sharbat ke din yaaron ke aage ab toh ai Akbar / Kabhi soda, kabhi lemonade, kabhi whiskey, kabhi tea hai!’

  There were dry fruits, kebabs and cake served on the finest silver and porcelain. Akbar reciting ruefully, to their great merriment:

  ‘Thay cake ki fikr mein, so roti bhi gayi,

  Chaahi thi shay badi, so chhoti bhi gayi,

  Wayiz ki naseehatein na maneen aakhir,

  Patloon ki taak mein langoti bhi gayi.’

  He had met them most gallantly, fulsome in praise of their beauty and bounty in thus gracing his poor threshold with their shining presence. Witnessing this excess of chivalry and courtly self-abasement Janki wondered what mischief was at play in that puckish brain. But his courtesy was faultless. He made polite mention of Gauhar’s mother, the gifted Malka Jaan, her book of poems—the Makhzan-e-Ulfat-e-Mallika—which she had once sent him and which he had acknowledged in his letter to her, applauding the delicacy of the verse and the depth of thought it contained. He expressed sadness at her tragic passing. He hobbled to a side cabinet, pulled open a drawer and displayed a stack of records that he had recently borrowed—most of them being Gauhar’s and Janki’s—from a friend. To try out the working of this absurd new instrument, this gramophone, he explained. The large trumpet-jawed monster sat in the ladies’ quarters, he told them—the begum and the other ladies of the household had got too fond of it.

  ‘Not,’ he qualified, ‘that I have ever laid claim to being the pretty parrot of a houri, but surely Akbar’s face is a shade better than that of either the dog or the trumpet! But the begum prefers both to mine, alas!’

  ‘How heartbreaking!’ said Gauhar with a laugh.

  ‘You have only yourselves to blame, ladies,’ said Akbar in mock despair. ‘It is your sweet voices that have seduced the begum’s ear. She bade me to convey to you her greetings and her fulsome appreciation of the blessing that has descended from heaven into her humdrum life—the gramophone! She observes strict purdah and apologizes that she cannot appear in the divan-khana to meet you ladies. She has sternly chided my timid suggestion that she suspend her principles and appear before you today, you being ladies, but she is strict and she pointed out that there are bearers and chaprasis here and hence I am left to be host and hostess both! Me, I have other views both on the gramophone and the purdah!’

  And he let loose a further verse that had them in splits:

  ‘Bepurdah kal jo aayeen nazar chand bibiyan,

  Akbar zameen mein ghairat-qaumi sed gad gaya.

  Poochha jo unse aapka purdah wo kya hua?

  Kehne lageen ki aql pe mardon ki pad gaya.’

  Gauhar threw back her head and laughed heartily. Then she ventured to ask, ‘You do not share your begum’s enthusiasm for the gramophone, sir?’

  He coughed, affected deep thought.

  ‘As ever,’ he explained discursively, ‘it is not the gramophone I object to, but the infinitely richer renditions that it has supplanted. A middle-class thing, the gramophone, excuse me.’

  ‘People said that about the harmonium, sir,’ Gauhar pointed out, ‘but time alone shall tell whether something is an improvement or a loss.’

  ‘And who is this being, this Abba Time?’ he turned to demand. ‘Is it the hoarse voices of the hoi polloi? Is it the lying testament of the masses who know little, understand less?’

  ‘More people can experience the joy of music, sir,’ argued Gauhar. ‘People like your begum sahiba, like those who could not go to musical baithaks, who did not have the leisure or the money . . .’

  ‘Exactly,’ he retorted. ‘A herd of cattle pretending to enjoy a rose garden! Ah, Bibi, you do not see the cattle chomping up the roses! You strew them in their path. You cannot consult the rose that’s ground to death beneath their jaws. You have broken faith with the rose
garden of true art!’ He was all charged up. He launched into verse: ‘Wah mutrib aur wah saaz, wah gaana badal gaya. Neendein badal gayeen, wah fasana badal gaya. Rangey-rukhey-bahar ki zeenat hui nayee, gulshan mein bulbulon ka tarana badal gaya! But what am I doing? Instead of making you welcome, this old crabby Akbar has taken to his accursed rant again! A thousand pardons, ladies. And allow me to congratulate you on your latest glory—this invitation to sing at the Delhi Durbar. I saw the last one, the one Muhtaram Curzon organized in 1903. I was there. What a spectacle.’

  And he proceeded to tell them about it. The fortnight of festivities, the pageantry and pomp. How a dusty plain was transformed into an enchanting city of tents, a city with its own miniature railway, its telephone exchange, magistrates’ courts, shops and hospital, all lit up with electricity, you can hardly believe it! Policemen in their specially designed Delhi Durbar attire, the medals stuck, the days of polo, the military reviews, parades led by Kitchener Sahib, the commander-in-chief, the bands, fireworks, dinners, balls, even something Akbar had never beheld before—a film in which images actually moved on a screen! And though the King Emperor Edward VII and Queen Alexandra did not come, the king’s younger brother, the Duke of Connaught, did, with a horde of dignitaries. But everyone agreed it was Curzon’s show. You should have seen the Curzons arriving, riding elephants caparisoned in bejewelled velvet, some bearing heavy gold candelabras on their decorated tusks. Curzon with his high, balding forehead and pinched nose, dressed in cream breeches and a train of midnight blue and a jacket embroidered with dense gold sheaves. But it was Begum Curzon’s sumptuous dress at the grand ball that left the beholder stupefied. She had deep eyes, did Begum Curzon. No purdah to conceal the beauties of these memsahibs. Deep eyes and chiselled nose but such thin lips. Her ball dress an exquisite affair made of chiffon and covered with zardosi work in gold and silver thread embroidered by the finest of Agra and Delhi embroiderers. A design of peacock feathers with a blue-green beetle wing studding each peacock eye. But the fabric was styled into a gown in Paris, it was said. Created by the House of Worth!

  ‘Were you invited to the ball, sir?’ asked Janki in wicked innuendo.

  ‘What else do I do, lady, save dance to the angrezi band?’ was Akbar’s answer.

  ‘But our Indian maharajas with their grand retinues stole the show. The jewels they wore, heirlooms of Hind, treasures preserved in private collections for centuries! The elephant carriage of the maharaja of Rewa alone meriting a poem!’ Wait, he had written a poem in honour of the dazzling display: Akbar put on his glasses, shuffled the pages of his ledger-like volume of scribbled verse and found the one he was looking for.

  ‘Ah, here it is. Here’s what I wrote in my bedumbed delight: “Jalwa-e-Durbar-e-Dehli” is what I called it.

  ‘Sar mein shauq ka sauda dekha,

  Dehli ko humne ja dekha,

  Jo kuchh dekha achchha dekha.

  Jamunaji ke paat ko dekha,

  Achchhe suthre ghat ko dekha,

  Sab se unche laat ko dekha,

  Hazrat Duke Canaat ko dekha.

  Paltan aur risale dekhey,

  Gore dekhey, kale dekhey,

  Sangeeney aur bhaaley dekhey,

  Band bajaney waaley dekhey.

  Daali mein narangi dekhi,

  Mehfil mein sarangi dekhi,

  Bairangi baarangi dekhi,

  Dahar ki ranga-rangi dekhi.

  Achchhe-achchhon ko bhatka dekha,

  Bheed mein khaatey jhhatka dekha,

  Munh ko agarchey latka dekha,

  Dil darbar se atka dekha.

  Auj British Raj ka dekha

  Partav takht-o-taj ka dekha,

  Rangey zamana aaj ka dekha,

  Rukh Curzon Maharaj ka dekha.’

  Akbar shut his volume, looked up, mischievous. ‘Wah! Subhan Allah!’ cried Gauhar. ‘You should sing it, sir, for best effects. Maybe to a keherwa beat.’

  Akbar squirmed bashfully. ‘The sarkar makes me dance to its tune and the lady would have me warble to hers. Where’s the justice in this, O Akbar?’ he lamented. ‘There was a time when Akbar thought: Sur kahan ke, saaz kaisa, kaisi bazm-e-saamai? Josh-e-dil kaafi hai, Akbar, taan udaney ke liye. But I have since those days of folly lost my voice.’

  ‘Then, by your leave, I shall sing it for you,’ offered Gauhar with a flourish.

  Akbar looked overwhelmed. ‘Baiji, you take my breath away. My verses shall flower on your lips and bless them.’

  ‘And you, sir, are a poet and we ladies know better than to be misled by the protestations of poets,’ retorted Gauhar playfully.

  ‘If sing you must, sahiba, it must be a better verse. One befitting this honour. I offer for your perusal this lowly ditty. One I have only just written.’

  He found a loose folded page and handed it across to Gauhar who without a moment’s hesitation began singing, improvising brilliantly, as she sang:

  ‘Zulf-e-penchan mein wah sajdhaj, ki balayein bhi mureed.

  Qadey-rana mein wah chamkham ki qayamat bhi shaheed.

  Ankhein wah fitnayey-dauran ki gunahgar karein,

  Gaal wah subahey-darakhshan ki malaq pyar karein,

  Garm taqdeer jisey sunney ko shola lapkey . . .’

  Gauhar’s voice trickled to a stop and she paused a while, her lips forming the words as she ran her eyes over them. A tiny smile played on her face and her eloquent eyebrows arched whimsically on her smooth forehead. She raised her head and fixed a bemused eye on Akbar: ‘I had just such a poem written in my honour, Akbar Sahib, by the court poet of Indore, but that you should write one for me takes my breath away. It is about me, isn’t it?’

  ‘Fortunate is Gauhar that she believes so,’ said Akbar provocatively.

  Gauhar resumed singing:

  ‘Garm taqdeer jisey sunney ko shola lapkey,

  Dilkash awaaz ki sunkar jisey bulbul jhhapkey . . .’

  ‘Ah,’ she breathed, as though she had found in the words a confirmation of her suspicion.

  ‘Dilkash chaal mein aisi ki sitarey ruk jaayein

  Sarkashi naaz mein aisi ki governor jhuk jaayein.’

  ‘Not the governor alone, Akbar Sahib, but the viceroy himself! It is for me, I see,’ put in Gauhar, smiling in gratification.

  ‘Baiji is intelligent, need I say more?’ murmured Akbar shyly.

  She did not sing out the final couplet but read it aloud with a resounding flourish:

  ‘Aatishey husn se taqwey ko jalaaney wali,

  Bijliyan lutf-e-tabassum se giraney wali.’

  She sat looking at Akbar with an indulgent eye, as though royally acknowledging his homage. Akbar reached forward and retrieved the sheet of paper with the scribbled poem.

  ‘It needs a final verse, madam, and I have only just created one. By your leave, Janki Bibi, I regret I have no verse for you. I do not write in honour of married women and your recent wedding to my good friend Abdul Haq, much happiness as it may have bestowed on you, leaves you permanently bereft of any verse in your honour. But for Gauhar Sahiba, here is my ultimate tribute:

  ‘Khush naseeb aaj yahan kaun hai, Gauhar ke siwa?

  Sab kuchh Allah ne de rakha hai shauhar ke siwa!’

  Akbar produced the final words with just a thread of gleeful malice playing in his voice and Janki, who had been trying hard to keep a straight face throughout the foregoing exchange, burst out laughing. An embarrassingly loud peal of laughter escaped her lips, bringing a quick frisson in Gauhar’s face. Akbar’s disclosure about Janki’s marriage had stunned her and Janki’s explosion of mirth inflamed Gauhar’s imperious temper. She turned to stare piercingly at Janki, eyes simmering. Then she rose, drew herself up to her full height, and confronted Akbar with a withering couplet of her own:

  ‘Yun toh Gauhar ko mayassar hain hazaron shauhar,

  Par pasand usko nahin koi bhi Akbar ke siwa!’

  And with that she turned peremptorily to Janki again and said coldly: ‘It is late, Baiji. Be so good as to excuse me now. I shall trouble you to s
end for your phaeton and have me dropped at my hotel. I—and I believe you too—have a performance tomorrow.’

  Gauhar never forgave Janki for that laugh. It might indeed have obliquely stoked, or at least helped provoke, the subsequent misjudgements of her life, her desperate wooing of her manager, Sabzwari, her absurd marriage and later loss of both dignity and property. Janki sometimes reproached herself for that laugh but the coolness between Gauhar and herself had come to stay. Late in life, when they were both old, reports came to Janki how Gauhar had begun charging one rupee as her fee for training students, and selling her own compositions for the same price and Janki did not know whether to believe or disbelieve or whether she should reproach or absolve herself.

  At the grand exhibition event Gauhar sang with her characteristic panache and there was a stampede outside and the police had a hard time controlling the crowd. She was awarded the gold medal with great ceremony and she received it with charming deference, endearing herself to the Allahabad audience. Janki sang after Gauhar’s performance and though she sang to a quieter audience her singing continued all night and far into the wee hours and till the break of dawn, her calm, strong voice floating across the silent city’s temple spires and minarets and towers almost as far as the riverbank, until it turned into the signature voice through which the city identified itself, and her song a theme of timeless belonging in a language that the city’s heart beat to. Gauhar had not waited. She had left as soon as her performance ended.

  17

  Till late October 1911 Janki had been recording for Max Hampe of GTL in Calcutta. That left her just over a month in Allahabad before the Grand Delhi Durbar of 1911 which was to last from 7 to 16 December. The first time a reigning British monarch would tour his Indian empire. A monarch who, years later, lying on his deathbed, dosed on morphine and cocaine, would put one last question to his secretary, ‘How’s the empire?’ George V, crowned King Emperor on 22 June, at Westminster Abbey, was to perform the lead role all over again in a stupendously stage-managed coronation show at Delhi on 12 December. And to this end was organized yet another of those colonial extravaganzas that mimicked, only more spectacularly, the grand durbars of the Mughals. A stupendous gathering of 80,000 visitors, princes, military and commoners in a blaze of pomp and consequence at the glittering mini-city of Kingsway Camp created on an extensive plain on the outskirts of Delhi. A vast pageant of imperial power and princely allegiance enacted to flaunt the realized fantasy of opulence and grandeur of the empire at its height, as also to exercise the royal fiat at a particularly unsettling moment of its history. And though its scale was smaller than the previous one held in 1903, it spelt consequences considerably more far-reaching than the ones before.