The Prince and the Nightingale
Page 1
To my father
Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Epilogue
Acknowledgements
About the Book
About the Author
Copyright
Prologue
It was in the newspapers. Not in the national dailies; just the Ranakpour Chronicle, in the issue dated 20 June 1992, tucked all the way back on page 14, at the bottom right corner.
Abhimanyu Singh died here in Bombay at Breach Candy Hospital on Sunday following a protracted illness. A member of the Ranakpour royal family of Rajasthan, he was also a former first-class cricketer, a former manager of the Indian national cricket team and an ex-chairman of its selection panel. He had been suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.
Singh was also a close associate of the melody queen, Meera Apte.
There was more, but it was hard for me to read further. Former first-class cricketer was factually correct, but what of the legendary story about why Abhimanyu Singh could never play for India? And those words – a close associate of Meera Apte – were a real punch in the gut. It’s as though the writer of the article was the one suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Well, I, for one, remain in full possession of my faculties. And I think that it is finally time to set the record straight.
Chapter 1
Large rattan punkahs with ropes tied to them hung proudly from the gem-encrusted ceilings of the Darbar Hall in the Ranakpour Palace, but there were no coolies to be found at the other end of those ropes. Instead, an electric ceiling fan that had been installed right next to the punkahs blew modern air on the 600-year old throne placed right under it. The throne waited in silence for its king, Maharaja Uday Singh, to arrive.
As per the royal protocol, family members and palace administrative officials were to be seated according to their ranks, fifteen minutes before the arrival of the Maharaja. Uday Singh’s younger brothers had taken their place, flanking the throne on either side. Next was Ajay Singh Ranakpour, the Maharaja’s eldest son, who despite being adopted, was the heir apparent.
Abhimanyu Singh, the middle son, sat next to his older brother, and Vihaan Singh, the youngest, had sprinted in last, late as usual. After exchanging a few words with his brothers and uncles, as well as executing the signature Ranakpour pranaam that required a ninety-degree-bow, with the hands coming together from the sides rather than from below, he had taken his seat next to Abhimanyu, but not before placing his hand on his heart and looking up towards the jharoka, where the ladies of the royal family were seated, observing the proceedings through translucent curtains.
‘Mahamahim Rajadhiraj is arriving,’ announced the darbari standing at the special entrance for the king. Uday Singh’s footsteps echoed in the gilded corridors as he walked past the lotus pond in the middle of the expansive chess-themed chowk.
After taking his place at the throne, Uday Singh nodded at the gathering. ‘Please be seated,’ he said. His face had softened with age, but his voice had lost none of its deep baritone.
Wasting no time on formal greetings, the Maharaja continued. ‘It is with incredible sorrow and pain that I have gathered you all here to announce that I will begin talks on merger of Ranakpour with the Union of India and negotiate the best deal possible’
There was silence as the words washed over the Durbar. The King had spoken, and while the news wasn’t a surprise to anyone there, hearing the words said out loud hit them in a strange way. They listened as Uday Singh continued. He told them that he had been informed that India would be a union republic in a democratic set-up, and that a committee would be writing the new constitution over the next few months.
‘I want to make it clear that,’ he continued, ‘in place of the British viceroy, there will be a new president and prime minister, both elected to lead the country for a fixed term.’ He looked at his younger brother, Dushyant Singh who regularly met with viceroys Wavell and Mountbatten.
‘We…’ Uday Singh’s voice trailed off and he paused to look at his family, members of the court, and then at the walls where enormous, life-like paintings of his ancestors stared down at him. Among them was Fateh Singh, the 13th century prince who had fought with warring tribal kings to capture the fertile lands at the edge of the Thar desert and form Ranakpour. Over the following centuries, his descendants had fought off the Mughals, the Marathas, and the colonial powers, to maintain control over Ranakpour. Uday Singh felt his ancestral history weighing down on him as he announced the end of the dynasty. He gently touched the Ranakpour royal family order pinned to his chest, a golden insignia of a rising sun with a sword and a bow on either side, and then took a deep breath before going on. ‘Our deal will include guarantees on fixed yearly compensation in form of a privy purse.’ As blank faces looked back at him, it was clear to Uday Singh that not a single person in the hall understood what a Privy Purse was, but of course, no one questioned the king.
‘For 600 years, we’ve sincerely served the people of Ranakpour, and we will continue to do so, despite these changes. It is our duty. Don’t ever forget that we will now lead an even more public life,’ Uday Singh said, his voice rising as he directed his gaze towards Vihaan, his youngest and most impetuous son. ‘A single rash act can ruin our image. We must not forget that now, more than ever, there will be people on the sidelines, ready to take advantage of any folly or misstep on our part. I hope that each and every one of you will rise to the occasion, and find a respectable place in this new, independent India. May God bestow you with the strength to lead and wisdom to serve. If you have any questions, now is the time to speak.’
There was only silence. It is said that Uday Singh then stood up, removed his pearl-beaded pagri and placed it on the floor. Untrue. What he did remove were the three Kaisar-i-Hind medals that had been awarded to him by King George VI, for distinguished services in public administration.
*
‘Curse those meddling freedom fighters for putting us in this mess!’ bursted out Avantika, Uday Singh’s only daughter.
‘You call this a mess? Wait till Jinnah’s master plan blows up in our faces,’ chipped in Ajay, sounding more bemused than angry.
It had been a week since the king’s announcement at the Darbar, and the royal family, barring Uday Singh, had regrouped in the chowk on the moonless night of August 14, 1947.
Vihaan blamed Gandhi and his followers. ‘These half-baked Western ideas of democracy have no place in our society,’ he said, his voice loud and angry. ‘Daata shouldn’t accede.’
‘What do you propose then, join with Pakistan?’ Ajay Singh asked rhetorically. ‘None. To hell with both. We stay on our own,’ Vihaan declared without any real authority on the matter.
Such vocal protests on royal grounds were unheard of, even in the king’s absence. But seeing their cushioned lives slipping through their fingers was enough for the princes and princess to shake off any inhibitions. Their uncle, Dushyant Singh, sat on the edge of the pond and watched his squabbling nephews and niece in dismay. ‘Still a
few hours to go before independence, but I see you are already enjoying the liberties of freedom,’ he said, locking eyes with each of them.
His quiet words were enough to make them realize that they had spoken out of turn, and the siblings simmered down, hanging their heads low.
‘Abhimanyu, why don’t you go ahead and share your wisdom as well,’ Dushyant called out sarcastically. Abhimanyu, who had been standing a little away from the group, turned and looked at his uncle with his dark, melancholic eyes. Eyes that always gave the impression that he saw the world from a distance, as though he was disinterested in the events that were taking place around him. His siblings watched as Abhimanyu walked towards their uncle, carrying his 6’3” frame with effortless grace.
He stopped in front of Dushyant Singh and, folding his hands in the Ranakpour pranaam, said, ‘Who am I to stab at the tide of history, uncle?’ Abhimanyu was quoting Amir Chishti, his favourite Sufi poet, but that was lost on the gathering.
‘Yes, who are we?’ Dushyant Singh concurred under his breath. It was his final statement on the matter before retiring for the night.
Yaduveer, the youngest brother of the king, was not known for his rousing speeches, but he now tried putting a positive spin on the subject. ‘This is a big loss,’ he began a little stiffly, ‘but it opens up many avenues for all of us.’ Most of the family was present at the grand chowk as he went about listing all the ways in which they could benefit from their situation, but Yaduveer might as well have been standing in the middle of the Thar desert. No one heard him as he suggested that they could take the civil examinations and become bureaucrats. No one paid attention when he told them that there was hardly anyone in the new country who had real administrative experience like they did from being members of the ruling class. No one listened to his idea about joining politics, reaching out to people and, when the time came, asking for their votes. As Yaduveer rattled off his uninspiring list of opportunities with much less grace than the tranquil fountain gushing beside him, everyone else’s thoughts were focused solely on their personal futures. Would their land be taken away from them? Would they be thrown out of their palaces to live among commoners? They could be persecuted. History had shown that it didn’t end well when a king was stripped off of his powers.
While Ranakpour existed in relative symbiosis with its subjects and the British Raj, elsewhere, kings had been complicit with the colonial rulers in their horrible treatment of Indian freedom fighters. It would only take a stroke of the pen in the new constitution to make them criminals overnight if negotiations with the Indian government fell through. Yaduveer’s speech was mostly a way for him to wrestle with his own demons. For every lavish and royal dynasty, he could think of ten that met an inglorious end. Giants that fell through the cracks of history. Yaduveer didn’t know on which side of history Ranakpour would fall. And so, as India prepared to awaken to life and freedom, the royal family of Ranakpour ponderously made their way to their respective quarters, knowing full well that at sunrise, everything they had known about their world and themselves would change forever.
*
Critics often say that Jawaharlal Nehru’s ‘Tryst with Destiny’ is one of the greatest speeches of the twentieth century, albeit slightly short. For Abhimanyu, it was shorter still. He turned the knobs, adjusted the rheostats on a large wooden console and waited for the tubes to heat up. Then, from the only radio in Ranakpour that played sounds from cities as far as Rome, Ceylon, Moscow and London, came Nehru’s voice, so much closer to home:
‘... to the nations and peoples of the world, we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.
‘And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service. Jai Hind.’
Chapter 2
‘A lion’s grace lies in the forest. Once he is out in the village, in the city, he’s seen as a nuisance. People attack him, hunt him down instead of revering the majestic creature.’ Abhimanyu’s mother, Kaushalya Devi, was in her final attempt to stop him from leaving Ranakpour. They were at the front terrace of the palace, eating breakfast; four servers scurried around to tend to Abhimanyu’s voracious appetite. In some ways, the servers knew him better than his mother, the erstwhile queen, did. They had prepared the former prince’s favourite dishes, knowing full well that Abhimanyu won’t budge and it would be his last day in the palace.
It was October 1947, and the Ranakpour khandan had begun picking up the pieces of their shattered kingdom. The stateless Uday Singh paid regular visits to the corridors of power in New Delhi, the new capital of free India, but was no longer in a position to keep some of that power for himself. Instead, he found himself struggling to stay relevant while negotiating a better monetary deal for his family and fighting for a semblance of autonomy for the kingdom. His adopted son, Ajay Singh, an ex-soldier in the British Indian Army who had fought in the Burma campaign alongside the Allies, had pledged his allegiance to the Indian Army. He didn’t harbour any patriotic feelings towards the new nation, but was guided by a sense of deep gratitude towards his adoptive father. The army was a job for Ajay Singh in which he could excel and restore his family’s honour. Vihaan, the youngest son, had no such sense of duty towards his father or the country. He had brought up his wild ideas about Ranakpour staying fully autonomous – a land-locked sovereign state by itself in the heart of India – to his father. The king dismissed it outright, so Vihaan had summarily left India for London to ‘chart his own course’. Avantika had moved to Delhi to help her father deal with numerous bureaucrats, and found herself managing the situation rather admirably.
‘Leaving the palace, going to the city without anyone to look after you … Kaushalya continued, hoping to dissuade her last remaining child from leaving Ranakpour. ‘I have heard about the crime-filled streets of Bombay – there’s hardly room to breathe there. You are giving up all this to live there?’ She waved her right hand in the air as she spoke, taking in the sprawling palace and the uninterrupted vista that boasted a stunning view of the Ranakpour valley. From the balcony, they could see around them a sea of blue marble havelis and smaller houses. On a bright and sunny morning like that, Ranakpour could have easily been mistaken for Athens. (It’s another matter that the city looks garish today. Forget Athens, it doesn’t even look like a knock-off painting of the Greek city that amateurs sell on the streets of Pláka for three euros a piece. Ranakpour today barely retains its former glory, no thanks to the able administration of the Ranakpour Municipal Corporation.)
‘It’s for the best, Ma,’ Abhimanyu said, taking in the view. His childhood flashed before his eyes: playing cricket with his brothers on the terrace – their make-believe stadium – till they grew older and moved on to the palace grounds. He remembered those long afternoons when his brothers and he would squabble over whose turn it was to bat; how Avantika was always appointed the umpire because she never played favourites, and how their mother would drag her back indoors, lest the harsh summer sun turn her skin dark. He remembered practicing shots and sending the ball whizzing all over the grounds, and sometimes over the hill, requiring at least one member of the royal staff to abandon his chores and chase after it. The palace was full of memories of his whole life, but Abhimanyu knew that the future beckoned. Bombay beckoned.
‘This place is too small for me to make any sort of mark in the world of international cricket, or anything for that matter. There’s not much to do here now that …’ His voice trailed off, stopping short of reminding his mother that their kingdom had been taken away from them and the family relieved of their royal duties. ‘Besides,’ he broke into what he hoped was a reassuring smile, ‘I’ll visit often.’ That irresistible smile, quite the rarity in her children, had Kaushalya tongue-tied as always. Abhimanyu took one last sip of his tea, stood up and then bent down to touch her feet. ‘Goodbye, Ma,’ he said, and with that, he turned around and w
alked away, his stride strong and confident. ‘May you have the world at your feet, son. But remember, you’ll always remain the prince of Ranakpour.’ Abhimanyu turned around and gave her a quick bow without breaking a stride, and went his way. Kaushalya sat there, disappointed at how easily her son seemed to have made his exit. Perhaps if she’d known that he’d rushed off to steal a moment alone, and to collect himself as he stood at the main entrance, taking one long, last look at his home of twenty-seven years, she’d have felt differently.
*
A while later, Abhimanyu was at the wheel of his beloved Rolls Royce Phantom III, gifted to him by Uday Singh on his twenty-first birthday. His other favorite, the red Maserati, was already on its way to Bombay, having been shipped ahead by this father as a present. His driver sat in the passenger seat. The drive to Ahmedabad was a blur, as the black metal beast raced through a landmass of beige.
At the train station, past the Jhulta Minar, Abhimanyu climbed out of the car with a leather duffel bag and a cricketing kit, and hurriedly made his way to the waiting room, hoping to avoid anybody who would recognize him. But quite a few people had already done so, and were rushing over to greet him. It was not often that one got to meet a royal, erstwhile or otherwise. Abhimanyu wanted to be left alone, and so he didn’t engage much with anyone, leaving many people disappointed. And then, an old man approached him with a full bow and mentioned that he was from Ranakpour.
‘Your Highness, it is a privilege to see you,’ he greeted Abhimanyu while keeping his eyes turned firmly to the ground.
It had only been a few hours since he had left home, but Abhimanyu found himself strangely pleased to see someone from home. He stopped to greet the man with warmth.
‘So, do you still live in Ranakpour?’ he asked the old man.
‘No, Your Highness, I moved to Ahmedabad four years ago for my business. But my family still lives in Ranakpour,’ said the old man.
‘I see, good.’