She, who used to love composing poetry so much, does not even feel the desire to anymore. She had written to share beauty and dreams, to convey ideas, feelings and fragments of life, those small pebbles on the path to the serenity she was seeking, and wanted to share with others. She does not write to exhibit her pains and is averse to the morbid narcissism that considers one’s own miasma so worthy of interest that one wants to display it to the whole world. Is anything more banal than unhappiness? Everyone experiences it, we “encounter misfortune” daily. Happiness, on the other hand, is an art. Books and schools of philosophy have constantly tried to reveal different means of attaining it. This is her chosen path.
Nonetheless, the trials of her youth taught her that misfortune can also be a gift if one is capable of seeing it as a stage rather than a state, a stage necessary to understanding oneself and to come to an understanding of the world, to go beyond oneself, and thus gradually reach a state of serenity. In her case, this transformation occurs through writing. She sees the writer as an alchemist whose whole existence is an attempt to transform darkness into light, an immense task both challenging and involving total dedication of the mind and body.
She is not yet ready for that though. She needs an active existence. Writing for her is an indispensable time for reflection, but it cannot satisfy her thirst for life.
Life? Her lips twist into a bitter grimace. What life can she hope for locked up in this zenana? As a child she dreamt of horse rides and adventure, drunk on the freedom her unorthodox father had permitted her, conscious that her condition as a woman would impose its limitations soon enough. With the onset of puberty, she had discovered her unfortunate fate as a prisoner when, having become an orphan, an uncle for whom tradition was no laughing matter had taken her in. However, unlike her companions whose whole existence had been confined between high walls, the acidic taste of freedom was imprinted on her very being and prevented her from giving in. Ah, if only she had been blessed with the same carefree nature as her friend Mumtaz, for whom everything was cause for laugher!
Mumtaz . . . they have not seen each other for twelve years!
Yet I had sworn nothing would separate us, I would send for her as soon as I was settled . . . She must have waited and worried, certainly been upset with me and despaired. And I, immersed in my new life, my love for the king, then for my son, busy evading the intrigues and creating an undisputed position for myself, I forgot all about her! Because in such a different world, I had no need for her . . . never thinking that she may have needed me . . .
Hazrat Mahal gets up. She feels a desperate urge to see her friend again.
The eunuch comes running to answer her call.
“Mammoo Khan! Find me a modest palanquin carried by two men. Have it brought to the servants’ entrance. I also want you to borrow a burqa from one of the slaves. Be discreet, nobody must guess it is for me.”
“But Huzoor, the palace has dozens of palanquins! As for the burqa, surely you are not going to wear that horrible black tent that only commoners wrap themselves in!”
“Mammoo!” She raises her eyebrows. “Did I ask for your opinion? Come on now, hurry up!”
9
Peering out through the curtains of the palanquin, Hazrat Mahal can barely recognise her town. She had been told about the destruction but had never imagined it to be so widespread! The network of small lanes that led from Kaisarbagh to the centre of Lucknow had been torn up, and under the burning sun emaciated workers toil away, building what seems to be a wide avenue. Here and there, ancestral homes have been razed to the ground. Ahmed Ali Khan’s palace, General Aneesuddin’s too, the Qahwa Khana Club near the Residency, and even . . . the great Khas Bazaar, where she used to buy her ribbons when she was an adolescent. She cannot believe her eyes. Why this devastation?
“To modernise the town,” explains Mammoo, sarcastically. “Thus have our new masters decided!”
While the palanquin continues towards the Chowk, moving away from the noise and the dust from the road works, Hazrat Mahal has the strange sensation of disappearing into a grey, silent world. Until recently, it was difficult to forge a path amidst the sumptuous carriages, sukhpals,43 finases,44 palanquins, and horses with silver harnesses, surrounded by a joyful, colourful crowd thronging the stalls overflowing with goods for sale.
Nowadays the town seems to have been ravaged by the plague. Most shops are shut and only a few bamboo sedan chairs are to be seen out on the streets. Consequently, despite its modest appearance, Hazrat Mahal’s palanquin attracts attention. They are surrounded by hordes of beggars whom Mammoo tries to disperse by distributing a few small coins. Amongst these pitiful wretches, Hazrat Mahal is astonished to see what she believes are soldiers in rags.
“They are indeed soldiers who belonged to the king’s army, dissolved by the British,” confirms Mammoo. “Of the seventy-thousand-strong force permitted by the resident, and closely monitored by him, the current government has taken on fifteen thousand men, who felt compelled to accept so they could feed their families. The majority, however, refused to serve their former master’s enemy. Perhaps they hoped to find employment with the rich taluqdars, but the latter, ruined by the agrarian reform, no longer have the means to hire them. Subsequently, most of the ex-soldiers are left destitute. For these proud men this represents an intolerable decline, and they wait for the first opportunity to take revenge.”
The palanquin turns into the main street in the very heart of the Chowk, with its shops trading in luxury goods and courtesans’ houses. Hazrat Mahal cannot believe her eyes, all the doors are shut and the balconies, previously full of flowers, where languishing young beauties stood fanning themselves, are now deserted and overgrown with weeds. Where once chimes of laughter, song and poetry rang out, there now reigns a deathly silence. Finally, the palanquin comes to a halt at the end of the street in front of Amman and Imamam’s stately house.
They have to wait several minutes before the heavy door opens slightly, revealing an old lady wrapped in a black shawl.
“What is it?” she asks suspiciously.
“This is the house belonging to the ladies Amman and Imaman, is it not?” enquires Mammoo, disconcerted by this unexpected apparition. “Do they still live here?”
“What is your business with them?”
“Now there, old woman, watch your tongue! Go immediately and inform them that my mistress, the very noble and respected Begum Hazrat Mahal, wife of our King Wajid Ali Shah, has come to visit.”
A good fifteen minutes pass before hurried footsteps and exclamations are heard, and suddenly the main door is thrown wide open to allow the palanquin to enter.
“Muhammadi! May Allah be praised! What a surprise!”
Drawing aside the curtains, two plump, white-haired women hurry to help Hazrat Mahal descend. The latter hesitates for a moment . . . Is it possible that these two old ladies are Amman and Imaman? She remembers majestic women, not beautiful but imposing, with their copper-coloured hair, painted lips, eyes outlined with kohl, always dressed in expensive clothes. How could they have changed so much? It is not only the wrinkles but a general air of neglect in their appearance, which no longer seems to matter to them.
The same air of neglect is evident everywhere as she enters the house. The furniture is covered with dust, the large crystal chandeliers and the copper objects are tarnished, the carpets do not seem to have been cleaned in months and the silk on the huge sofas is creased, even torn in places. The house looks abandoned.
Two hastily summoned servants dust and plump up the cushions, they spread a white sheet on the carpet, while a third brings sherbet. The two sisters apologize profusely:
“We do not even have any sweets to offer you! Ah, if only we had known you were coming! No one has visited us in months and we have had to send all our boarders away.”
“But why?”
“If you only knew! It has
been a disaster! Since the government confiscated the taluqdars’ villages and raised taxes, our clients, the cream of Awadh’s aristocracy, have been ruined. And the few who have something left are so worried, they do not have the heart to enjoy themselves. All the respectable houses in the Chowk have closed. Only a handful of second-class establishments still remain to cater to the Angrez military or the nouveaux riches, who made a fortune buying up for a song the land distributed to the farmers.”
“The farmers are selling their land instead of cultivating it?”
“Clearly you know nothing of what is happening in this country!” retorts Amman bitterly. “I have a young cousin staying here. She has come from the countryside with her children. She will tell you what is going on.”
Offended by this lack of consideration—something she is no longer accustomed to—Hazrat Mahal falls silent, leaving Mammoo and Imaman to exchange a flood of courtesies in an attempt to lighten the atmosphere.
She treats me as she did when I was thirteen and I was one of her boarders! But do I prefer it when people make fun of me and speak ill behind my back, as they do at Court? In fact, I am no longer used to being spoken to frankly. She is right; I am too cut off from the world . . . A world that is changing so fast . . .
Calm and poised again, she welcomes Amman’s relative with a big smile. Nouran is a peasant from the Sitapur area, some fifty miles outside Lucknow. She had walked all the way into town with her five young children. Although she is not even thirty years old yet, she looks closer to fifty, exhausted by toiling the land and the harsh climate.
“Our village belonged to the Rajah of Salempur,” she says in a colourful dialect, forcing Hazrat Mahal to concentrate to be able to follow. “We have always worked his land and, as is the custom, he used to give us a quarter of the harvest. It was also he, of course, who provided us with the seeds, the water, the tools, the cart to transport the wheat or sugar cane, and who paid all the taxes. If it was a good season, we had enough to survive on and even a little extra, and if it was poor, the rajah helped us until the next harvest. We never went hungry. He was a good master. His army protected us from bandits and marauders, and his presence dissuaded the civil servants from creating trouble for us. He was like a father to us and we were all devoted to him, he could ask whatever he wanted of us in exchange, like repairing the fort, cleaning the drains . . . Although he could be severe at times, he was always fair and we respected him. Until the Angrez came along and upset everything!”
“They gave you the land though!” objects Hazrat Mahal.
The peasant woman begins to cry:
“Ah, the heavens have truly punished us! I had told my husband we should not take the land that belonged to our master. He beat me, berating me for being an ignorant, stupid woman, shouting that the Angrez were offering us an opportunity to be owners, to do as we liked with the whole harvest and to become rich. Like all the other farmers, he followed the village council’s decision: after numerous discussions, they had decided to accept the occupier’s offer. We never saw our rajah again. Thank goodness, I think I would have died of shame.”
“Then what happened next?”
“First, in order to buy seeds, pay for the water and rent the cart to transport the sugar cane, we were forced to borrow from the village moneylender at an interest rate of 15 percent a month. The harvest was not very good, but the worst part was that the new taxes, evaluated by the Angrez, were much higher than the previous year! That took up half our profit. After we had repaid our loan, we had nothing left to live on. The village council asked the government for an extension until the next harvest, six months later. Their immediate response was: ‘Either you pay up or we will seize your land.’ We thought it was an empty threat as in the state of Awadh, never, as far back as any peasant can remember, has anyone seen land being confiscated to pay off a debt! Neither the king nor any of the taluqdars would have imagined confiscating our means of livelihood on the pretext that we owed them money. At worst, we were asked to send our children to help with different jobs!”
Using the corner of her dupatta to wipe the tears away, Nouran then continues in a broken voice:
“When the buyers, the rich merchants and the moneylenders from nearby villages actually turned up, we realised the Angrez government was not joking. A delegation of elders hurriedly set off for the capital to plead the villagers’ cause. On the way there, they met other deputations from surrounding villages who were facing exactly the same problem. When they arrived in Lucknow, try as they might to explain the fate of the tens of thousands of families that were being condemned to die from hunger, it was all in vain. The authorities refused to listen. It seems that in their country this is the way things are done: someone who is in debt has his possessions seized and is thrown into prison . . . ”
“That makes no sense at all,” comments Imaman. “How can a man who is locked up pay his debts? These Angrez really do have strange customs.”
“Strange? Criminal, you mean!” exclaims Nouran, red with indignation. “If not for you, my benefactors, my children and I would have died of hunger, like the tens of thousands of peasants who, driven from their land, are dying now.”
Then turning to Hazrat Mahal she continues:
“Huzoor, is our king going to return? I beg you, tell him his people are waiting for him, they need him!”
Moved, Hazrat Mahal holds the woman in her arms.
“I will tell him, I promise, but as you know the British are detaining him in Calcutta . . . ”
“Not for much longer!” interrupts Amman. “The people have had enough! All one hears everywhere is talk about driving them out. They have to leave India this year, so the prophecy says.”
“What prophecy?”
“The prophecy of Plassey of course! It predicts that the Angrez will be forced to leave India a hundred years after the Company’s troops overcame the king of Bengal’s troops at the Battle of Plassey. This victory that marked the beginning of their domination was won on June 23rd, 1757. It is now January 1857 . . . ”
Hazrat Mahal nods her head. As a good Muslim, she believes neither in the prophecies nor in the miracles that the common people are so fond of. She is careful, however, not to share her doubts with Nouran, who only has this hope to keep her going.
“Everyone here has problems,” Imaman sighs deeply. “The peasants and the big landowners, as do the shopkeepers and craftsmen. Now there are no clients left, the hundreds of luxury businesses and workshops that made all these marvels have had to close. The other day, going down the street I noticed some craftsmen begging. They were men who had been my suppliers. I pretended not to see them so as not to humiliate them, and I sent my servant to give them a few rupees as alms. It broke my heart though. What is going to become of us all, if even the little people who created our town’s wealth no longer have any work and are dying from hunger?”
“Is no one distributing wheat and soup as before in times of famine?” asks Hazrat Mahal, amazed.
“That used to be funded by the king or the taluqdars then. Today, the wealthy are these money-lending shopkeepers who get rich by ruining others. They have no pity for anyone.”
All of them are silent, lost in their gloomy thoughts. Suddenly, Hazrat Mahal remembers the real reason for her visit.
“And Mumtaz? What has become of her?”
“Mumtaz? She only remained here for a few months after you left,” explains Amman. “She was a good girl but did not have the necessary qualities to develop into a great courtesan. Nonetheless, we have always ensured our girls are well placed, even if they do not attain high positions. We never abandon them. We never allow them to be reduced to prostitution, although this has often been a problem, it is something we are proud of!”
“So . . . where is she?”
“We married her off to a small local taluqdar. As she was from the countryside, we thought she would be in h
er element there. But the last news we received, three years ago now, was that she had left.”
“Left? To go where?” asks Hazrat Mahal, alarmed.
“She had no children, so her mother-in-law treated her as her ‘whipping boy’ and relegated her to the level of a servant. She is said to have run away and managed, it seems, to return to Lucknow. I even thought she had gone to ask you for help.”
Help . . . Poor Mumtaz, she was too shy and too proud to go begging to someone who had forgotten her for so many years . . .
“How can we find her?”
“I have had people search for her all over the Chowk in the second-rate houses. No one has seen her. At least, that is what I was told.”
Hazrat Mahal shivers.
She may be dead and it is all my fault . . . I had promised to help her, I forgot her . . .
Lost in her thoughts on the way home, the young woman does not reply to Mammoo, who tries his best to distract her. She remembers the long evenings spent exchanging secrets with Mumtaz and imagining the future, she hears her friend’s clear laughter again and sees her honey-coloured eyes. With all her might, Hazrat Mahal begs Allah to help her find her.
A drum roll draws her out of her thoughts. Through the curtains she can make out a long procession, preceded by musicians wearing red turbans. At the centre, mounted on an elephant, a thin man with long hair and a black beard is sitting perfectly upright in his howdah. She barely has time to notice his aquiline nose and his piercing eyes under bushy eyebrows before instinctively drawing back with a gasp. Despite the curtains concealing her, she has a very distinct impression that the man looked straight at her.
In the City of Gold and Silver Page 8
