The Nizam's Daughters

by Mallinson, Allan

  I report that predatory bands of Maratha horse are marauding along the Eastern Circars but, from accounts I have, they do not trouble the Nizam’s territories, nor very greatly that of the Rajah of Chintal. I have it on the same and other authorities that the Nizam’s forces are formidable and respected, and that especially he is well served by artillery.

  I have further to report that I am in contact with Mr Selden and shall be proceeding with him soon directly to the Rajah’s capital at Chintalpore. I am very mindful that my orders are to report first to Mr Bazzard in Calcutta, and I shall, of course, communicate with him at once, but the opportunity presented by my encountering Mr Selden is one which I feel sure you would wish me to avail myself of, for it is probable that I shall shortly make the acquaintance of the Nizam himself since His Highness is to visit with the Rajah. I have accounts, by officials of the Honourable East India Company, that relations between the Nizam and the Rajah are infelicitous. However, by Mr Selden’s own accounts, relations are – if not cordial – sufficiently tolerable. I believe – though I may only surmise – that this disparity of opinion is occasioned by the want of intelligence available to Madras, for it seems that Haidarabad and Chintal are interests of Calcutta’s rather than of the former. I have to report, however, that there appears to be certain resentment between Fort George and Fort William which may stand in the way of unity of effort in terms of intelligence.

  This must therefore be but a brief account of my assessments so far. I pray that this fortuitous beginning shall yield full and timely results, and with little attention drawn to His Grace’s agency here.

  I remain, Sir, Your Most Obedient Servant

  M. P. Hervey

  Captain

  From the Deputy Commissioner of Kistna, Guntoor the Collector of Land Revenues, and Magistrate

  To The Governor’s Secretary

  Fort George

  Madras

  2 March 1816

  Sir,

  Be pleased to lay before the Governor at the earliest opportunity this assessment of the recent incursions into the Company’s territory of the Eastern Circars by the irregular Maratha horse become known as Pindarees. At attachment is a schedule of depredations, together with the relief authorized.

  In all probability the route of the incursion lay through Nagpore, and it is most evident therefore that that country is enfeebled to a degree alarming to the Company’s peace. My agents report that the Rajah of that place is so enfeebled as to be incapable of exerting his dominion. His son is but an imbecile and a prey to the most malevolent influences. It is my very strongest recommendation that the treaty of subsidiary alliance be advanced as rapidly as possible ere the country descends to lawlessness, and I urge you most fervently to press upon Fort William the absolute imperative of concluding the said. For the present time I urge that the subsidiary force be assembled in anticipation of said conclusion so that not the least time is lost in bringing Nagpore under regulation.

  I have in the past urged a similar course with Chintal and my entreaties have been met with ill favour at Fort William on account of their conviction that Chintal represented no threat as a conduit for Pindaree attacks upon the Circars, neither that the Nizam retained any ambitions towards attaching that country to his own by force of arms. I must tell you now that my agents report most emphatically that the Nizam is about to begin a campaign against Chintal by subversion and intimidation. I do not have to tell you how parlous would be the condition of Madras, and the Circars, were such a unity to be opposed to the policies of the Company at some time in the future, for it would render mutual support of the two Presidencies by land most perilous. I therefore urge once more that Chintal, as Nagpore, be pressed to conclude a subsidiary alliance, if necessary on terms unusually advantageous. The situation, believe me, is very grave.

  I have the honour to be etc etc

  Eyre Somervile C.B.

  IX

  THE RAJAH OF CHINTAL

  Chintalpore, 25 February

  Half a mile west of the city, the Rajah of Chintal’s palace sat prettily on a shallow hill just visible from the rooftops of the humblest dwellings of Chintalpore – imposing, therefore, rather than dominating. It had been built in the middle of the seventeenth century on the birth of the rajah’s great-grandfather, whose own father had visited the water gardens of Italy and had wished to create fountains and cascades of like grace. He had therefore excavated a canal to take water to his new seat from the tributary of the Godavari on which Chintalpore stood, and the palace’s precise elevation was determined by the Venetian engineer who had laid out the gardens. The rajah’s ancestor had thereby sacrificed the eminence of a hilltop situation for the elegance of a less elevated one. It was a compromise of which successive generations had approved. At least, that is, to this time, for the present rajah was without male issue.

  The palace itself was an eclectic structure, a mix of Hindoo and Mughal architecture in which domes and pyramidal roofs stood harmoniously side by side – symbolic of the harmony in which the Mussulman population of Chintalpore lived with their more populous Hindoo neighbours. Everywhere there was marble and alabaster, some of it almost pure white, but some richly veined with a shade of red that Hervey would have been hard put to describe. There was a tranquillity, in part wrought by the continuous tinkling of water in the fountains, inside and out, which stood in the starkest contrast to the city through which he had just ridden. And, though the heat outdoors was hardly oppressive in this early month, he found the cool shade the greatest relief after their long march.

  ‘ “High on a throne of royal state, which far outshone the wealth of Ormus and Ind . . .”?’ he declaimed, turning to Selden with a smile.

  ‘You are beginning to sound like Major Edmonds.’

  ‘I had all Milton’s works with me during the passage.’

  ‘You suppose this is paradise, then: you shall have to wait and see.’

  They had been met at the foot of the droog, the great earth ramp that led to the palace, by the rissaldar of the rajah’s life guard and thence borne by palanquin to the turreted gates which commanded the ascent. Here they observed the customary propitiatory offering to Pollear, the protecting deity of pilgrims and travellers. One of the bearers stopped before the gates and, with considerable ceremony, silently unwound his turban. Then, giving one end to another bearer, he placed himself the other side of the gateway so that the turban was stretched across the entrance at about waist height. Hervey and Locke, at Selden’s urging, placed some silver into the outstretched palms of the bearers before passing over the lowered tape and through the portals into the courtyard.

  They were shown to their quarters at once – high, airy rooms with fretted windows overlooking the water gardens – for it was afternoon and the household followed the custom of retiring until the sun had fallen half-way to the horizon, even in this cooler season.

  ‘Nimbu pani, sahib?’ said the khitmagar, indicating a silver ewer in a cooling tray.

  ‘Mehrbani,’ replied Hervey, pleased at last to be able to say ‘thank you’ in a native tongue.

  The khitmagar filled a silver cup, placed it on a tray by his side and took his leave with a low bow.

  Lime juice, sweetened, with something giving it an edge: it was a prompt restorative. Selden had said they would have the afternoon to themselves, until seven, when the rajah would show them his gardens and menagerie and then feast them with the honour due to those who had saved one of his most favoured elephants. And if Hervey had been in any doubt as to the veneration in which the rajah held the elephant then the number and magnificence of the carvings of that animal about the palace would soon convince him. So, with Selden’s assurance that he would be called to bathe an hour before the appointed time, he lay down on the wide divan and gave himself to the pleasure of rest.

  His Highness Godaji Rao Sundur, the Rajah of Chintalpore, spoke English with clear, precise diction, and without the inflections of other than an educated Englishman. Sel
den had told him that the rajah had had both an English nurse and governess, and a tutor from Cambridge, though he had travelled little beyond the frontiers of his princely state – except, in his youth, for a journey through the Ottoman domains to Rome, whose history enthralled him and whose religion still intrigued him. Although his native tongue was Telugu, the language of the majority of his Hindoo subjects, he was fluent in Urdu, and he even had a very passable acquaintance with French. But he preferred to converse in English, and many of Chintal’s officials were proficient, too. Indeed, with so many languages alive in Chintalpore, it was almost impossible for a visitor not to be able to make himself understood. The rajah’s daughter, Her Highness Suneyla Rao Sundur – the raj kumari – had likewise learned English at her nursemaid’s knee, but she had retained a religious sensibility – said Selden – that was wholly native. So native, indeed, as to be unfathomable, for, he confessed, after all his years in India he was still unable to give any account of what the Hindoo religion truly held to. The rajah, he believed, was at heart a good man, but for the raj kumari he could not speak, for she would never converse with him other than of mundane matters.

  The rajah was all ease at their meeting. He greeted Hervey as if he were the saviour of one of his children, and Henry Locke hardly less. ‘In my father’s day, gentlemen, such an act as the rescue of a royal elephant would have been rewarded by the gift of a dozen virgins,’ he smiled; ‘but I much regret that I must offer you less than that.’

  Hervey was momentarily unsure whether the rajah’s undoubtedly fine command of English embraced the difference between ‘less’ and ‘fewer’. Henry Locke failed to register any distinction, and wondered merely – and with keen anticipation – what would be the precise, if reduced, number of maidens who might be sent to his chamber.

  The rajah was a figure of dignified restraint, and evidently of sensibility and cultivation, concluded Hervey – in spite of his apparent jesting. His face was clean-shaven and fine-featured, his sallow complexion clear, and his shoulder-length hair was pulled back with slides. Around his eyes were darker rings, like those of the elephants to which he was so devoted. Perhaps it was a natural coloration, but so marked were they that Hervey thought them of cosmetic making. He was not tall, nothing like as big as the bazaar Hindoos who thronged the streets, yet he was possessed of a stature which, if it did not actually command respect, then otherwise induced it. Indeed he possessed an air of tranquillity that was at once appealing, while all about the palace there were images of the elephant, in statuary and inlays, which spoke too of the measured dignity of his court. And now, as they neared the menagerie, a big, old bull with full if fissured and yellowed tusks, his skin scarred from many fights, trod slowly into their path from behind an acacia screen. His mahout, standing nearby, shrivelled and as ancient as his charge, made low namaste as the rajah approached, but did nothing to take the animal in hand.

  ‘That is Seejavi,’ whispered Selden. ‘He was one of the late rajah’s war elephants. Now he is allowed free roam of the palace. His mahout is with him only because he has always been. Seejavi may trample anything and anyone he pleases.’

  ‘And does he?’ asked Hervey.

  ‘How are we to know? No-one would admit evidence of Seejavi’s ill behaviour.’

  The rajah took a sugared favour from a silver tray which a khitmagar carried ready, and held it out in his palm – not at arm’s length, but close to, making him hostage to the elephant’s forbearance.

  ‘Your Highness,’ said Selden, more wearied than anxious, ‘I do urge more circumspection with Seejavi. He is old and may not always remember his place.’

  The rajah smiled, without turning, and took another favour from the tray. ‘An elephant not remember, Mr Selden? The notion is an intriguing one. Seejavi would never be disloyal, of that I am sure.’

  Selden made no reply.

  The next voice was female. ‘You are too trusting, father. Constancy is no more an animal virtue than it is a human one.’

  Both the appearing and appearance of the raj kumari was of some moment. Hitherto she had been hid by the acacia screen, a slender figure, of about Hervey’s age and not much less than his height, her skin lighter than the Madrasi women whose complexion he had admired at Fort George (so close in colour as they were to Jessye’s bay), though her hair was blacker and her eyes larger. She was, by any estimate, a beauty of considerable degree, and, after the formalities of presentation, both Hervey and Locke found themselves, temporarily, less than fluent in their replies to her questions – which she asked without any of the coyness or reservation they had been led to believe was the mark of Hindoo women.

  At first they walked side by side along the aviary, and neither Hervey nor Locke felt able to look but ahead. When, however, she went a little in advance of them in order to attract the attention of a favourite peacock, Hervey saw that she wore not the saree but something divided, allowing her to walk with singular grace. In consequence he almost failed to hear the rajah’s enquiry as to how he liked the aviary, and thereafter he was all attention as they processed back to the palace down an avenue of deodars. ‘My grandfather grew them from seeds brought from a great hunting expedition to Kumaon,’ said the rajah, with no little pride.

  The raj kumari herself had shown no dismay on seeing Locke’s face. She spoke with warm civility, unafraid to look at him fully as they talked of this and that brightly feathered species in the aviary. Hervey saw nothing but the same warmth as that of her father, nothing that suggested a need for the circumspection Selden had advocated.

  The tamasha that evening was a regalement such that Hervey and Locke might never forget – as, indeed, was the rajah’s intention. The brilliance of the hundreds of candles and scented oil lamps, reflected by the white marble in the great dining chamber, seemed no less than the midday sun. The guests sat on cushions at a low table covered by a richly embroidered white cloth, on which were laid dishes of pomegranates, grapes and jujubes. To Hervey was accorded the honour of sitting on the rajah’s right, while Locke was seated to the raj kumari’s left, she herself being next to her father. Selden, who sat at the angle of the table, but in view of their host, had correctly predicted this arrangement, explaining to them that, unlike in other native, even princely, households, the raj kumari did not take a retiring role. Her mother, the ranee, had died within a year of labour – a conception for which there had been many years’ unanswered prayers – and the rajah had placed the overseeing of the palace in her trust from an early age, while he had withdrawn increasingly to his menagerie and his library. He had even shown less pleasure in the chase of late, though this was, thought Selden, because he disliked leaving the palace, fearing perhaps that on his return he would find it no longer in his hands, the possession instead of the nizam or one of his acolytes. Throughout his life, and his father’s before him, Haidarabad had laid claim to Chintal, a claim which, had not the late Maratha war diverted him, the nizam might by now have made good.

  But this evening the rajah was in good spirits. Musicians in a gallery at the other end of the chamber played lively ragas, and there was laughter among the two dozen courtiers enjoying his hospitality. A welldrilled troop of khitmagars brought more fruit to the table: oranges, peeled and dusted with ginger, fingerlengths of tender young sugar cane, and mangoes whose soft, peach-coloured flesh and abundant juice especially became the evening’s sensuality.

  ‘I am informed, Captain Hervey,’ said the rajah, casting an eye over the procession, ‘that in England you would not begin a feast with sweet things, that you must earn sweetness, so to speak, by progression through much sourness – as in life itself. But in India we have no such coyness in our pleasures. We have each earned title to indulgence in this incarnation through preparation in earlier ones.’

  Hervey was as much engaged by the elegance of the rajah’s phrasing as he was intrigued by his theology. ‘You know, sir,’ he replied, with considerable delicacy, ‘that our religion holds these things differently.
’

  ‘And I shall look forward keenly to our being able to speak on these matters, for you are the son of a sadhu, a priest, I am informed – whereas Mr Selden, there,’ he nodded, smiling, ‘is as much an atheist as was my tutor.’

  ‘Your tutor an atheist, sir? Mr Selden informed me that he was a fellow of Cambridge.’

  ‘Oh, indeed – both. He was sent down along with Coleridge for his opinions. Do you like Coleridge’s poetry, Captain Hervey?’

  ‘Very much, sir,’ replied the latter, hoping to conceal his surprise at hearing of Coleridge here.

  ‘I am much diverted by the notion of his enlisting in the cavalry afterwards. It was not your regiment, was it, by some chance?’

  ‘No, sir,’ said Hervey, even more surprised. ‘His was the Fifteenth Light Dragoons, and mine the Sixth. He was, by his own admission, a very indifferent equestrian!’

  ‘It is as well, Captain Hervey, otherwise we should have been deprived of some sublime poetry.’

  ‘Just so, sir,’ agreed the other, but with a resigned smile, for the rajah evidently held the two to be incompatible occupations.

  However, the rajah did not press the matter, returning instead to the subject of his gardens and menagerie, and the plans he had for their enlargement. The khitmagars entered once more in procession. ‘These will delight you especially, Captain Hervey,’ he smiled, as one of them proffered a salver. ‘Mandaliya. I have a cook from Bengal who makes it as no other I know. There is nothing else of worth in Bengal, I assure you, Captain Hervey!’ he added with an even broader smile.