River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  It seemed to be a hopeless situation. Gautam kept quiet. She waited for him to say something. “I’ll tell her,” he answered after a pause.

  She went back as abruptly as she had come, leaving Gautam bewildered. Her off-white gown flickered in the darkness of the narrow lane for a moment, then she vanished round the corner. Gautam finished his packing and sat down on his reed mat to read his Shakespeare.

  22. A Faery Tale Kingdom

  In flat-roofed white-washed houses with painted doors, in thatched mud huts and red stone havelis, young mothers rocked their babies in their colourful cribs and sang—So ja rajdulare, so ja, Baba tera haft bazari, data subedar.1 Sleep, baby, sleep, your father is a commander of seven thousand, your grandfather a viceroy. A similar lullaby was sung in contemporary England: Rocka-bye baby, thy mother is a lady, thy father a knight.

  The Mughal Empire was divided into 22 provinces, and a subedar as provincial governor or viceroy was the highest rank in the realm. A commoner could become a subedar if he had proved his merit. After the death of Aurangzeb in 1707, the centre became weak; once again the provincial viceroys grew more powerful. Burhan-ul Mulk had come from Nishapur, Iran. He was appointed Subedar of Oudh in 1719, and died in 1737. Safdar Jung was his nephew and son-in-law. Emperor Ahmed Shah made him Vazir-i-Hindu—Imperial Chancellor—and Nawab Vazir of Oudh. Raja Naval Rai was appointed his deputy. In an age of harem culture Safdar Jung was an exception. Nawab Sadr Jehan was his only Begum and he had no concubines. Their son, Shuja-ud-Daulah, rose to be a strong military leader but lost out to the English at Buxar in 1764. Delhi had been ravaged by Nadir Shah Abdali—its writers, poets, artists and craftsmen flocked to Shuja-ud-Daulah’s capital, Fyzabad.

  The Nawab Vazir was also a musician and employed 12,000 instrumentalists and singers. Many of them followed him on horseback when he went out hunting. Artists of London’s Royal Academy and two hundred French gun-makers lived and worked in Fyzabad, since there has never been a time in human history when fine arts have replaced the armament industry. Shuja-ud-Daulah’s son and successor, Asaf-ud-Daulah, shifted the capital to Lucknow in 1787.

  When the Great Famine stalked the land from Bengal to Oudh, Asaf-ud-Daulah had the great Imambara built in the city in order to provide employment to people. The construction was done at night so that impoverished gentle folk were not embarrassed to be seen working as labourers. The Imambara’s architect, Kifayatullah of Delhi, built the largest pillarless hall in the world, and its mind-boggling maze of underground passages was the wonder of architecture.

  The Nawab Vazirs of Oudh banned the killing of monkeys in deference to the Hindu monkey-god, Hanuman. Dussehra and Holi were officially celebrated by many Mughal kings in the Red Fort at Delhi, Holi and Basant were official festivals in Lucknow. Asaf-ud-Daulah’s mother, Nawab Bahu Begum, used to come to Lucknow from Fyzabad to celebrate Holi. Sadat Ali Khan, the fifth Nawab Vazir’s mother, Raj Mata Chhattar Kunwar, built the famous Hanuman temple in Ali Gunj, Lucknow, with a crescent atop its spire.

  The Nawab Vazirs created a culture which combined the finest elements of the civilisations of Iran and India. It was a tension-free society of polite, fun-loving people. This chivalrous, feudal world was inhabited by scholars, poets, storytellers, musicians, scribes, knights and barons, actors, jugglers, chefs, calligraphers, embroiderers, champion swimmers, kite-fliers and cock-fighters. Extreme finesse and good taste in the minor arts became the hallmark of the craftsmen. The architecture of Lucknow reminded European visitors of Moscow, Dresden and Constantinople.

  On Navroz Day, March 1823, Gautam Nilambar Dutt’s stagecoach entered the city gate at Aigh Bagh. He showed his papers at the checkpost. King Ghaziuddin Hyder’s guardsman stamped Nilambar’s parvana rahdari. The present Nawab Vazir had become a monarch. Gautam realised with a strange thrill that there were regions in the country which were still ruled by native kings. His carriage entered the lush green suburbs. Double-decker camel carriages were loaded with in-coming passengers. It was early morning and the splendid city was coming alive. A log burned slowly under a peepal. An old yogi sat in front of it, cross-legged, deep in meditation. A thousand-year-old Kali temple stood behind the tree. Nilambar folded his hands involuntarily as his carriage passed by.

  The Residency was housed in a river-side European-style castle built by the late Nawab Vazir, Saadat Ali Khan, bought by the English at the beginning of the century. Gautam Nilambar was told at the guard-house that the Resident had gone to lunch with a nobleman called Nawab Kamman at Goa Gunj.

  Abul Mansur Kamaluddin Ali Reza Bahadur had inherited a small estate called Neelampur in one of the chaklas or districts of the Kingdom of Oudh, and lived extravagantly in the capital. He was a good-looking married man of twenty-six. He was also an admirer of the reigning diva, Champa Jan, but she had not deigned to become his concubine yet. The romantic nobleman had obliquely addressed his latest ghazals to her. A slim collection of Nawab Kamman’s verse had just been published and Champa was going to sing his ghazals tonight. Like any budding poet or author worth his salt, Nawab Kamman looked forward to the evening, wondering how his latest verse would be received by the cognoscenti. Some of these lyrics had never been recited, and he had allowed Champa to set them to music and sing them in the soiree tonight.

  After the Resident took his leave, the young host looked at the French clock ticking away on the mantelpiece in his Regency drawing room and waited impatiently for the sun to go down.

  Gautam presented Mr. Ashley’s sealed bag of papers to the Resident at Bailey Guard in the evening.

  “Do you happen to know . . . where this woman called Champa lives?” he whispered to a native clerk the following day.

  “You mean Qattala-i-Alam—the Slayer of Mankind?”

  Munshi Hari Shankar smiled wryly. One would have thought this Calcutta Baboo would only be interested in English literature.

  “I have an urgent message for her which I must deliver in person,” Gautam replied uneasily.

  “Ah! The epistle must be from Mr. Ashley. Your Saheb has also fallen victim to the arrows flung by Big-Game Hunters!”

  Gautam kept quiet.

  The munshi promptly despatched a harkara to the Street of Perfumers with the message that Calcutta government’s Sikatarri Saheb had sent a letter to her through his Sikatarri. The harkara repeated the words to the crone at Champa’s doorway. The woman relayed it to Champa—who was at that moment inside her hammam—Company Bahadur’s Sikatarri had come all the way from Calcutta to meet her. So the crone brought back the courtesan’s formal reply: “I wait with all my heart for his auspicious visit. Please come tonight for the soiree.”

  “After giving her Mr. Ashley’s epistle do not come back in a hurry.” Hari Shankar said, chuckling.“Stay on and enjoy her superb singing. You are lucky. She doesn’t normally invite riffraff like you and me to her mehfils.”

  Verily, this is a pretty kettle of fish. I am in a soup, he told himself in English—the language which gave him great clarity of thought, and being a devotee of Dr. Johnson, he could call a spade a spade.

  The Street of Perfumers was flooded with the soft fragrance of summer scents. Palkis and carriages stood in the forecourt of Champa’s glass-fronted, double-storeyed house. A crone welcomed him in with a toothless smile. She was the same woman (a prima donna in her own time), slightly hard of hearing, who had misquoted Gautam’s message to Champa. Gautam was dressed in his formal Mughal-style chogha. The hag mistook him for one of the new Hindu merchant-princes or a zamindar from Bengal. She led him upstairs and took him straight to the masnad upon which the guest-of-honour, Nawab Kamman, was seated. He was surrounded by his cronies and friends. Gautam sat down in a corner and looked around.

  Champa Jan’s salon glimmered with lotus-shaped lamps. Gautam saw strange faces reflected in the tall gilt-framed Belgian mirrors. Who were they? What were they doing here? Where would they go hence? How long would the room contain this assemblage? The men were talking in soft, restrained t
ones discussing some complicated technicalities of Urdu ghazal. Gautam wore his best embroidered robe and a turban-like cap for he, too, belonged to a society which had been deeply influenced by Murshidabad’s nawabi culture. Still, his nervousness betrayed him as an outsider. The audience politely restrained their curiosity about the newcomer.

  “We have heard of the grandeur of the zamindars of Bengal,” the distinguished-looking aristocrat said during the course of conversation. “In which verdant dale in that paradise of Ind is your estate located?”

  “I have no estate, sir,” Gautam replied in broken Urdu. “I work for my living. I am a petty official of the Hon’ble John Company’s government.”

  “I see.” The Nawab resumed smoking his waterpipe. Gautam felt ill at ease. He was not aware of the fact that the Company’s economic exploitation of Oudh had made Fort William unpopular in Lucknow. Yet the King of Oudh seemed to be on friendly terms with his English overlords.

  Musicians trooped in, salaamed and stood around in a semicircle. They were followed by a dazzling woman of about thirty. She made a bow, salaamed the audience and stood in front of the musicians. Then her naqeeb, or announcer, sought the permission of the chief guest for Champa Bai to begin the performance.

  Nawab Kamman nodded. It was all very formal and ceremonial.

  Her diamond nose-flower sparkled as she began an ode to the Prophet, the Holy Family and the Twelve Imams. This was followed by a ghazal composed by the late Saaf-ud-Daulah. After the royal lyric was over, Champa began singing Kamal Reza Bahadur’s ghazals. Every time there was a round of Wah, Wah! Subhan Allah, the young poet salaamed the audience.

  “What does Subhan Allah mean?” Gautam whispered to the poet, who by this time had become quite friendly with the Bengali visitor. “Praise be to God. We praise Allah for every good thing in life. We praise Him for the beauty and good voice he has bestowed on this singer—and,” he added modestly. “the audience is also praising God for whatever talent He has given me to compose poetry.”

  Champa salaamed the listeners several times for their exclamations of praise. Gautam was enthralled by the heady atmosphere of the salon. This room was a hothouse of exotic plants in which Champa glowed like an incandescent magnolia.

  According to custom the concert gave over just before the muezzin’s call for early morning prayers. The guests departed. The room was full of dying candles and flickering flames. Gautam debated with himself—in this place, redolent with decorum, how could he be so rude as to accost Champa with Sujata Debi’s message? Some other time, he decided, and began looking for his shoes.

  Suddenly he was accosted by la belle dame sans merci herself. Lucknow’s cosmopolitan society included Italian and French architects, Scottish brewers, Armenian, Jewish, Kashmiri, Iranian and Gujarati merchants, some of whom attended Champa’s concerts. She had noticed the newcomer who seemed quite uncomfortable for some reason, and was now anxiously looking for his shoes in the doorway. She ordered a footman to bring his footwear, swept up to him and addressed him with ease and friendliness. “Sir, I do hope you enjoyed our Hindustani music!”

  He looked up and gaped at her. Then he muttered: “Yes, I did. You sing very well indeed, madam.”

  “You have honoured this worthless speck of dust, sarkar.” She repeated the customary phrase and salaamed gracefully. Then she added another traditional sentence—“This slave-girl shall prostrate herself if you condescend to visit this humble dwelling again.”

  He was rattled by the linguistic extravagance. Perhaps this woman is under the impression that I am some new-rich zamindar of Bengal, or a wealthy broker from Qasim Bazaar. I must tell her that I happen to be a mere cog in the wheel of John Company’s mighty juggernaut. Didn’t Munshi Hari Shanker’s courier tell her that?

  Champa continued smoothly, “This bondswoman shall serve you according to your choice when you come here next, sir.”

  Gautam was shocked. Champa’s chief musician, the sarangi-player hastened to explain, “Huzoor, in our parlance ‘to serve’ means to entertain our patrons with music and dance. Because, according to our etiquette and protocol, we can’t be so presumptuous as to say that we entertain. We merely serve. Bai Saheba here simply wishes to tell Your Honour that she will sing the ragas of your choice for you.”

  The cocky citizens of Lucknow considered the rest of the world to be uncivilised. Champa was enjoying this encounter with the attractive, limpid-eyed barbarian. He said a hurried goodbye and rushed back to the sanctuary of the Residency whose sprawling complex of ballrooms, banquet halls, hospital and gardens was a few acres of Regency England in the middle of latter-day Haroun-al-Rashid’s Baghdad.

  Gautam had never seen a woman like Champa Jan. In Calcutta, upper class women lived in strict purdah. When a Hindu lady went to take a holy dip in the Ganga her palanquin was lowered into the water. Of trollops there was no dearth in this city. They belonged to all races—Jewish, Eurasian, Armenian. He had seen them from a distance. Champa was a vaishya in the classical mould and she seemed to relish her power over men.

  Slowly, he got to know Lucknow. He went to the kingdom’s famous Prime Minister, Agha Mir’s, office. He saw His Majesty the King in his Durbar when he accompanied the Resident as a courier from Fort William. He was surprised to hear the King speaking fluent English—not Gautam’s idea of an opium-eating Oriental despot.

  The women of Lucknow were witty and fun-loving. Even aristocratic ladies were not entirely secluded behind the walls of their mahals. They went on purdah picnics and participated in festivals. Still, this was not a mixed society, and like the geishas of Japan, tawaifs were the sophisticated entertainers of gentlemen.

  Gautam began to ponder: why don’t our women have the same freedom that Englishwomen enjoy? For instance, why don’t they go horseback riding, like the Mems do? He asked this of Hari Shankar one morning while they were on their way to Ramna.

  “Of course they did—once,” Hari Shankar answered stoutly. “Rani Karnavati, Durgavati, Razia Sultan, Chand Sultana—they wore armour and led their armies into battle.”

  “Oh, but they were queens. Why doesn’t your wife go horseback riding in Dilkusha?”

  Hari Shankar looked offended. “Purdah is a symbol of status, only working women do not live in seclusion. We have our cavalries of Turk and Negro women who guard the royal harems, you can see them parading in front of Machhi Bhavan in the mornings. My patni is a purdah-observing housewife. Grih-Lakshmi . . .” It seemed Hari didn’t even like the idea of his wife being mentioned in the course of conversation. “Na stri swatantram—there should be no freedom for women. Thus spake Manu Maharaj,” he said with finality.

  Gautam persisted, “How have American women become so bold and courageous that they cross the Pacific and come all the way to Calcutta to teach our native females?”

  “They have an ulterior motive,” Hari Shankar replied piously. “They want us to become kristaans. Look at Bishop Heber and the rest who visit Lucknow from time to time.”

  “Right. But think of the misery of our young widows. I don’t blame them if some of them want to become Christian,” Gautam argued back vehemently.

  “Ha-ha—here comes our Champa Jan. She does not burn herself, she sets men afire with a mere glance!” Hari Shankar remarked jovially. They were ferrying across the Gomti. His Majesty was coming to Ramna, the royal wildlife sanctuary, in order to watch a ram fight. All Lucknow seemed to be afloat on all manner of colourful boats, on their way to Ramna. It was like a fiesta on water. Gorgeously attired tawaifs came sailing in their own pleasure boats.

  “Dohai hai Company Bahadur ki!” Champa shouted gleefully from a mermaid-shaped bajra. She was standing near the prow like a Roman statue draped in white. Her muslin dupatta was fluttering in the river wind.

  “Ah, good morning, Miss Jan, we were talking about you just now . . .” Gautam doffed his hat and shouted back gallantly.

  “Call her Bi Saheba, that’s how courtesans of rank are addressed over here,” Hari Sha
nkar whispered to him. “She sings for royalty. She owns an elephant, and Nawab Kamman has gifted her an orchard outside the city in which she keeps rabbits and a few deer. I think she would like to add you to her zoo,” Hari Shankar continued in a jovial undertone.

  Champa Jan ordered her crew to bring her boat alongside the Company scribes’ canoe. Then she said, “Come on, Sikatarri Saheb, don’t be bashful. Hop in. Munshiji, give him your hand . . .”

  The two men jumped over to her ornate barge. Gautam grew more nervous. Here were two degenerate Lucknowites trying to ensnare a morally upright young man. Champa winked conspiratorially at Hari Shankar, who looked pleased as punch. Both of them were enjoying themselves hugely.

  It became obvious to Gautam that Champa was Amrapali, Delilah, Salome and Theodora, all rolled into one. She looked frankly interested in him. Being a connossieur of men she knew how to pick and choose. She was certainly the kind of courtesan Damodar Gupt had written about in his treatise.

  “Why didn’t you come again after that evening?” she asked Gautam, playfully removing a lock of hair which had fallen across his brow. He wore his hair in Regency fashion and was dressed in coat and trousers.

  Before he could think of an answer, the barge touched the Ramna landing-stage. “Hurry up, His Majesty has already arrived,” she said and went ashore, followed by her maids. Champa walked quickly for spectators had to reach the arena before the King took his seat in his balcony. Gautam realised that here was his chance to deliver Sujata Debi’s message to her. He broke into a run and overtook her. Then he said urgently, “Madam, I mean, Bi Saheba, I have to tell you something very important.”

  “Come over tomorrow evening. This is no place for amorous declarations.”

  “I beg your pardon!” he retorted, “I have no room in my life for . . . for . . .” he stopped himself from saying something rude. The crowd of citizens was swelling around them on the river bank. “Do you know Cyril Saheb?” Gautam caught up with her and asked, panting.