River of Fire

by Qurratulain Hyder

  A massive sandalwood Ganapati sat on the mantelpiece in William Craig’s drawing-room in his house on Warwick Avenue. Bill was sprawled on the sofa, absorbed in The Times, a stocky, balding man in early middle-age. “Do you know how to proof-read? It’s quite easy.” He placed a bundle of yellow papers in front of her, got up and sauntered towards the kitchen. Clad in a brown-and-yellow sari of rich south Indian silk, Shanta came downstairs. Tall, sturdy and handsome, a blue-eyed Chitpawan, she crossed over to a corner table and began typing briskly.

  “Bonjour, Madame!” Champa tried to impress her.

  “Hello. I have heard a lot about you from Gautam. How do you do,” she said casually, still typing away at great speed. She certainly had very superior airs. Successful Indo-Anglian novelist and business partner of a noted British publisher. She didn’t bother to speak to Champa again.

  Bill brought her a cup of coffee. He was good-natured, and also had a glad eye. Shanta didn’t accompany them to the office. She was leaving for Paris in the afternoon.

  “What is your programme in life?” Bill asked his new employee during lunch break. He used to proof-read people, too.

  “Haven’t a clue.”

  “Are you very confused?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you also caught in the Net?”

  “Yes.”

  Bill reverted to gloomy silence. They were all caught in the Net. Himself, and Cyril Ashley and all other Western European intellectuals. The representatives of New Asia living in the West were suspended in mid-air, between diverse hells. Their Christian and Jewish and Muslim and Hindu and Buddhist souls were suffering all kinds of agonies. Arnold Toynbee had written ten fat books about them and still hadn’t come to a satisfactory conclusion. Bill was a trader in words. He believed in their might and muddle, and their hollowness.

  Shanta was also entangled in the Net. Their private hells, individual catacombs and separate universes were all the more painful as there was no way out, except for those who had become Marxists and thought they had found the Final Answer.

  “We have recently lost our Indian Empire and there’s going to be a great demand for nostalgic novels about the Raj. You write, I’ll build you up as the modern Flora Annie Steele.”

  “Who was Flora Annie Steele?”

  “Never mind. You begin a novel about Lucknow, right away.”

  They began to eat. He said, “Mulk Raj Anand is old hat, we need young people like you. You write a novel about Old Lucknow—you must know somebody from the ex-royal family of Oudh?”

  “I myself belong to the ex-royal family of Oudh,” she answered recklessly.

  “Jolly good!” he exclaimed. “My father is an Old India Hand, he was an indigo planter in eastern U.P. Germany developed the chemical blue dye and Britain’s indigo trade came to an end. Father sold his estate in Ghazipur district to a Muslim zamindar and returned to England. I was schooling in Mussoorie. We came back to our damp and cold house in Cobham, Surrey. Father still lives there. He would love to help you in your writing with his reminiscences. For instance, he can tell you about Sir Harcourt Butler and his favourite singer, Zohra Bai of Lucknow. Sir Harcourt was Lieutenant-Governor of the United Provinces in the 1920s, and was called the last of the Nabobs.

  “I can take you to Cobham to meet Dad off and on. Shanta will be away in France for nearly a month. Let’s meet at the Writers’ and Artists’ Club in Haymarket tomorrow evening, and we’ll discuss this project in some detail.”

  “Princess Champa of India!” Bill Craig gravely introduced her to his friends in the Club.

  “No titles please, we’re a democracy,” she said modestly. She had realised with acute anxiety that Bill knew the Lucknow Gang—her fantasising had gone too far. In Paris she had told the Frogs that she was a niece of the Nizam of Hyderabad—then she ran into some Hyderabadis and immediately stopped being a royal niece.

  In the Club an English journalist looked at her in absolute fascination. “You know something, Princess,” he gushed, “the beautiful Maharani of a Punjab state who died here recently, was called the Rose of India. I think you are lovelier than her. What should we call you?”

  “I’ll ask Dad the botanical name of this flower. Let’s go to Cobham, Saturday week,” said Bill with a glint in his eye.

  48. Lala Rukh

  “Sorry, couldn’t make it earlier, had to rush off to Russia. Here is a little souvenir for you from Moscow,” he said, placing a parcel on the table.

  She opened it eagerly and took out a gypsy shawl. “Oh, Gautam, how sweet!” she cried as though she was still in Water Chestnut House.

  Tenderly he wrapped the stole round her shoulders. She blushed. “Some day I’ll take you to Outer Mongolia. You very much want to go there, don’t you?” he said.

  Nirmala nodded vigorously. “And Alma Ata.”

  “And Alma Ata. And Samarkand-o-Bukhara. The works. Do you remember Thomas Moore’s Lala Rukh?” He ordered lunch. The owner of Koh-i-Noor was a fellow Kayastha, a Mathur from Old Delhi.

  “Lala Rukh,” he resumed, “was Aurangzeb’s daughter. She set forth in a caravan for Kashmir where she was to wed the King of Bokhara, and her barge sailed on the Indus. Say, hoon, hoon, that’s the tradition, when you listen to a story you keep saying hoon.”

  “Yes. But Talat’s mother once told us that if you heard a story in the day time, travellers lost their way,” she answered, luxuriating in the warmth of the colourful shawl.

  A fair and lanky girl came in. She had a long nose and wore ballerina glasses. Smoking a black cigarette, she smiled myopically at Nirmala and sat down at a corner table.

  Although the unusual-looking undergraduate was beyond earshot, Nirmala whispered to Gautam: “Light from Pureland . . .”

  “Light—let me think: Roshni?”

  “Roshan,” Nirmala responded in a more confidential undertone: “Subject: Philosophy. Current interest: A. R. of the Holy Navy.”

  Gautam burst out laughing, feeling immensely relieved. No, old buddy Nim hadn’t changed—there was still hope for him.

  “Have you ever met him in London?” she asked.

  “At diplomatic receptions, yes. He was correctly cordial with me. So was I.”

  “Although I have noticed that Pakis are more friendly with H’s.”

  “You mean they don’t drop their aitches—ha—ha—”

  “Yeah. But they avoid fellow M’s from India. And vice versa. Anyway. So A.R. has also become very F.O.N.D. of R.O.S.H.A.N. And she is positively ga-ga—”

  “Honey,” he cut her short, laughing. “You would be a complete flop if you joined M. 1.5.”

  “And Bhaiya Saheb has started painting once again. Even made her portrait. Although, let’s face it, she’s no oil painting.” She winked at Gautam and giggled, the way she used to all those years ago in Lucknow. It seemed that in an instant they had crossed the razor-thin bridge of time.

  Nirmala continued. “When B.S. showed Talat that portrait she said its caption ought to be, Think and Be Sad.”

  She fell silent. Gautam was left standing alone on that invisible and fragile bridge. Frightened by his loneliness he said with great urgency, “Nirmal, can you still change your mind about me?”

  In a flash she recollected the smoke-filled kitchen of Water Chestnut House when Talat had predicted—some day he will land up in England and take you round the sacred fire. Good old Talat.

  Last time she had said no in a huff. She wouldn’t now, but she kept quiet all the same.

  “You know they say khamoshi means neem-raza, half-consent. Shall I take it as that?”

  Students were drifting in and out of the door.

  “Hello!” Michael called out and came towards them. Gautam had met him at Surekha’s place. They shook hands, and Gautam fished out a tiny gift bottle of vodka and presented it to him.

  “Oh! Thanks. Now I’ll get drunk like a lord. Which reminds me—the future Lord Ashley is giving a bottle-party tonight. Would you care to join us? It’s a
sort of celebration.”

  “Thank you, but I must leave right after lunch. What’s the celebration for?”

  “Cyril has received a grant to work on Anglo-French relations in eighteenth century India, post-Plassey—1756 and all that!”

  “1066 and all that!” Gautam responded cheerily.

  “Yes, and he has engaged Miss Champa Ahmed as his research assistant for the project! Soon she’ll be leaving Bill Craig’s office to come here. She has a diploma in French from Paris, you know. Cyril has found just the person to go through French documents, etc.”

  Michael returned to his table, and for some reason Gautam became very tense. There was silence. The food arrived and they began to eat. Then he said reflectively, “I was sorry to hear what you told me about Champa last time. I’m sure she is more sinned against than sinning.”

  Nirmala tried to fight back sudden tears. He was still thinking about Champa. This man had just proposed to her again and was still thinking about Champa.

  “I personally think that we shouldn’t discuss Champa Baji any more—the topic has become really boring,” she said and tried to look busy finding something in her handbag. “For you Champa Baji is a paragon, but perhaps you forget, Gautam Mashter, that we have known her from childhood, almost.”

  “This is very funny!” Gautam was peeved. “Why do all of you keep harping upon your childhood? Those who don’t happen to know you or Champa Ahmed from their infancy, are they donkeys?”

  Now he had come in the range of a powerful arc lamp. Just as she found herself in that bright light confronting Gautam, so this relentless critic of human weaknesses, the guru, considers a fraud like Champa to be a paragon.

  “See, you started narrating a dastaan in the day time and you lost your way,” she commented sadly.

  “I did not,” he replied emphatically. “Let me finish the story . . .” He took a deep breath. “So, there was this poet Framroze in Lala Rukh’s entourage, and she fell in love with him. Therefore she banished him from the royal caravan because she was on her way to marry the King of Bokhara, remember?”

  “Hoon”.

  “When she reached Kashmir she discovered that Framroze was her royal fiancé in disguise. Therefore, Nim, do not banish the poor poet in a hurry.”

  “Was he, is he, also in love with her?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, I am quite sure.”

  “Hoon.”

  “Nirmal! Don’t misunderstand me, I have nothing to do with Champa. You were right in calling me second rate. Please try to understand me . . .” Now he sounded like the hero of a trashy Hindi film.

  “Oh, Nirmala . . .” He slipped into the dark once again. He was a mere schoolboy. Who says men are wise and all-knowing? Sitting at that table in front of him, Nirmala felt she was growing like a flowering creeper, like a tree, like mercury inside a barometer. She was attaining Knowledge. Now she too would switch off the artificial lights and slip into Darkness. That state of being in the Darkness, is the highest of all states. She would sit there and peer out. From now on she would put on the Cap of Solomon1 whose fable Qadeer had narrated to her, once, in the outhouse of Gulfishan.

  “Everybody cannot find the Cap of Solomon. I am grateful to you, Gautam, that you helped me grow up and showed me how to find this magical cap.”

  “Finish your cup, Nirmala,” he said gently.

  She was playing with her coffee spoon. “I was merely being Eliotonian, Gautam Mashter,” she replied gravely.

  “May I come to see you next week?” he asked.

  “Yes, if you like.” She carefully placed three coffee spoons in a row. “That makes a fairly short measurement . . .” she remarked, smiling wanly, “. . . of one’s life! Doesn’t it?”

  1 According to Muslim lore, if one wore that cap one became invisible but could still see others.

  49. The Revolutionaries

  A Red Indian sat upon a log sending out smoke signals under a full spring moon.

  “Hey, you make excellent rings,” Talat said as she strolled by. The smoking Red Indian jumped down and joined the group winding its way to the dining hall. They began to sing, “We’ll make Lady Astor wash dishes when the Red Revolution comes/ We’ll make Mr. Churchill smoke woodbine when the Red . . .”

  They had rented a farmhouse in a village for the annual conference of the Federation of Indian Students Unions of Great Britain. The Cold War was at its height. Inside, some Red Indians were making fierce anti-American speeches. A Scottish comrade was playing his guitar and belting out a ballad in praise of Joseph Stalin. Talat and Feroze walked across to the lounge where Professor Hyman Levy sat on a leather sofa surrounded by ardent young men and women. Talat spotted Roshan Kazmi in the gathering and greeted her warmly. Outside, around the bonfire, a group was singing:

  One great vision unites us

  Though remote be the lands of our birth,

  Foes may threaten and smite us

  We shall bring peace to the world . . .

  A mixed crowd of English, Welsh, Scottish and East Pakistani students had been invited to attend the conference. The host Indians were Reds of many hues, most of them, like Talat and Kamal, Nehruites. Faiz Ahmed Faiz, who was in jail in Pakistan, was their hero as well. Both West Bengal and East Pakistan were united in their devotion to the revolutionary poet, Qazi Nazrul Islam. Most young progressives in England believed that Pakistan would soon have a red revolution because conditions there were as bad as those in pre-1917 Russia. And India would shine like a beacon for the rest of humanity.

  The students had also invited a few pro-India socialist M.P.s and Left intellectuals like Professor Hyman Levy, author of Literature in the Age of Science. He had come all the way from Scotland. With his shock of white hair, Semitic nose and intense yet benign look, he was the model left-wing Jewish intellectual. London School of Economics was full of them, all friends of India.

  “I am ashamed of the way my country treated you for two hundred years,” he was saying to the young people sitting in a semi-circle before him. Roshan passed a little note to Talat—“Point for reflection—Britain is his country, Israel is his country, too . . .” Talat glared at her.

  He turned towards Roshan, “I’m thrilled to see so many brilliant young Indian women gathered here tonight . . .”

  Roshan pursed her lips.

  Talat saved the awkward moment. “We must have been a great disappointment to you, sir, the way we behaved in 1947. All the humanism of the humanists could not save us.”

  Talat was quite unpredictable. That hot afternoon in April 1941, she had suddenly got up and started dancing in front of the row of glistening Buddhas in Sarnath. Now she stood up and declaimed as though she was on the stage of the Old Vic, taking part in Murder in the Cathedral.

  Clear the air! Clean the sky! Wash the wind, take stone

  From stone and wash them.

  The land is foul, the water is foul, our beasts and

  Ourselves are defiled with blood.

  A rain of blood has blinded my eyes.

  I wander in a land of harren boughs: if I break them they Bleed,

  I wander in a land of dry stones: if I touch them they bleed.

  How can I ever return to the soft quiet seasons?

  She sat down again, as abruptiy as she had stood up.

  How do I return to the soft quiet seasons? he repeated to himself, smoking furtively. He wore a pork-pie hat, his face was half-hidden in the upturned collar of his overcoat and he looked like a shadowy figure in a Cold War spy novel.

  “Didi, an American agent!” a youthful Bengali whispered to Talat. “I noticed him lurking out there while you were reciting that reactionary Royalist’s poem—I’ll go and see. Come on, comrades!”

  “Don’t behave like a schoolboy,” Talat scolded him and peeped out. She recognised the profile of her cousin Amir, and grasped the situation in an instant. He had come here to haul up poor Roshan and didn’t want to be seen by the Bha
ratis. A delicate and dangerous mission, indeed! She felt a surge of affection for him and slipped out of the lounge. Then she accosted him merrily.

  He looked embarrassed.

  “Bhaiya Saheb! Adaab! Do come in. There are so many of your countrymen here attending this conference. And look, you are a diplomat. I’ve seen your High Commissioner and his Begum hobnobbing with Krishna Menon at so many parties, so don’t make life difficult for yourself. Come in! You must have gone to Cambridge to see Roshan and were told that she is here—right?”

  He smiled and patted her head, “My clever little sis!” he said with some emotion.

  Talat was touched. He had never been demonstrative with his family—Bhaiya Saheb must be growing old, he has become wiser and sadder, she decided and led him to a secluded corner of the barn. He sat down on a bench. “I’ll ask Zarina to get you a cup of hot coffee. Relax.” She ran off, came back and perched like a monkey on a haystack. “Remember, Bhaiya Saheb, you used to be in the Forward Bloc in Lucknow. Most of these people will probably also get over all this when their student days are over. It’s a necessary phase in young adulthood.”

  “Yes, Dadi Jan. You have always been the Wise One of the clan.”

  Zarina brought him coffee and left, and gradually he relaxed. He felt he was back in the barnyard at Kalyanpur.

  “How is my rakhi-sister, Nirmala?” he asked. “I don’t see her here.”

  “She is not well—admitted to the University Hospital for a check-up.”

  Talat reminded him painfully of Gulfishan and Tehmina and Champa. How could life be so pitiless that it had turned Champa into a tramp? Did this self-righteous slip of a girl know that she had over-simplified matters by adhering to mercurial political ideologies? How could intelligent people divide life into black and white?