Requiem in Raga Janki

by Neelum Saran Gaur

  ‘Please,’ begged Manki, ‘won’t you have a sip? Please.’ But the stranger kept her eyes resolutely shut. Manki did what she could, rubbed her feet with mustard oil, whispered that life was hard for everyone and that one must not break. She climbed on to the string cot and took Lakshmi’s head in her lap and ran her fingers through her hair.

  ‘Janki,’ she called, ‘go to my sandukchi and take out my blue Bangla saree, the one with the red border. Bring the chameli-scented hair oil.’ Then she softly questioned the inert woman. ‘Speak to me, sister mine. Where do you come from?’

  There was no reply.

  ‘Where is your home? What are you called?’

  No answer.

  Maybe she’ll speak after a day or two, thought Manki. She’s not married—this I can tell. She wears no toe rings. But her tall nose and her pale colour, for sure she’s of Brahmin blood.

  When, after a week, the stranger hadn’t still spoken, just lain around with dead eyes, occasionally stumbling to the privy or listlessly gulping down whatever it was that she was entreated to eat, Manki told her, ‘Now since you won’t tell us your name, we’ll have to give you one. I’ll call you Lakshmi. You’ve come into our home like the goddess comes on Diwali night. Like her, such tiny feet you’ve got.’

  They all smiled, the oafish Shiv Balak too, who found himself staring incredulous at the woman’s feet.

  The next day he took some money out of the till in the shop and visited a silversmith’s and brought home a pair of payals, a little fancy twine of a thing, wrought of thin braided filaments of silver, with delicate festoons looped along with tiny ice-white droplets of bells.

  ‘There,’ he said to Lakshmi, gruff. ‘Maybe you’ll speak now, girl.’

  Her dead eyes awoke from their trance and alighted on him. Ignited slowly, turned manic. But she clamped her face shut in stubborn resistance.

  ‘Now again, where do you come from?’ he persisted quiet, dogged.

  Suddenly she flared up. ‘How dare you torment me? I am sore sick of all this! This day-long night-long “Who are you, where do you come from, who are you, where do you come from”! Who are YOU, tell me that!’

  ‘I am the man who saved your life, and sure I am glad I did it, Lachhmi. Now, if you’ll only trust me . . .’

  She sprang up and hissed at him: ‘I don’t remember a thing, I tell you!’

  ‘Hush,’ Manki whispered. ‘Be patient. Maybe she really doesn’t remember, Janki’s father. Don’t rush her.’

  She took Lakshmi’s hand. ‘Try to remember, small-sister. You jumped into the river near Assi Ghat. Is that where you lived?’

  ‘I tell you, I don’t remember!’ Lakshmi’s voice had risen to a hysterical shriek and cracked upon the words. Tears bristled hot and furious in her eyes.

  ‘I’ll have to speak to people around Assi Ghat and thereabouts. See if anyone can tell me anything,’ muttered Shiv Balak.

  He sighed wearily and left. ‘What is to be done with this fretful vixen?’

  He came back from Assi Ghat and shook his head. No go, his look signalled to his wife.

  ‘Then shall we take her to a ghat-side temple?’ wondered Manki. ‘She can earn a living making garlands for the god.’

  Her husband drew a deep breath. ‘No, wait a while more. Let us see . . .’

  Wait they did—several days, Shiv Balak insisting that they give it some days more, Manki grown increasingly nervous and frequently cantankerous. Especially at Shiv Balak’s constant, craven appeals to the stranger that she speak to him—you’d imagine he was under her debt and not the other way about, Manki muttered. He entered Lakshmi’s chamber at all hours.

  ‘Lachhmi, why do you act so difficult with us, girl?’ he repeated his abject plea.

  She was lying on her cot as usual, her face to the wall. He sat himself down timidly on the cot, noticed the silver payals flung beside the rolled-up bedding that served as a pillow for her tousled head.

  ‘You haven’t even tried them on, lass.’

  No answer.

  ‘Then let me put them on you.’ Bashfully he reached out, picked up the small foot and looked at it with interest. Timidly he unclasped the delicate silver chain and looped it round the dainty ankle, fastened the hook round the ring. The little bells stirred and whispered together. Then, surrendering to a compelling urge, he ran his finger along the arch of her toes, curled petal-like towards the snowy cushions of the foot. Suddenly he looked up and saw Manki standing motionless in the doorway. He saw her expression, frightened, furious. She was staring at him, the look in his eyes, so shamed, so dazed. Like the mornings after the kesariya booti or after losing a wrestling match.

  ‘She’ll have to go,’ pronounced Manki summarily. ‘We’ll send her to the temple first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Send away the goddess Lachhmi, woman?’ he lashed out at this now-inadmissible idea. ‘Stop this kain-kain!’

  It was Manki’s turn to lose control. ‘Can’t your butthead see I’m doing whatever’s to be done?’ Manki shrieked. ‘Ask her a million times, she won’t answer. She’s pretending. And you said there was a dead babe. No one’s even so much as mentioned that—we’re that scared of upsetting her majesty! Her queenly majesty, the babe-killer! Where did that babe come from? Are dead babes sold at the hawkers’ stalls in the lanes of Benaras, though we all know how they’re begot? Yes, hit me now, you besotted man! Go on, hit me!’

  Shiv Balak had let his raised arm fall to his side. Lakshmi had risen from her cot. Her face had hardened as she cast a shrewd, measuring eye on the man, this desperate captive that he now was, and the weeping woman, his wife. For the first time she spoke in calm decision. ‘I won’t go to any temple to sing bhajans for a dole.’

  ‘No, lady, you’ll sit here and eat us out of hearth and home while we wait on you hand and foot!’ shrieked Manki.

  ‘I’ll sweep your floors and wash your dishes but I won’t go.’

  There was such relief in Shiv Balak’s swarthy face, such a glow, even Janki could sense it. And much after all this was a thing of the past, she remembered next morning’s tableau. Lakshmi had picked up the broom and the bucket, hitched up her saree well above her pretty white calves, the silver chain sparkling against her shiny skin. She swept and washed the rooms, the courtyard, the tulsi sanctum, the staircase, the threshold, until Shiv Balak, coming in from the shop, rushed to her side and snatched away the broom.

  ‘Never!’ he shouted at her. ‘Never let me see you do that again!’

  Lakshmi turned and looked candidly into his flushed face. His eyes were tipsy with longing.

  ‘Never let me see these hands hold a broom.’ He reached out, took both her hands in his own.

  ‘There are floors to be washed here, babuji,’ she protested with a faint tinkle of laughter beginning to sound in the depths of her voice.

  ‘There are plenty others to do that here, bahuji,’ he answered gruffly, letting her hands drop.

  From her chamber Manki heard it all and her heart sank deeper into the abyss. That night she heard her husband rise, unbolt the door and go out. She heard him descend the stairs. Then she heard the door to Lakshmi’s room softly groan open.

  It may well have happened this way. In her volume of ghazals called Diwan-e-Janki which she published in 1931 through the Israr Karimi Press, when she was already a big name, Janki glosses over Lakshmi’s presence in her home with appropriate murmurs, notwithstanding the fact that the deadly attack that scarred her for life was largely to be laid at Lakshmi’s door. She writes that her father Shiv Balak had, other than her mother Manki, another woman named Lakshmi Dubain, a Brahmin by caste but ‘love is such a power that it surpasses the boundaries of religion and caste and the human being is compelled to renounce these meaningless boundaries’. By the time Janki would have written this she would have known all about it, love and all the rest. Her marriage would have happened and crashed, but she could go on with her overt and obviously self-censored account with composed self-as
surance. ‘It was as a consequence of this that Lakshmi Dubain, without any hesitation, began living happily with Shiv Balak. Since there were no children from this connection, she considered Manki Bai’s children her own.’

  There is no way of knowing whether Manki Bai was comfortable with this arrangement. Neighbours spoke of beatings. When Shiv Balak, incited by Lakshmi, picked up his stick and roughed Manki up, Janki took her mother’s side and refused to speak to her father for days in protest, but I rather think this last bit relies heavily on uncertain alley gossip, for how could the neighbours know when Janki went silent and when she spoke?

  Janki’s narrative, however, mentions a detail not found elsewhere, the existence of three siblings. Three sisters named Kashi, Paraga and Mahadei and a brother named Beni Prasad, all of whom died young, not an uncommon thing in those days of large epidemics, though Beni Prasad died at a relatively adult age. Janki writes about the Benaras she remembered at length. ‘In attractions Benaras, also known as Kashi, enjoys a place of excellence. Hindus consider it a holy place and, travelling from far-off and by difficult routes, come to perform their rituals The scene on the banks of the Ganga by morning is worth seeing. Some are bathing on the steps of the ghats, some are taking dips in the deeper waters. Here and there small and various boats are to be seen . . . Buildings are reflected in the clear waters of the river. Its praise exceeds description. From the small hours of the morning women bathers and priests begin coming and going and at this same time philanderers and “birdwatchers” begin their activities. Benaras is famous for this. Beautiful scenes and living images of beauty are to be seen here. Shaikh Ali Hazeen, a famous Persian poet of his time, when he came to India from Iran, after exploring the whole world, chose this city and finally decided to live and die in Benaras. Among the many fairs of the city the fair of Budhwa Mangal is extremely well known. In that age visitors, according to their means, reserved boats on hire, and tastefully decorated them according to their choice, and on these boats enjoyed themselves. Where there are countless temples, the mosque of Dharera is also a special place. Kimkhwab, bolts of brocade, embroidered sarees, “laddan-dupatte” have been exported to different countries from the early ages. Although the streets in the densely populated areas are not broad, passers-by can walk down them easily. But certain lanes are so narrow that the sun’s plentiful rays never penetrate. Here it is cold in winter and hot in summer. The lower floors of houses are completely uninhabitable and the upper storeys are barely usable. Dal Mandi is the name of a famous street of brothels. At dusk the women, all decked out and full of winsome wiles, turn into instruments of undoing for young men and lure them (to their kothas). In Moholla Hakal Ganj of this city, some distance away from the densely populated quarters, near the Varuna Bridge, in a kutcha house Janki Bai was born, probably in 1889. Janki Bai’s father’s name was Shiv Balak Ram and her mother’s name was Manki Bai. Shiv Balak Ram kept a puri-and-mithai shop. Although not a large shop, it was enough to satisfy their requirements . . .’

  I don’t know if Janki ghostwrote this stilted introduction, whether she dictated parts of it or commissioned someone else to write it according to her instructions, but there are things in it which unwittingly reveal carefully suppressed alter-truths. She wrote this about Benaras much after she converted to Islam but retained enough warmth of regard for her Hindu anchorings. She was also unorthodox enough to allow a wicked flash of observation to escape the sedate formality of her voice when she mentions the philanderers and birdwatchers of the Benaras waterfront, surely something no one else, overawed by the spectacle and the sanctity of engraving one’s life history in an autobiography, would have thought of including. But this naughty living detail instantly vitalizes the formulaic gravitas of the description. The date of birth she supplies, 1889, is puzzling. Other records put it at 1880 and one even pushes it back to 1874. We might risk calling it an inexactitude of times unconcerned about chronologies or even a piece of womanly camouflage.

  Janki’s account of her training in music and her rise to fame is completely at odds with the accounts of those who knew her:

  ‘Janki was still young when her father, Shiv Balak Ram, left Benaras for a few days, to engage in some business in Allahabad, and stayed there. And his companions also moved and settled in Allahabad. There, from observing others and in keeping with the Hindu belief that religious music was not suitable for girls, Lakshmi Dubain began making efforts to train Janki in these skills. Hassu Khan of Lucknow, then in Allahabad, was famous for his musical skills. When Janki was five, he was appointed to teach her.’ She mentions his fee of Rs 200 a month. The print is blurred. It might even be two thousand. In any case the amount is transparently beyond the means of a mithai-wallah of those times. But she puts it on record with insouciance, even a calm authority.

  Much of it is inconsistent with other accounts. An unknown music mentor of Daryabad also finds mention. But let us go along with Janki’s narrative. ‘Very soon,’ she reports in her commissioned or personally penned crypto-biography, ‘because she was intelligent by birth, she absorbed this education well. When she had received some education, Shiv Balak Ram grew nostalgic for his native city and the family returned to their old home (in Benaras) and Ustad Hassu Khan, out of sheer fondness for them, accompanied them and even after settling down in Benaras the business of music-making continued. From night to day and day to night, from weeks to months to years, time passed and during this time, by sheer good luck, Janab Lieutenant Governor Bahadur Sahib, who is now known as Governor Sahib, came as a guest to the house of the maharaja of Benaras. On this occasion, for which arrangements had been made for all kinds of pleasing things, there was also a lively programme for singing and dancing. Because Janki Bai was famous as an artist, she was given the honour of performing the Shagun-Nek, the opening mujra of this grand durbar. The audience was overjoyed and the maharaja gave her many fond gifts. All of it was gifted to Ustad Hassu Khan and he, after blessing her, returned home to Lucknow. And Janki Bai’s mujra life began at the rate of Rs 15 a day.’

  Other accounts say Rs 5 a day. This, anyway, is Janki’s personal narrative and one may write one’s life story as one pleases if truth holds no copyright over imagination. I strongly feel that Janki made up many things about her childhood, especially the stabbing. We may decide to respect her fictions and give her the benefit of the doubt, making some concession for her instinct for subterfuge. After all, we are arguably more than the sum of the situations that overtake us in life. We are also the denials we practise, the alternative images of ourselves we cherish, and all our alter-histories. We are also the people we wish we were and all the things we wish had happened.

  So on to Janki: ‘It is said that love and fragrance cannot stay hidden and by the same logic, if we say that beauty and talent too cannot stay hidden, then it will not be inappropriate,’ she declares coyly. ‘At this time Janki Bai may have been only eleven or twelve when news of her beauty and excellence began spreading. Discerning connoisseurs applauded her. Admirers of beauty adored her. Often philanderers began visiting. Truly, beauty and wealth are things which either protect life or endanger it. Among the visitors, a much older man named Raghunandan Dubey Jamadar became a new suitor and, with great ardour, began calling on her. For some days nobody in the house guessed the reason behind his visits. But when he began overdoing his attentions, everybody grew cautious and attempts were made to discourage his visits. Manki Bai abused him soundly and almost came to blows. Following this unexpected rebuff he became a source of torment and started troubling them in various ways. After an interval of a few days a fit of revenge seized him. The situation reached a point that, seeing his chance, he entered the house and finding it empty, he attacked Janki unhesitatingly with his sword. Up to two or three strokes she remained conscious, then she fainted and in that state Raghunandan Dubey spared no efforts to kill her. But truly has it been said that those whom God protects none can kill. When many assaults had been made and he was sure that she was dead, an
d if perchance she lived it would not be for long, he resolved to flee. Just then the local police arrived on the scene and he was immediately arrested. Handcuffed, he was thrown into the lock-up. After the investigations were over, the court straightaway sentenced him to twenty years’ imprisonment in jail, where, after a month and a half, he died. Those who call Janki Bai “Chhappan Chhuri” from this belief that she had fifty-six gashes are mistaken because eyewitnesses are of the opinion that she had many, many more wounds on her person. In such matters we must acknowledge the mercy of God, that even after receiving numberless wounds she stayed alive. When her family and well-wishers saw her condition they rushed her to hospital and treatment began. In a few days the mercy of God granted her a new life and a complete recovery. Then she began living in her former house as before. But the situation in Benaras was not such that she could live there as she wished. For these reasons she forsook her native city and moved permanently to Allahabad. And all the fame and glory that she achieved was achieved here.’

  There are two telltale clues that indicate the possibility that there is enormous narrative licence at work here. All that talk of her renowned beauty which drew admirers from distant places is more than stretching the facts. By all reports Janki was a plain woman, and it wasn’t the scars alone that impaired her looks. She takes pains to describe, or commission a description, of her looks and general personality. Of medium height and medium build, and what she calls a ‘kitabi-chehra’, by which is meant a symmetrically pleasing face, ‘Large eyes, wheaten complexion, mild manners, with a sweet voice and a slightly swaying gait, the scars of the knife . . . after the passage of time, have somewhat faded, though some remain.’ But, she defensively continues, that the overall beauty of her face stayed undiminished.