‘Madam,’ he exclaimed, ‘you saved my face, else no curtain on earth could have concealed my shame!’
She smiled and said nothing as she reached out to take the gilt-edged envelope.
‘His Highness wishes it be made known to you, madam, that he invites your permanent residence at the royal durbar of Rewa which you shall adorn with your stellar performances as court musician . . .’
She unfolded the gilt-edged letter and read:
His Highness Samrajya Maharajadhiraja Bandhresh Shri Maharaja Sir Venkat Raman Ramanuj Prasad Singh Ju Deo Bahadur wishes to impart to you the information, which you may or may not already possess, that the royal house of Rewa has been patron to many great maestros of music, one no less than the illustrious Tansen himself, durbar musician to His Highness’s royal ancestor Raja Ram Chandra of Rewa, before the peremptory decree of Emperor Akbar summoned him to take his place at the Mughal court at Agra. That His Highness wishes to confer on you this signal honour reflects credit no less on His Highness’s munificence than your own abilities as an artist of which His Highness is now, and shall remain, a fervent admirer.
She thought awhile, read the letter over, then turned to face the Munshi.
‘Tell His Highness I am honoured and shall ever be indebted to him for his grace and favour, but I seek his indulgence in this regard. My music thrives in the soil of my beloved city, Allahabad, and without its air and water shall lapse that taaseer that charmed His Highness. I beg to be excused.’
On the morning of the day that Janki was to start on her return journey to Allahabad, she received an invitation from the maharani to have tea with her in her private suite.
The queen’s chambers were furnished in an eclectic European style, predominantly Louis XV, with chaise longues, claw-footed tables, enamelled and découpaged sideboards. To Janki’s unpractised eyes it all seemed strange and sumptuous. On a carved wooden swing sat the slim young queen, swaying ever so slightly backwards and forwards in tiny, languid movements. She wore a rich, velvet jacket, puffed and padded on the shoulders and frothy with fine, flounced lace down to the elbows. She wore a Benaras brocade saree of deep purple. A large gold pushpahar with multiple chains and studded medals hung round her neck. Heavy, encrusted gold bangles weighed down her tiny wrists. Her head was decorously covered by the anchal of her purple brocade saree which swept down her back like a royal train. In her lap slept a little white kitten.
Janki bowed and was warmly offered a chair drawn up close to the swing. The kitten blinked, opened its pink eyes and yawned and the maharani patted it to sleep as a mother might pat to sleep a baby or a little girl her doll.
‘I thank you, Highness, for this invitation,’ said Janki.
‘I thank you for accepting it.’
‘How could I ever refuse your kindness?’
‘I want to tell you how deeply you touched my heart with your singing that night. Even His Highness, the maharaja, was profoundly moved.’
Janki bowed her head.
‘You know how it is—a fierce tiger, they say—and who should know about tigers better than we here at Bandhavgarh—will grow still before a bulbul when it raises its voice and sings. I instantly gave you a name—excuse the liberty.’
‘It is my honour and pleasure, Highness.’
‘I began calling you Bulbul, and Bulbul you shall be in my mind.’
Janki smiled. ‘It’s a pretty name. I wish I could be more worthy of it.’
‘Oh come, we’ve all heard of your soorat–seerat repartee. It’s doing the rounds in palace circles. No, the reason I wanted to meet you is that I wanted to confer with you on a matter of some . . . some eccentricity. Do you think, if tiger cubs are made to listen to classical music of a peaceful kind, it might leave an impression on their nature?’
Janki started. Her eyes darted to the tiny white kitten on the maharaja’s lap.
‘Tiger cubs?’
The maharani smiled and ran a gentle hand along the little creature’s snowy back.
‘Yes, indeed. This is a specimen of our famous Rewa tiger. Found only in our hills and jungles, nowhere else. His Highness shot this little one’s mother—last week when he went out on a shoot with the English Resident Sahib from Satna. The hunting party brought back the three little cubs. Look here . . .’
Janki’s eyes followed the maharani’s pointing finger and saw, beneath the round onyx-topped table, a rattan basket, painted white and covered with a thick cotton circular mattress on which slept two more kitten-like cubs.
‘One male and two females,’ said the maharani. ‘I trust no one with their care and keep them in my own chamber, and I plan to breed them for the palace and more, soften their natural ferocity from infancy by making them listen to music and play with kittens and pups.’
‘It will be an interesting experiment, Highness. I have heard many accounts of what music can do. My ustad told me how he heard Ghulam Rasool sing Raga Bahar on Khwaja Basat Sahib ka Tila in Lucknow. The words of the bandish were: “Rangraliyan kaliyan sang bhanwar karat gunjar / Bolat mor, koyal ki kook sun hook utthi.” The words were about the cuckoo and to everyone’s surprise a cuckoo came flying out of the trees and came to rest on Ghulam Sahib’s turban. And remained there as long as he sang! They say that a singer named Solki could charm herds of deer from the woods, could make dry branches sprout leaves. Tansen too, I have read, could perform the same feat, charming deer out of the woods with his Todi. He draped his pearl necklace on one of them and let them vanish into the forest, after which Baiju charmed them back with his ragini Mrig-ranjini.’
‘Amazing!’
‘And I have read that Baiju could calm an elephant in musth, melt stone and drive his tanpura into it and challenge Tansen to melt it again and extract his tanpura.’
‘How very very interesting,’ exclaimed her hostess. ‘Tansen must have learnt much of his music in Rewa then. Won’t it be possible? It shall test whether we’re creatures of native disposition or made into what we are. I hoped you would accept His Highness’s invitation to stay on at Rewa. Then we might have worked something out. But you must return to Allahabad and we respect your choice.’
Some mischief prompted Janki to say, before she could bite back the remark: ‘Mrigendra Pratiwandtam Mapayut, Your Highness, is a warning that struck terror in my heart. One tiger was enough for me to face, that night. But several, even if cubs . . .’
The maharani looked closely at her, then threw back her head and tinkled out a pretty peal of laughter.
‘Do you mean him, His Highness?’
Janki looked acutely embarrassed. But the maharani, far from taking umbrage, showed every sign of responding to the jest. ‘Tigers are an acquired taste, my Bulbul Baiji,’ she said, lowering her voice. ‘As tea is. I took time to accustom my palate to their flavours.’
Janki had never drunk tea. No one she knew drank tea though some of the better class of visiting gentry at Naseeban’s kotha had mentioned the new fad. Lately tongas with large Lipton boards astride their hoods and down their flanks had begun moving up and down the Allahabad streets at a fixed hour daily, distributing hot tea for free, and people had begun running up with pots, pitchers, jugs, dekchis, whatever they could lay their hands on, to receive the sweet, unfamiliar brew that was fast beginning to appeal to native tastes. But the tongas did not come down Naseeban’s lane so Janki found herself behind the times and confessed it.
When the bearers entered with the silver tea service and tray-loads of scones, English muffins, pastries, pretty cucumber and watercress sandwiches and a large array of nuts, Indian sweetmeats, Lucknow kebabs and crisp croquettes, the maharani handed the cub to an attending retainer and, rising from the swing, led Janki to the ivory-inlaid table on which the repast had been laid out. Waving aside the bearers, she chose to pour out the tea personally, the fragrant steaming brew bubbling rosy against the delicate porcelain cups.
‘It’s a good smelling leaf that’s allowed to soak in hot water,’ she explained, addi
ng a silver spoonful of sugar, then a bit of milk from the ornate silver milk jug. ‘A Chinese thing actually though the angrez companies are growing it all over Assam and in some places in south India too, I hear. See if you like it.’
She passed the cup and saucer across the inlaid tabletop to Janki, who waited for the maharani to prepare her own cupful in due deference to form, before taking a sip. It had a strange taste.
‘How do you find it, Bulbul Baiji?’
Janki wondered how to describe it. Not overwhelming, definitely. Sweet, scalding, with a strain of woodland breath mingled somewhere in the taste like a surprising and pleasantly alien modulation to a note that turns the raga round completely.
‘It’s . . . It’s like the “re” of Raga Poorvi,’ she said at last.
The answer obviously caught the maharani’s fancy for she sank back into her velvet-tapestried Louis XV armchair and looked long and reflective into Janki’s face.
‘You are a complete artist, Bulbul Baiji,’ she said softly. ‘A real one, I see, and I’m honoured to know you.’
‘You embarrass me, Highness.’
Bade Ghulam Ali Sahib, I have heard, standing in front of an aquarium of fish, watched their movements, enthralled, exclaiming how they darted about in exact consonance with the raga in his head. Art converts all experience into the medium it works in. Janki did it all the time.
The maharani told Janki, ‘I have a villa in Allahabad which I visit very often. I hope we shall continue meeting one another.’
‘With the greatest pleasure, Your Highness.’
‘I shall look forward to our meetings then. Maybe you shall sing to my tiger if I bring him along.’
By now Janki felt comfortable enough to risk the jest again.
‘Which one, Your Highness?’
And when a delighted smile lit up her hostess’s face she knew this new association had exceeded the borders of courteous protocol and entered the realm of personal friendship.
That friendship was to last. As was the nickname ‘Bulbul’ that the maharani of Rewa gave her, taken up later by the maharani of Darbhanga as well. As was also the strange question the maharani asked—can a savage tiger change its nature if it is brought up listening to serene music? Janki answered that one a lifetime later in one of the driest, saddest verses she wrote and set to tune in Raga Vilas Khani Todi, the raga of mourning.
When Janki rose to go two retainers stepped up, holding between them a large, silver platter on which lay two beautifully wrapped parcels which, from their shape and size, Janki guessed to be some rich fabric and a jewellery box. She wondered what the correct form would be, in this new unclassifiable friendship, whether to unwrap the gifts as some codes of courtesy prompted or to merely offer conventional thanks. Her problem was anticipated by the maharani who said, ‘A small token of my regard, Bulbul Bai. Open them when you reach home and if they agree with your choice of colour and design, a small note to that effect will more than gratify me. Also, it shall initiate a correspondence between us which I shall greatly welcome.’
‘You overwhelm me, Highness,’ murmured Janki, touched.
The buggy trundled behind its horses through a muslin rain, drumming hoofs crunching shingles of the moonlit path underfoot. An inlay of puddles glittered on the hilly track. The words came unbidden to her as though a voice spoke up in her head: ‘O Janki, the heart is a sheltered cavern that the rain may not breach. Even so, this spray slants in and fills my goblet with pearls . . .’ She felt herself exclaim with the ecstasy of the visitation, and repeated the lines to herself countless times till she had committed them to memory. There could be no writing them down till she got home, for neither holder nor inkwell formed part of her luggage and Jallu Mian, the accountant, was travelling in the buggy ahead, but the resonance which the lines stirred in her brain filled her with an excitement she had never known before. The leaves of the trees meeting overhead swarmed around the buggy, like clusters of gemstones iced with light, and Janki’s mind, caught in a flashflood, overflowed with the poems ahead.
11
When Janki and her entourage reached Allahabad they found the kotha in a state of uncontainable excitement. Not only on her account, which was to be expected, but on account of an altogether unforeseen and stupendous occurrence. Naseeban had married. Yes, the bitter-hearted, scathing-voiced Naseeban had had a secret beau, none other than the corpulent seed and oil trader, Mewa Lal Kalwar, who had been a frequent visitor to the kotha and who, other than accept gilloris of paan and glass goblets of angrezi liquor from the hospitable girls, had been content to lean back on the bolsters in the dance chamber and close his eyes wearily against the demands of trade and tiring labour. It was even giggled among the girls that his manhood was a myth, that maybe he only liked to look in through door chinks and keyholes and paid Naseeban for that dainty experience.
But now the astounding truth struck them speechless at first and then provoked an outburst of shrill commotion that Naseeban did nothing to order into disciplined silence, so detached had she overnight become from the affairs of the house.
She received Janki with businesslike cordiality.
‘I was waiting for you.’
‘We all were,’ added Manki, beaming with pride.
‘No, I more than others,’ said Naseeban, brusque. ‘Because, by now, you alone may be in a position to accept my offer, considering that from all reports you have given a good account of yourself at the Rewa durbar and have come back richer of pocket than anyone else in this house.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Janki.
‘Word travels fast, girl,’ said Naseeban with a mysterious half-smile. ‘Faster than your buggy horses or these new steam engines of the angrez sarkar. My offer to you is this: I’m about to wind up this establishment. All these girls and lane-boys and musicians and cooks shall be out of a job and will have to disperse. But should you be interested in buying the place, complete with all its employees and appurtenances, I shall be happy to hand it over to you.’
This was something neither Janki nor her mother had anticipated and it took a long moment to register.
Then Manki said slowly, ‘Let us think it over, Bua. Janki is only just back and we need a day or two to consider your kind offer.’
‘Take a week,’ said Naseeban with newly mellowed allowance. ‘I shall give you first priority among all other parties.’
Janki unpacked the maharani’s gifts, carefully deferring the decision. The parcels held a heavy length of maroon kimkhwab, dense with gold embroidery, and a companion length of gold-trimmed silk for an ample gharara, the ensemble to be completed by a voluminous length of maroon-and-gold odhni to crown her elaborate coiffeur and cascade down the shoulders and swirl in rich gathers across the basque and hips. Yards and yards of opulent silk awaiting the artistry of a master dressmaker. But the smaller parcel outshone the first. A velvet jewellery case containing a finely wrought gold-and-ruby choker with large ear pendants to match, hung with delicate ruby clusters.
These gifts were by no means excessive, going by the standards of the times. The way singers were feted at the princely durbars is the stuff of fantasy. There have been times when maharajas have dressed as waiters and waited at tables at which star performers dined, as the raja of Himmatnagar did in honour of Faiyaz Khan. When Ustad Nasir Khan happened to be singing, with rare brilliance, a composition in Gaud Malhar which contained the words: ‘Motiyan meha barse’—it’s raining pearls—Maharaja Jaswant Singh of Jodhpur sent for a large platter of pearls and had them rained on the artist as he wove his way through the monsoon raga.
When Janki displayed the maharaja’s pearl necklace and the pouch with the hundred gold mohurs Manki sank slowly into the only chair in the room. She trembled. Her voice, when she managed to speak, was threaded with sobs. ‘What did you sing to them, my daughter?’ she managed to say at last.
Janki lifted the jewellery box and the pearl necklace and held them out to her mother.
‘For you,
Amma,’ she said.
But Manki’s reaction was surprising. In an instant her speechlessness fell away and disdain kindled in her voice.
‘Jewels, bitiya? I have no use for gold and jewels, don’t you realize? There’s no depending on them. No guarding them. Have you forgotten that treacherous one, Parvati? The one who took all my gold into her safekeeping and then made off with it? Who sold, yes, sold, us to Naseeban and reduced us to this! No, beti, these baubles are good for just one thing, as far as you and I go. To buy a roof over our heads—our very own house. And this I most strongly advise you—buy houses, daughter, buy land, fields. Remember this all your life. Buy things that perfidious people cannot steal from you so long as there’s court-kutcherry in the country and a sarkar to enforce the law. Do not be overfond of gold and gems, which any highwayman or false friend can make off with.’
That Janki took her mother’s advice to heart is witnessed by the fact that over the years, as her singing career soared, she came to own many villas and bungalows and tenement buildings all over the city. Even a whole village some miles out. Some properties she earned as largesse from wealthy patrons, some were mortgaged and subsequently acquired by her when the cash-strapped owners found themselves insolvent. But Parvati’s betrayal long ago had consequences that turned Janki into a substantial real-estate baroness.
As of now she sagely decided to accept Naseeban’s offer and within a fortnight of her return from Rewa she found herself the patroness of a kotha with Manki acting as the manageress. The marvellous dress material that came from her new friend, the maharani, initiated her rise in fortune. For it was sent to the brocade and tailoring firm of Manni Lal Anandi Lal Gotawale, designer-experts in exclusive costumery and destined to be Janki’s dressmakers for years to come. Fine clothes became her passion and her trunks and wardrobes overflowed with extravagant ensembles created by the Chowk Gangadas firm. An uninterrupted succession of orders continued, one outfit no sooner delivered than another ordered. Whether this interest in rich apparel had its roots in those dark days in the kotha kitchen when her mother had made her dress in rags to put off possible clients is open to speculation but Janki Bai became famous for her sumptuous clothes, each more expensive than the last and each the product of fine craftsmanship from a firm that catered to many royal houses of Benaras and Avadh and even beyond.
Requiem in Raga Janki Page 13
