by S L Bhyrappa
And then the female prosecutor, ‘We, as the educated, enlightened and Progressive women, know the evil intent behind your agenda of using Rama as a means of rejuvenating Hinduism! You could have used any other god but no! The injustice committed by Rama against Sita is glorified in the garb of chastity and it’ll continue in this culture as long as the Ramayana exists! You plan to rejuvenate the same culture in the name of history while half the population of the country has already awakened to the truth that until the culture of Rama is destroyed, a woman will never be free! I proclaim here that no other religion treats women as horribly as Hinduism does! Answer this court!’
The group of ordinary citizens behind the judge’s seat now exclaimed, ‘Hear! Hear!’
The judge, pounding the desk, yelled, ‘Silence! This is a court!’
The Dalit—the most oppressed class in Hindu society—now spoke. ‘What does Rama symbolize? He killed a lower-caste man for the “sin” of performing…penance! Why? So that Rama could maintain the grip that the upper castes had over society. And you want to build a temple for such a retrograde character whom you worship as God. This shows beyond doubt that you want to rekindle the same, millennia-old conspiracy against us, the original inhabitants of India—we who were treated like slaves by the Aryans who invaded us from the outside! Prove to this court that this is not so.’
The script was woven to make the defence of the accused appear pathetically weak. At every turn, the accused stuttered and their expressions showed helplessness. The prosecutors were set up to interrupt the defence at regular intervals, mock their weak testimony and the fifteen-odd actors who played ordinary citizens barged in with derisive laughter. The actor playing Uma Bharti had relatively spirited lines. Her angry defence was strategically interrupted by the female prosecutor with a self-righteous, ‘Oh? We wonder how you, a woman, defend Rama considering what he did to Sita…’ This evoked another round of taunting cackles from the ordinary citizens.
I wanted to vomit. The brazenness was shameless…but…well, three years ago, I would’ve not only applauded this, but I would’ve probably written it and maybe acted in it too. But I’d have certainly shot down this amateurish execution of technique. Now I wanted to walk out but I sat there, determined to watch this travesty till its miserable end. I scanned the audience to see if there was somebody I could recognize…Professor Sastri maybe? Actually, no. He wouldn’t personally attend such small-time plays although he was the chief puppeteer behind this and similar events and besides…ah, there he is! Amir was sitting four rows below, towards the extreme right. I doubted if he knew I was here and even if he looked behind in my direction, he wouldn’t recognize me in this light. I decided to go home with him after the play. It’d also save me the trouble of hunting for an autorickshaw.
The play concluded with the ‘accused’ accepting their guilt and rubbing their foreheads on the floor and vowing to atone. They could have well been in Stalin’s court. The crowd stood up and delivered a roaring applause. I slowly eased my way through the mob that now surrounded Amir. He didn’t recognize me immediately but acknowledged me when I said, ‘Let’s go home together, Amir.’ That attracted the mob’s attention. ‘Why don’t we see you nowadays?’; ‘Is it true that you aren’t in Bangalore?’; ‘Where have you been?’; ‘You look so different!’
Amir didn’t say a word in the car. Neither did I. As I towelled my face dry later at home, I looked at the mirror critically, running my fingers in my hair. Ratnamala was right. It felt like coir…white coir. The roughness of the skin on my face clearly showed the months of neglect it had suffered. There was no reason not to follow my hair and skincare routine at Narasapura. Why did I lose interest? Is there a relationship between the study of history and a loss of interest in one’s desire to look good? I was curious to find out if such a connection existed.
We sat opposite each other at the dining table. Mutton curry for him, dal for me. I knew he was determined not to break his silence. I broke it.
‘How could you agree to direct such a nauseating script?’
He glared at me but said nothing and continued to eat.
‘I’m talking to you Amir.’ I glared back.
‘How did you decide it’s a “nauseating” script?’
‘It has zero creativity, it’s shabbily written and its subject is a perversion of truth. The fact that it proclaims that Babar’s mosque was destroyed is actually 0.000001 per cent of the truth. It conceals the fact that Babar destroyed a Hindu temple that had stood on the same site and built his mosque using the pillars and stones of that very temple.’
‘Really? Then it’s curious how you conceal the fact that Hindus destroyed a Buddhist temple on that same site and built this temple dedicated to Rama?’ he replied angrily.
‘This is the “history” that…it’s the frivolous argument that your comrade “historians” at JNU continue to peddle. Is it any coincidence that it’s the same history that Comrade Ramamurthy fed into the mouth of the character that played the prosecutor-historian? I can bet anything that Ramamurthy hasn’t read history in his entire life…Ramamurthy and activist-artists like him…I’ve been studying not just works of history but primary sources for the last two years. I’ve gone through most of the elaborate notes my father made and, believe me, I spend more than twelve hours daily doing just this.
‘Do those comrades even know that Muslim armies razed Jain and Buddhist monasteries, rest houses and entire temple complexes that once dotted all corners of Hindustan, Khorasan and Sinkiang? How do you explain the destruction of these structures in places as far-flung and geographically spread out as Bukhara, Samarkhand, Khotan, Balkh, Bamiyan, Kabul, Ghazni, Kandahar, Begram, Jalalabad, Peshawar, Charsaddh, O Hind, Takshashila, Multan, Mir Pukhaas, Nagar Parkar, Sialkot, Srinagar, Kanauj, Shravasti, Ayodhya, Varanasi, Saranath, Nalanda, Vikramashila, Vaishali, Rajagir, Odantapuri, Churhut, Champa, Paharpur, Jagdal, Jaajnagar, Nagarjuna Konda, Amaravati, Kanchi, Dwarasamudra, Devagiri, Bharauch, Valabhi, Gimar, Khambhat, Patan, Jalor, Chandravati, Bhinmal, Didwan, Nagore, Osean, Ajmer, Bairat, Gwalior, Chanderi, Mandu, Dhaar…didn’t the Muslim armies destroy them? Do you seriously believe the super historians of JNU when they say these were destroyed by some faceless kings belonging to the Shiva sect?’
He didn’t reply. There was nothing he could say, but the force of my own oratory surprised me. I knew he neither knew history in any depth nor had enough shrewdness to save his face. A moment later, I realized that I had quoted almost verbatim from one of the pages of the second volume of Sitaram Goel’s Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them, which I had read only last month. We finished the rest of our meal silently.
After I arranged the utensils back in their place, I brushed my teeth, washed my face once again and then sat on the bed. And waited. Amir didn’t enter the bedroom. And then I recalled that this wasn’t the first time we had slept on separate beds…rooms. His obstinacy was unreasonable of late. In the past, he’d usually soften after he felt that I had massaged his ego quite well but now…what was it? I wasn’t prepared now for another round of humiliation but I’d decided to push myself beyond the limits of self-respect… Oh well, there was nothing to lose by trying again. I got up from the bed and entered the study. Empty. I walked up to the guest room. The door was closed and not locked from inside. Lights off, but he was there. I decided to knock…should I gently push the door open and go in and tap him softly with my fingers…several choices flashed past in my mind…should I feign anger for making me wait while he was sleeping here or do I ask him? Suddenly I felt let down. Insulted. All these choices meant exactly one thing. This closed door told me everything I needed to know…‘I’ve rejected you Razia’. The fact that I had come all the way to the guest room to placate his ego had already settled the issue: I’d given up my self-respect and if I showed him that, it meant sinking ten additional steps further down. There was no point pushing the door. I tiptoed back to my bed and curled up in a corner. Then I remembered Ratnamala’s c
omment on my appearance. Was that really why he was pointedly ignoring me? I knew that after forty, some women suddenly change and go to ridiculous extremes to somehow hold on to their fast-disappearing youth. And I was in the show business…I was an actor, who had suddenly abandoned interest in looking good…no, no, no, I had completely quit taking even the most basic care of myself. Was that it? Oh well! He was in the same business and in his entire life, I’d never seen him spend even a second on grooming himself…but I suppose that ‘raw’ look was part of his appeal…I mean, it wasn’t mandatory to make love each time we met, but a reassuring touch or simply the warmth of lying in each other’s arms…he’s denying me even that? This severe reticence between a husband and wife? It was too much to bear. I stood outside his room again and this time, gently pushed the door open. It was as I suspected correctly, open. He’s angry. I need to step down a bit and mollify him. Amir is childlike in many ways. I tiptoed slowly and in the night’s dull light, I could see him sleeping on his back. I noiselessly sat on the bed and put my hand on his chest and whispered,
‘Why are you sleeping here?’
No reply.
‘Answer me, Amir! You must answer me, my angry Amir! I know you’re upset because your bibi doesn’t come to you as often as she must. But you know me. No? It started with one book and then another and another and without my knowledge I was completely sucked in. Don’t you know how I miss you? Give me some time…I’m writing a novel now and it’ll take me about a year to finish it. Bear this separation till then…please? And like I’ve told you so many times, you drop in there whenever you feel like it.’
No reply.
‘Oh come on! Don’t sulk, not at your age…’ I leaned down and kissed him hard on the lips. He accepted it but didn’t respond. I withdrew and then looked at his face for a long time before asking him,
‘At least tell me what’s upset you this badly? If I’ve done something, I’m willing to rectify it.’
‘Why have you begun to hate Islam of late?’
‘Huh? I hate Islam? Any honest quest for truth is meaningless if it’s coloured with personal dislikes and attachments. I swear on you, I’ve no hatred for Islam.’
‘In that case, why do you repeatedly talk about the temples that Muslims destroyed in India and elsewhere?’
‘Oh well, let someone show me proof to the contrary, I’ll shut up. Every single Muslim historian of the past celebrates this destruction by giving to-the-point figures and names, and these figures tally perfectly with the surviving evidence. Despite this, the Marxist gang of historians fabricates tales about the “internal clash of Hindu kings” and Shaivas and Vaishnavas and similar nonsense. If you don’t believe me, I’ll send you the books I’ve read. If you don’t have time to read them in full, you can read the relevant passages I’ve marked and find out for yourself.’
‘No. You’ve joined the anti-Muslim brigade and you’ve been brainwashed. Just say you don’t want to get out of their clutches.’ He turned his back to me.
‘Amir, I wish you realize the real difference between hatred and an honest quest for truth.’ I repeated. He didn’t say anything to that. I didn’t budge from my seat. A few minutes later, he said, without changing his position, ‘I’m sleepy. You go get some sleep.’
There was no point. I didn’t want to coax him anymore. I left his room and a few minutes later, sank into our marital double bed. My mind didn’t try to dissect Amir’s behaviour now. Instead, it began to dwell upon the nature of fidelity to truth, which the writer of a historical novel must possess. Suddenly, I detected a similarity between the sham that was being perpetrated in glorifying Tipu Sultan as a patriot and the charade that I witnessed earlier today at the open-air theatre. The same strand united the two. They were pretty alike in technique, but they were mere outlets for political propaganda. It didn’t matter whether the subject of a literary work was historical or contemporary. What mattered was whether the writer was loyal foremost to truth. Today’s play reaffirmed my conviction that Father was right: in the end, only truth matters.
I awoke early and didn’t feel like waking Amir up or wishing goodbye. I washed my face till I felt fresh, took my bag, closed the door behind me, walked down the stairs stopped an autorickshaw once I was on the main road and half an hour later, was seated in a bus to Kunigal.
8
In retrospect, it was fortuitous that my manhood was smashed. Nobody used me in that disgusting manner like that mansabdaar after I was castrated and sent to Moinuddin’s zenana. For a long time, I thought that it was impossible to use eunuchs for pleasure but then I learned from someone that Moinuddin was not interested in boys. Besides, that was a small zenana—less than a hundred people including the begums, kanchinis, servants and eunuchs. Nobody there used eunuchs for pleasure. I won the good graces of Udaipuri Mahal quite early after I was admitted to the badshah’s zenana. She was very merciful and showed her affection for me quite openly.
Farsi was the most preferred language in the inner circle of the badshah. Vazirs, army generals, commanders, kotwals, pretty much every ranking official used Farsi. Although Turkish was used as well the badshah had a personal affinity for Farsi. It made for dignified speech. The badshah spoke Hindustani very fluently but he employed this tongue only in his dealings with the army and the lower classes like the mahouts, and horsemen with whom he had a personal rapport. Turkish and Arabic were common but Farsi was the language of the emperor. I practised hard to improve my Farsi but even after all these years, the idiom and some nuances of grammar escape me. People could quickly make out that I was not part of the administrative circle, which meant that I could be one of two things—a newly-converted Hindu or a Hindustani Muslim. But they didn’t need to tell who I was from my Farsi—my skin colour and facial features were enough. The original Muslims of Arabia, Turkey and Persia treated Hindustani Muslims with undisguised disdain. A good command over Farsi ensured that their respect increased by just a shred. Whatever, but they did agree that I was handsome. In the end, I was still a second-class eunuch.
‘Show more dedication to improve your Farsi and Turki. Try to learn it systematically,’ Udaipuri Mahal advised me repeatedly. In her infinite kindness, she ordered the nazar of the zenana to appoint a Farsi tutor for me.
Hamdullah Kufi Sahib was the custodian of archives. One of the tasks of the vazirs, trusted ministers of the badshah, was to collect news and intelligence, which the spies sent over to Delhi from the various parts of the empire. They classified intelligence into different categories and unfailingly reported every piece of news to the badshah. The badshah retained only the most secretive intelligence and didn’t allow it to slip out of his inner circle. The rest, he sent to the archives where custodians refined and classified it further. Like his predecessors who ruled the Mughal throne, this information was used to write the personal history of the badshah, which included all his achievements and an assessment of sorts of his overall rule. Which is why people who worked there had to master Farsi, Arabic and Turkish and had to possess expert knowledge of history. The archives were heavily guarded. Nobody other than those who worked there was permitted entry to this office.
Actually, a man of the stature of Hamdullah Kufi Sahib was not necessary to teach me Farsi. But he agreed only because Udaipuri Mahal, the badshah’s favourite lover, had sent the request. However, as the days passed by, Hamdullah Sahib developed kindness and affection for me. I had to go to his home behind the Jama Masjid for my lessons, as the fort in which the archives were located was prohibited to me. His house, too, was a tiny fortress. Impenetrable walls that stood at the height of two tall men. There was a massive front door with a small opening through which a eunuch peeped to see the visitor first and let him in if required. There was a small garden in the compound. The main door led to the mardana, the men’s quarters, while the zenana was located inside. Nobody inside the zenana would know who came in and went out of the mardana. My tuition room was located to the right of the mardana.
> Hamdullah Sahib’s sixty-year-old eyes glistened with attraction the moment he saw me for the first time. My stomach twisted with aversion but I didn’t let it show on my face. He asked me about my background. I told him everything. His advice was identical as that of the others: ‘You should’ve accepted the Religion of Light on your own before the war, then you wouldn’t have had to suffer this sad state, but it’s still not too late; if the badshah shows pity on you, he might even release you from your slavery.’ My hopes were raised but were immediately accompanied by hopelessness: what would I do after I became free? Where would I go? I had no answer.
Hamdullah Sahib used to give me fruit, sherbet and sweets before starting each class. On the fifth day, before my lessons began, he began to gently stroke my head and back. I looked at his face. It radiated extreme kindness and his shining eyes radiated love. This pious-looking learned scholar, at his age, desires me in that sense? I felt like vomiting. I kept staring at his face, a fact he didn’t notice. After some time, I noticed a different sort of expression in his filmy eyes. I stared at his face in confusion. He stopped his caressing and patting and stroking and asked, ‘Have you told me the truth about your birth, your parents…everything?’
I kept staring at him and shook my head, indicating that I didn’t quite comprehend his question.
