by S L Bhyrappa
Shabana Begum arrived the next day, stayed overnight and left the following day. She saw me once and gave me a benevolent smile. I suppressed my desire to ask her about the slave I had seen. I was an exemplary slave; I had mastered the art of voluntary suppression, the first rule of slavery.
After two torturous weeks, Udaipuri Mahal sent for me. ‘Take this.’ She put a large gold pendant in my palm. ‘And take a horse, rush to Shabana Begum and give it to her with great care. It belongs to her. She had worn it when she last visited us. No, actually I liked this and asked her to leave it with me, so I could get one made for myself. It’s very beautiful, isn’t it?’ I nodded. ‘She volunteered to gift it to me but it doesn’t befit our stature to accept it. Now the jeweller has made one for me. Remember, when you return this to her, you only need to tell her that the zenana jeweller has made one for me. Do you understand?’ I nodded again and felt a strange elation.
This was the first time that Udaipuri Mahal had entrusted me with a task so important. It was more a question of how well I kept her trust. As I rode the horse, an idea occurred to me. I would further polish my behaviour with Shabana Begum, endear myself more to her and then, at an opportune moment, reveal my desire of seeing the slave in private. I knew this was perhaps my only chance.
Shabana Begum welcomed me, oozing warmth and kindness. She took the pendant and said, ‘Oh, but why did you have to return this? It was my humble gift to Udaipuri Mahal Sahiba. But now that she has decided to return it, it is the duty of this slave to obey her will. Please convey this to her.’ It was clear from her tone and demeanour that she thought that I belonged to the inner circle of Udaipuri Mahal Begum. Somebody ordinary wouldn’t have been trusted with an expensive pendant. I started to say something but she cut me off with, ‘I didn’t know if it was proper for me to send this news to you but Allah be praised, for He sent you here! It seems Tabassum, our slave here, was your wife. When you first came here, I didn’t know anything about her past. When Khan Sahib brought her here after purchasing her, she was already a mother of a six-month-old baby. Khan Sahib told us she’ll be here as a servant. After two years, she was with child again. This time she delivered a girl. She now has a boy and a girl. Remember when you came here the other day, she came to open the main door? She came till the main door only because she was a slave, for no respectable lady would dare to step out like that. That’s why when she saw you, she became frightened and ran inside and the first thing I learned after I returned here after savouring Udaipuri Mahal Sahiba’s kindness was that she was taken ill with fear. Her illness lasted two days. You might ask how I know all this about her especially when there are so many slave women here—you tell me, is it possible for me to enquire and get such details about each one of them? Anyway, after much coaxing she revealed that she was terrified that her husband would have known the sin she had committed. I was shocked to learn that just four days ago she had jumped into the well in the backyard. But Allah is merciful. One of our hijras working in the garden saw this, jumped in and stopped her from drowning by holding her by the hair. She yelled at him, saying, “Nobody has the authority to prevent me from dying!” but his grip was firm. A maidservant raised an alarm and before long, several people gathered there. Tabassum was rescued. Luckily, she hadn’t swallowed much water. Believe me, my breath stopped when I heard this unfortunate incident. Of course, I came to know of this after I returned.’
I said nothing for a very long time, but was aware that she was looking at me. When I spoke at last, I said, ‘I want to have a few words with her privately. Can you please arrange that?’
‘I will arrange for it. You please stay here,’ she said, and went inside. After some time, a woman of about fifty came and asked me to follow her. We reached the cattle pen at the right of the mahal and she asked me to wait there, saying that Tabassum would join me in a while.
I thanked her and looked at the pen idly. I saw the endless rows of cows lost to the world, eating the heaps of fresh green grass and the other rich fodder specially stocked there for the beasts. I wasn’t sure if these animals were being fattened for their meat or for their milk. Curiously, there was so sign of even a single calf anywhere. I thought they were tied up separately…and then I heard the sound of faint steps coming in my direction. I looked to my left and saw that Shyamala was walking slowly towards me with her head bent. She was wearing the same dress she had worn when I first saw her. She stopped a few feet from me, her gaze fixed on the ground. I tried to gauge her expression and assumed that the dark weight of a failed suicide attempt made her avert her gaze. She was evidently sorrowful. I didn’t know how to start. I couldn’t ask her anything. Every question, I knew, would be, painful. I decided to tell her my story instead.
‘They broke the strategy of my army at the Vishnu temple quite easily and very rapidly, and before I could even kill myself, made me their prisoner. Then they dragged out the Vishnu idol and broke its arms and nose and stomped it and stood over it. And the mansabdaar who led the battle used me like a woman. Then he took me to his zenana and allowed his friends to use me like a woman. After some months, he sold me for one thousand rupees to an amir who took me to his mahal and broke my testicles, turned me into a eunuch and appointed me as a servant in his zenana. After that, his begum gifted me to Udaipuri Mahal. I’m her slave now.’
I could tell that she listened to every word but her face showed nothing. It was stony. Expressionless. Emotionless. After I finished my last sentence, she suddenly lifted her head and looked at me directly in the eyes, and the first tears broke. I looked at her weeping face, showing no expression. I felt nothing.
‘You had a dagger. Why didn’t you plunge it in your stomach before they could capture you?’ she asked after a while.
I hadn’t expected this question. It felt like a slap. She had insulted me thoughtlessly. But why didn’t I do it? And then I realized why. A dagger was meant to be used only when both the opponent and you were bereft of weapons and a hand to hand combat was inevitable. Wasn’t I aware then that the dagger was meant to take one’s own life, something far preferable than being captured alive? Wasn’t I aware then that this would be my plight if I was captured? I knew it, yes. But why did I allow myself to be captured? Why didn’t it occur to me then to simply plunge that dagger into me and die? The fear of death…or was it more a shameful lack of courage to kill myself? However disgusting this felt now, was it more a fundamental love of life that made me surrender? Was it some feeble glimmer of hope hidden somewhere inside? Of course, all such ruminations occur only in hindsight and not at the moment. Even if I had time for this kind of leisurely analysis, it could have swung any way.
I suppose she understood why I didn’t answer. Now she was sitting directly before me. She said, ‘It’s okay…I mean…I understand why you didn’t stab yourself. Remember the time you saw me here the other day? I could clearly see the surprise in your eyes. There was fire everywhere…wild, blazing fire in the palace courtyard. Mother-in-law, Sister-in-law, your grandmother, all of them jumped into the pyre, chanting “Har Har Mahadev”. Other women jumped in too, eyes closed, the sound of “Har Har”…resonating within them, not looking at the monstrous flames. I remained there looking at them till the very end. As the daughter-in-law of the royal family, I should’ve gone first, should’ve marched to the fire tagging along the pallu of my respected mother-in-law. But I stayed behind…hesitation…whether death would come instantly or if the fire would cause intolerable pain. Looking at all those courageous women I felt inspired and at length, rushed, strengthening my faith by reminding myself that I was going to commit jauhar, that my life would be united with Lord Shiva. But when I neared the pyre, the blazing flames leaping out seemed to rise up and strike my face and body. I was terrified. In a fraction I stepped away even as I noticed the women jumping in with a frenzy. I stumbled, caught amidst that collective march towards valiant death but somehow managed to move away from the crowd. My mind began to think of safe possibilities. I kn
ew that it was the custom of this enemy to ravish the women of the vanquished, but I now began to think of exceptions. After all, not everybody was like that…there could exist people like Prithviraj Chauhan who treated the women of his defeated opponent honourably…he looked upon them as his own sisters, daughters and mothers. But even then, as now, I knew these were excuses to avoid facing the reality of my own cowardice. I had wavered at that decisive moment…I should have closed my eyes and jumped in. I didn’t. Once that moment, the moment that urges you to die, slips away, it’ll never come again. I’ve experienced hell many times ever since. The kind of experiences, which made me want to die but I lived through every hell because I couldn’t muster that state of finality that had led me to stand on the edge of that fire-pit in our palace. But it came to me again, the day I saw you here. Wretched Meheboob pulled me out and put me back here to suffer all over. I don’t know if or when I’ll gather the same kind of courage.’
I wasn’t upset with her for running away from committing jauhar. Not all men died after they were defeated in battle and not all women committed jauhar. Which was why we had so many slaves and so many hundreds of thousands of non-Muslims in remote villages and towns of this vast Hindustan who somehow lived under the harsh yoke of jaziya. Like her, I had been scared to die and had chosen surrender. My experience matched hers. She had turned her back from the pit. I hadn’t stabbed myself with my dagger. And now I felt immense sadness for her.
‘I won’t ask what happened to you after you were captured. I know it’ll add to your pain…I know you’ve undergone the same plight as thousands of women like you have undergone. I know what they do. I know you have three children. I saw one that you were carrying that day.’
‘Learning that you are pregnant is the most dreadful experience that women like me encounter here. The dread begins the day your master finds you desirable enough to repeatedly pull you into his room. But he is not the source of that dread, his begum is. She begins to spew jealousy like a serpent and will begin to inflict varieties of misery upon you, and she will simultaneously work harder to ensure that she is still desirable in his eyes. I mean, imagine, she’s his begum and she has to play-act like a common whore just to make herself attractive to him at all times. And here I was. The former crown princess of a kingdom. I swear upon you. I never once lowered my dignity like all these other women…whatever their reasons…by acting cheaply. I was content in my corner. I shivered in disgust each time Khan Sahib called me and I prayed that he never would. Each time we were together he was furious because I didn’t respond to any of his attempts to arouse my desire. He called me a piece of wood. It was hurtful, but I didn’t mind.
‘There is also something else I must tell you. Of my three children, the first one is yours. The mansabdaar who captured me calculated the time after the first child was born and told me that it was the result of my marriage when I was still a mushrik. But because I became a Muslim when the child was still in my womb, he said the child automatically became Muslim and he named my first-born Ibrahim.’
I felt a sudden rush of warmth in my heart when I heard this. It was like a feeble gust of pleasant breath telling me that all was not lost. Moinuddin’s barbaric tongs had crushed my male virility forever and pushed me into the zenana, but here was the indelible proof of the continuity of my lineage. I was a eunuch-slave-father, but a father still. He was six years old now. I felt overwhelmed as I looked at this delicate woman, the mother of my son, Shyamala. I felt that the bond that had tied us together in marriage had suddenly grown deeper and inseparable. I wanted to get up and go to her and tenderly caress her hair for a long time but my mind alerted me to the consequences of doing so. I was definitely sure that Shabana Begum would have sent at least two spies to watch over us here in this cowshed. Merely touching her hair was enough to invite fifty whiplashes or a round of stoning or who knows, even death. When I spoke at last, my voice was dry,
‘I…want to see him. Can you bring him to me?’
I began to visualize my son. Six years old. His eyes, mouth, nose and forehead would have formed properly. Did he resemble me? Or my Respected Father? Or my grandfather? Or did he take after his pretty mother? Or her mother? She didn’t say anything so I said,
‘I know you’re hesitating to bring him to me because he’s now the slave son of slave parents where he should’ve been the prince, but I don’t mind. I have accepted my condition as my fate. Acceptance of this miserable existence as fate is the best way make peace with it. Besides, he’s too young to know what fate is and by the time he knows what it means he would’ve accepted slavery as his natural condition. But he’s still my son.’
‘What you say is true and I have accepted it like you, but that’s not why I’m sad. It is natural that you desire to see your son but I have two more children both born from my womb. You didn’t say you wanted to see them.’
That stung. I didn’t know what made her mind twist my words in this manner. I had known all kinds of strange women in these many years of service in the zenana but I didn’t anticipate she would think this way and I also felt sorry for myself at not having understood this. She continued, ‘I know Islamic law for good measure. All children have equal rights, whether they are the children of the begums or those of slaves, servants or kanchinis. Only the status of the mother is different. Do you know how these begums—the legally-wedded wives—constantly plot to make sure that education and other benefits are denied to the children of the slave women who work for them? They can, because they typically hail from powerful families of noblemen and these slaves are either captured in war or come from utterly poor families. If the child of one of these slaves begins to show superior intelligence early, the begums won’t hesitate to have them poisoned. The mansabdaar or a person of similar rank doesn’t usually have the time or patience to show equal measure of love to all of his children and so, over time, it has come to such a pass that only the children of the begums are treated as the legal children. If there’s any rivalry among children when they grow up, it is between the children of the four begums—the four wives that a Muslim man is permitted by law to marry. In a very real sense, my children have no father. Khan Sahib has never once cast even a look at his children born out of my womb. I think he may be scared of Shabana Begum. Or maybe he is afraid of his other begums. Or maybe of all of them. Or he may simply not have any feeling for slave children.’
This was a revelation. I didn’t know that these children didn’t enjoy a father’s love and care despite living with him in his own house. I wanted to tell her to get her children right now so that I could shower all that the poor little souls had missed, but I said nothing. As it now stood, my feelings towards her were unclear; so how could it be clear towards the children born to her out of adultery? I decided to first sort my own feelings out.
She said, ‘You know, I was overjoyed when I learned that my first-born was born to the seed of our dynasty. These people named him Ibrahim but my mind was constantly thinking of a name befitting our dynasty…Vishnuswaroop Singh, Narayan Singh, Vijaybhaskar Singh…would you agree these are worthy names? These contemplations helped me forget the reality of my wretched state and I spent all my time coddling my baby. But I was surprised when I felt the same overpowering love for my two other children born to…forcible lovemaking. I don’t know how to say it. It was like my babies had no one to pamper them, nobody to heed their cries…’
I stared at her. She didn’t flinch. Her eyes showed the confidence that comes from one who speaks only the truth.
‘I haven’t told this to anybody so far. There was no one who’d listen to all this, much less understand. Worse, this kind of talk feeds their appetite for ridicule. Besides, who else should a wife turn to other than her husband to share her sorrows?’ She looked at me. I realized that she had completed all that she had to say.
‘My dearest Shyamala, I feel like I’ve been reborn today. I had never dreamt of ever seeing you again. You still address me as your husband an
d you’ve treated me with the same respect and love. I ask nothing more but I must tell you my truth—they have crushed my manhood. I am your husband but I am not a man anymore. I’m also a mere slave now and I’ll remain a slave until my current master releases me from slavery or a new master buys me and grants me freedom. I’m not foolish to fantasize that my freedom will come some day, when I know there are hundreds of thousands of slaves like me and none of them have ever been set free. And you are like me, a slave. And there are hundreds of thousands of women like you. It was my good fortune that I was able to meet you today because I was here on an errand…I had to return your mistress’s jewellery. I don’t know if we’ll ever get another chance to meet each other. I don’t mean to sound hurtful but I want to caution you—and myself—that it is useless to be swept away by emotion and pin false hopes on the strength of such emotions. Now, bring all your three children. I’ll see them to my heart’s fill and leave.’
Before she could reply, I heard the voice of a female servant calling out her name. She came in, panting as she spoke, ‘Amir Sahib has come. He’s asking for you. If he finds out that you’re here talking to a stranger and worse, that his own begum sahiba arranged it…come now!’
Shyamala looked at me hurriedly, fear clearly showing on her face, and ran. I looked at her till she disappeared from my sight. There was nothing left for me to do here. I rose slowly. Amir Sahib wouldn’t dare ask me anything, further the moment I told him I was sent by Udaipuri Mahal, but his mind would begin to suspect what I was doing in the cowshed. Besides, he’d have already seen my horse tied right at the huge door at the entrance to his mahal. Now, I walked towards it.
Back on the horse, my mind went into a sort of delirium. Amir Dilshad Khan had returned from a long tour and now he wanted the still-very-young Shyamala. She was a mother of three already and presently a nursing mother and even in the slave’s attire, she looked very pretty and youthful. Despite looking at her closely and spending so much time alone with her, I couldn’t tell until she herself told me that she had three children. Pretty, pretty Shyamala. Let me bide my time and when I get this scoundrel Dilshad Khan alone, I’ll stab him to death. And then I’ll hunt that Moinduddin Turani and thrust my knife straight inside his heart…no, he deserves worse. I’ll rip his stomach apart first and then slowly chop his intestine…he had my manhood crushed…but first I must obtain a horse for myself to accomplish all this…after killing one, I must ride my horse and stab the other with the same dagger…my dagger must drink the blood of these two villains… A hundred such pictures flowed in my mind. The horse trotted on at an easy but comfortable pace.
