Stealthily, I rose to my feet. Although there was no living being in that vast palace with its hundred nooks and chambers, its great emptiness, its dormant sounds and waking echoes, I still feared at every tread that I might awaken someone. Most of the rooms in the palace were locked, and I had never entered them.
Treading soundlessly, holding my breath, following that invisible form who had beckoned me, where I went that night and by what route, I can’t say for sure. There is no telling how many narrow, dark passages, long verandas, silent, massive assembly halls and tiny, airless secret chambers I crossed.
Although I had not set eyes upon my invisible guide, her image was no stranger to my imagination. An Arab woman she was, the loose sleeve of her garment revealing her arm, firm and flawless as if carved in marble, a fine veil falling across her face from the tip of her cap, a curved dagger tucked into her waistband.
I felt then as if one of the thousand-and-one nights of Arabian legend had flown straight out of the realm of fiction. As if on that dark night, I was travelling through the narrow, unlit streets of the sleeping city of Baghdad, on some dangerous mission.
Finally, my guide suddenly halted before a dark blue curtain, and seemed to point downwards. There was nothing below, but my blood froze in terror. In front of the curtain, I felt there was a terrible African eunuch dressed in brocade, dozing on the ground with legs outstretched, a naked sword on his lap. My guide slowly stepped across his legs and lifted a corner of the curtain.
One glimpsed a room within, spread with Persian carpets. It was impossible to see who sat upon the wooden bed. I could only espy, peeping out beneath loose saffron-coloured pyjamas, a pair of lovely feet clad in zari sandals, resting idly upon a rosy velvet rug. On a blue crystal dish placed on the floor beside her were some apples, pears, oranges and a profusion of grapes. Next to them lay two small wine cups and a golden pitcher, as if awaiting a visitor. From within the room wafted the intoxicating scent of some exquisite incense, overwhelming my senses.
With a quaking heart, I tried to step over the eunuch’s outstretched legs. At once he awoke with a start, and the sword fell off his lap, hitting the stone floor with a deafening crash.
I suddenly heard a blood-curdling shout. Startled, I found myself sitting up on the camp cot, sweating profusely. In the glow of dawn, the narrow, waning moon looked pale as an insomniac. And our crazy Meher Ali was walking down the empty street as he did every morning at daybreak, shouting ‘Stay away! Stay away!’
In this way, one of my Arabian nights came to a sudden end—but there were still a thousand nights left.
A tremendous conflict now developed between my days and my nights. In the morning, I would go to work in a state of exhaustion and curse the enchantress night with her hollow dreams. But after dark, my daytime existence with its workaday routine appeared utterly trite, false and laughable.
After dark, I would find myself trapped in a web of enchantment. I would become a different person, an extraordinary man from the unwritten history of hundreds of years ago. Now my short English kurta and tight pantaloons would seem oddly inappropriate. I would place a red velvet fez on my head, and dress with great care in loose pyjamas, flowered kaba and a long silk choga, my coloured handkerchief scented with attar. Throwing my cigarette away, I would recline on a high upholstered chair with a large albola, a rosewater-filled hookah with many curved pipes. I seemed to be eagerly awaiting some exquisite tryst at night.
Then, as the darkness deepened, strange things began to happen that are impossible to describe. It was exactly as if the fragments of some wonderful story were blown about the rooms of that enormous palace by sudden gusts of the spring breeze. One could follow the narrative up to a point, but its end remained out of sight. I spent the whole night wandering through the palace rooms, chasing those whirling fragments.
Within this whirlwind, amidst sudden whiffs of henna, the stray strains of a sitar, or puffs of moist, perfumed breeze, a heroine would suddenly flash into view for an instant, like a streak of lightning. It was she of the saffron pyjamas, her tender rosy-white feet clad in zari sandals with curled tips, her bosom bound in a tight flowered bodice embroidered in zari, the golden fringe of her red cap framing her fair forehead and cheeks.
She had driven me out of my mind. It was for a rendezvous with her that, every night, in the netherworld of sleep, I wandered through the passages and chambers of the magic palace, that labyrinth of dreams.
Some evenings, I would be dressing meticulously in princely attire before the large mirror flanked by lamps on either side, when I would suddenly glimpse for a moment the mirror image of that young Persian woman next to mine. In a flash, arching her neck, her large, intensely dark eyes casting a sidelong glance full of passion, yearning, pain and eagerness, her moist, lovely lips, red as luscious fruit, mouthing unspoken words, her blossoming youthful body undulating like a vine in a gentle, graceful, dance-like rhythm, she flew swiftly away and vanished into the glass in an instant, all her pain, desire and ecstasy, her smiles, glances and sparkling ornaments, dissolving in a dazzling shower of sparks. Robbing the mountain bowers of all their fragrance, a wild gust of wind blew in exuberantly, extinguishing both my lamps. Abandoning my attempt to dress, I would lie down on the bed in the corner of the dressing room, eyes closed, body filled with rapture. All around me, in that breeze, in all the combined fragrances of the Aravalli ranges, suffusing the silent darkness, floated many caresses, kisses and tender touches. Close to my ear, I heard murmuring voices; my forehead felt a fragrant breath, and a floating veil, soft, romantic, lightly scented, would repeatedly brush against my cheek. Gradually, an enchanting she-serpent seemed to bind me in her intoxicating coils, and with a deep sigh, I would let my benumbed body succumb to a profound slumber.
One afternoon, I decided to go for a ride. I don’t know who it was that forbade me, but that day, I refused to obey. I was about to take down my English hat and short kurta from the wooden rack, when a sudden, swirling gust of wind, bearing sand from the Shusta river bed and dry leaves from the Aravalli mountains like a victory flag, tore into the room and whirled the kurta and hat away. And the sound of exquisite laughter, wheeling in with that wind, rose from octave to octave until it reached a crescendo of mockery, then vanished into the sunset.
That afternoon, I missed my ride; and from the next day, I gave up wearing that ridiculous short kurta and English hat.
Again, that very night, I sat up in bed, suddenly awakened. It was midnight. I heard someone weeping, sobbing her heart out. As if beneath the floor directly under my bed, from a dank, dark tomb in the stone foundations of that sprawling palace, someone was crying, ‘Save me! Break down the doors of this prison-house of powerful illusion, profound slumber and futile dreams! Take me on your horse, clasp me close, and carry me away through the forests, across the mountains, into your sunlit rooms. Save me!’
But who was I? How could I save her? Who was she, this lovely woman conjured up by my own desires, needing me to rescue her from the swirling, ever-changing flood of dreams in which she was drowning? Where did you exist, and when, O divine beauty? Where, in what cool oasis shaded by date palm groves, did you enter the world, and to what nomadic desert woman were you born? What Bedouin robbers had plucked you from your mother’s lap like a flower bud from a forest vine, to carry you away on a lightning-swift horse, across the scorching sands, to the slave-market before some emperor’s palace! What royal attendant there had observed your blossoming beauty, so bashful, sensitive and young, and counted out your price in golden coins before taking you across the ocean, to present you, ensconced in a golden palanquin, as a gift for his master’s harem? What was the history of your life there? The strains of the sarangi, the tinkling of anklets, and sometimes, interrupting the flow of golden Shiraz wine, the flash of a knife, the sting of poison, the pain of a cruel glance. What boundless luxury, what endless imprisonment! Flanked by slave-girls waving yaktail flywhisks, as the diamonds in their armlets flash like li
ghtning, the Badshah, king of kings, lies prostrate at your fair feet, near your bejewelled sandals. Outside, near the doorway, stands an Ethiopian like an agent from hell, attired like a heavenly messenger, bare sword held aloft. And afterwards, swept away on that tide of luxury, that torrent stained with blood, foaming with envy, heavy with intrigue and terrifyingly bright, into what cruel death were you plunged, my desert flower-bough, or upon what crueller shore of high living were you cast up?
Suddenly, at that very moment, Meher Ali the lunatic called out, ‘Stay away! Stay away! All is false! All is false!’ I glanced outside and saw that dawn had broken. The peon brought in the mail, and the cook came in, salaamed and asked for the day’s menu.
No, I said, I can’t remain in this place any longer. That very day, I took my belongings and moved into my office building. Karim Khan, the old office clerk, smirked when he saw me. Annoyed at his derision, I went about my business without offering any response.
As dusk approached, I grew more and more distracted. I started feeling the urge to go at once to a particular place. The task of inspecting the sales of cotton now struck me as utterly redundant, and even the Nizam’s administrative affairs appeared insignificant. Everything to do with the present, everything around me that moved, toiled, survived, seemed meagre, meaningless and trifling.
Flinging aside my pen, closing the heavy ledger, I at once rushed off in my carriage. I found that the trap stopped of its own accord at the gates of the stone palace, exactly at dusk. Bounding up the steps, I entered the building.
Tonight, all was silent. The dark rooms seemed to be sulking. Penitence welled up in my heart, but I found no one to whom I could express my feelings or apologize. With a hollow feeling, I roamed the dark chambers. I began to wish I could pick up an instrument and serenade someone, singing: ‘O fire, the moth that had tried to escape you has returned! Forgive him now, burn his wings, reduce him to ashes.’
Suddenly, from above, two teardrops landed on my forehead. Heavy clouds had gathered near the Aravalli peaks that evening. The dark forest and the inky waters of the Shusta were motionless, awaiting something terrible. All of a sudden, a shiver ran through land, water and sky. And abruptly, a storm blew in, screaming through the pathless, distant woods like an unshackled lunatic, baring its lightning fangs. The huge, empty rooms of the palace began to howl in acute agony, slamming all their doors.
Today, all the attendants were in the office building. There was nobody present to light the lamps. On that overcast moonless night, in the stone-black darkness of the palace interior, I began to distinctly feel that a woman, lying prone upon the carpet beneath the bed, was tearing her open, dishevelled tresses with her tightly clenched fists. Blood spurted from her fair forehead. Sometimes she laughed out loud, a dry, sharp laugh. Sometimes her body heaved with sobs, and she tore at her bodice with both hands, to strike her uncovered breast. Through the open window, the wind roared in, and gusts of heavy rain drenched her entire body.
All night the storm did not stop, and nor did the weeping. In futile remorse, I wandered from room to room in the dark. Nobody was to be seen anywhere; to whom could I offer solace? Who was it that felt such tremendous petulance, such wounded pride? Where was the source of this unquiet agony?
‘Stay away! Stay away!’ cried the lunatic. ‘All is false, all is false!’
I found it was dawn. Even in this extremely inclement weather, Meher Ali was circling the palace as he did every day, with his customary cry. It suddenly occurred to me that perhaps Meher Ali too, like me, had once lived inside this palace; and now, even after emerging as a madman, he felt bewitched by this stone demon, and came every morning at daybreak to walk around the palace.
At once, I rushed out in the rain to approach the lunatic. ‘Meher Ali, what is it that’s false, tell me?’
Without offering any reply, he shoved me aside, and like a bird circling a python under the snake’s hypnotic spell, ran screaming around the palace. Trying desperately to caution himself, he only kept repeating, ‘Stay away! Stay away! All is false, all is false!’
Through the rainstorm I rushed like a madman to my office. I sent for Karim Khan.
‘Tell me the meaning of all this,’ I demanded. ‘Explain to me.’
What the old man told me was that once upon a time, the palace was rife with many unfulfilled desires, aflame with many wild passions. Cursed by all that heartburn, all those fruitless longings, every stone in this palace had become hungry and thirsty, wanting like a greedy demoness to devour any living human being who came there. Of all those who had spent three nights in that palace, only Meher Ali had ever come out, having lost his wits. Up until now, no one else had been able to evade the hungry maws of that place.
‘Is there no rescue for me?’ I asked.
‘There is only one way,’ replied the old man. ‘It is very difficult. I’ll tell you what it is, but before that, I must narrate the history of a Persian slave-girl in that flower-garden. Nowhere in the world can you find a story more extraordinary and heartrending.’
Just then, the coolies came to announce that our train was due. So soon? By the time we quickly bundled our goods together, the train pulled in. In the first-class compartment of the train, an Englishman, just wakened from his slumber, was leaning out of the window trying to read the name of the station. ‘Hello!’ he called out, seeing our travelling companion, and took him into his own carriage. We entered the second-class carriage. Who that gentleman was, we never did find out, nor did we get to hear the end of his story.
‘The man took us for simpletons and amused himself at our expense’, I remarked. ‘His whole story is a lie, from beginning to end.’
Our argument on this subject has driven a permanent wedge between my theosophist friend and me.
Kabuliwala
My little five-year-old daughter Mini couldn’t remain quiet for a single hour. After she came into this world, she spent just one year learning the art of speech. Ever since, she didn’t waste a single moment of her waking hours in silence. Her mother often silenced her with a reprimand, but I couldn’t do that. Mini appeared so unnatural when she was quiet that I couldn’t bear it for long. So her conversations with me were quite animated.
One morning, I had barely begun the seventeenth chapter of my novel when Mini arrived on the scene.
‘Baba,’ she started off at once, ‘Ramdayal darwan called a crow a kauwa. He doesn’t know anything, does he?’
Before I could begin a lecture on the diversity of languages in this world, she moved to another topic: ‘Do you know, Baba, Bhola was saying it rains because elephants use their trunks to spray the sky with water. Goodness, how Bhola can prattle on! He chatters non-stop, night and day!’
Next she sat at my feet, beside my writing desk, and started playing agdum-bagdum, tapping her knees and reciting the words very rapidly. At that moment, in my seventeenth chapter, Pratapsingha, along with Kanchanmala, was poised to plunge from the high window of the prison into the river below, in the darkness of the night.
My room overlooked the street. Suddenly Mini abandoned her game of agdum-bagdum and rushed to the window.
‘Kabuliwala, O Kabuliwala!’ she called out at the top of her voice.
Dressed in loose, soiled garments, turban on his head, a cloth bag on his shoulder, a few boxes of grapes in his hand, a tall Kabuliwala was walking slowly down the street. What came over my precious daughter when she saw his appearance, it was hard to tell; but she began to call out to him breathlessly. Now here’s a nuisance, complete with bag and baggage, I thought. So much for my seventeenth chapter.
But as soon as Rahmat the Kabuliwala turned around and came towards our house, smiling in response to Mini’s call, she dashed breathlessly into the inner quarters of the antahpur and vanished without trace. In her heart was a blind fear that, searching within that bag of his, one might discover a few live youngsters like herself.
Meanwhile, the Kabuliwala came up and greeted me with a cheerful salaa
m. Although Pratapsingha and Kanchanmala were in grave danger, I nevertheless felt it would seem ungracious not to buy something from the man after calling him to our house.
So I bought something. Then we exchanged some desultory remarks. We discussed the Frontier Policy, with reference to Abdur Rahman, Russia, the British, and so on.
Finally, as he got up to leave, he asked, ‘Babu, where did your ladki go? Your little girl?’
To dispel Mini’s baseless fears, I summoned her from the antahpur. She edged close to me and stared warily at the Kabuliwala and his bag. He tried to offer her some currants and apricots from his bag, but she refused them, clinging to my knees with redoubled suspicion. Such was their introduction.
A few days later, as I was setting out one morning on some work, I saw my daughter on the bench near our door, prattling away ceaselessly. At her feet sat the Kabuliwala, listening to her cheerfully, occasionally expressing his own views on certain topics, in broken Bengali. In all the five years of her life, Mini had never found such a patient listener, save her father. And I saw her tiny sari aanchal stuffed full of nuts and raisins.
‘Why did you give her all that stuff?’ I asked him. ‘Don’t do that again.’ So saying, I drew an adhuli, a half-rupee coin, from my pocket and gave it to him. He accepted it without embarrassment and put it away in his bag.
When I came back home, I found that a great hue and cry had broken out over that adhuli. Holding a pale, round, shiny object, Mini’s mother was demanding reprovingly: ‘Where did you find this adhuli?’
‘Kabuliwala gave it to me,’ Mini was insisting.
‘Why did you accept an adhuli from a Kabuliwala?’ her mother scolded.
‘I didn’t ask for it,’ protested Mini, on the verge of tears. ‘He gave it to me himself.’
I stepped in to rescue Mini from imminent danger, and took her outside.