The Assassin's Song (9 page)

One Sunday late afternoon as I returned from playing cricket with my friends, I saw two women in black burqa hurry towards our house and disappear through the front door. As usual I dawdled awhile in the shrine area before going into the house through the side entrance. To my surprise only Ma and Zainab were there, sitting in the kitchen, chatting. Zainab was in her burqa, though the top had fallen off, revealing her thick wavy hair. She quickly returned it to its place. “Where is the other woman who came with Zainab Bai, Ma?” I asked curiously. “My sister left,” Zainab explained. “Didn't you see her outside?”

It was some months later when I realized the truth of what I had witnessed that day. It was Sunday again, and I saw Ma leaving the house; I was on the point of asking what was there to eat, when my eye fell on the packet under her arm; this time it didn't look at all like it could contain any snack, bhajia, or ghathia, or whatever. A look of guilt crossed my mother's face, and in that flash she had revealed her secret. Not to be identified as the
Saheb's wife entering the cinema, she would put on a veil beforehand, in Zainab's house, where she would remove it afterwards on her way home. That day when I saw the two veiled women entering our house, for some reason they had come straight from the cinema.

I did not tell anyone about my discovery. It remained an unspoken secret between my mother and me, for we never discussed it either. Every time I saw a veiled woman, a burqa pass by, those deep eyes could be hers, and she could be on her way to somewhere secret.

c. A.D. 1260
.

The wedding of the sufi
.

The city of Dhara was situated south of Patan, of which it was a tributary, and was ruled by the good king Devija; he had a wife, Savitri, and a beloved young daughter, Rupade. The princess was famed for her precocity, being as unlike other girls her age as a swan is unlike a pigeon. She was a great soul, it was whispered, who had returned to earth merely to complete some deed left over from a previous birth and thus pay her final debt to karma. This was exactly what made the parents fearful: Was the child fated to leave them soon? When the princess played with her dolls, she would make them into sages and yogis, gods and goddesses. Here were Arjun and Krishna on a chariot, the latter reciting the wisdom that became the Gita; here was Valmiki writing his great book in an ashram by the river. One particular doll she had clothed in royal garb, though not the familiar one of her father and brothers. She called this doll her guru and her husband.

Time came for her to get married. She was five years old.

When the royal astrologers were brought to her and a list of prospective suitors proposed, some from as far away as Cutch and Jaipur, the girl refused to consider them.

“I am already married,” she said, clutching her favourite doll close to her. “My groom is far but he has sent this likeness of him. See how handsome he is … brave as Arjun and devoted as Harishchandra.”

The wedding of their beloved Rupade was awaited with much anticipation by the people of Dhara; neighbouring kingdoms also watched and waited—royal weddings everywhere are always a source of celebration and envy, gossip and speculation. They portend alliances and reflect the prestige of a kingdom. Devija and his queen Savitri tried all manner of tactics to convince the girl to give up her illusion and accept a proposal. Pandits recited mantras over her, gave her potions to ingest. Magicians of the forest tribes came and worked their mysterious crafts. Foreign doctors were brought from the port cities to diagnose her condition, suggest remedies. But the little girl remained adamant. “I am already married,” she insisted, “can't you see that?”

The court astrologers who had previously seen nothing but good luck shining on her prospects now proposed to reconsider. She had been born just as dawn had arrived. But now the pandits admitted that at the moment of her birth one of them had as usual gone up to the observatory tower to sight the first sunlight and beat the drum. And so dawn's arrival had been marked a precious moment too soon. Therefore, they now concluded, Rupade had been born at that precise instant when the first rays of surya glanced the earth. And so she was light and dark, grey of eye and brown of body, light of face and dark of hair. She shared the aspects of Kali and Lakshmi; no one knew better than she her purpose and her destiny on earth.

Her mother and father trembled at these pronouncements. They had wished for a daughter who would bring them grandchildren, they had desired her to rule a kingdom as the consort of a prince; they had not wished for a monster or a goddess.

So they decided to wait. Years passed, and the princess grew up into an overaged unmarried teenager. The world was told that she had devoted her life to Krishna. The people rejoiced, but in secret they shook their heads in regret, for who would not prefer a sweet princess and future queen to a freak ascetic?

She stayed close to her quarters, spent much time in prayer and meditation. She undertook frequent fasts. From a plump, strong, energetic child
she turned into a thin, emaciated young woman with a long face, but one not averse to occasional playfulness and acting the spoilt child. Every morning a hunter called Mono went to the forest that surrounded Dhara and there killed a deer for her, from whose meat she would taste only a pinch, before the meat was distributed to the poor. One day Mono searched the forest in vain for a deer to kill; he couldn't find any. In fact it appeared that there were no animals in the forest that he could see. After an entire morning spent searching, finally he came upon them all: deep in a thicket, the animals had collected peacefully together in a large circle; in the middle of them sat a mystic. On his lap played a young deer, eating shreds of grass from his hand. Its mother sat a few feet away, trusting and content; two lions paced quietly at the edge of the crowd; a few peacocks and peahens sat next to the doe.

The mystic looked up; the intruder, with his bow and drawn arrow, his spear at his back, trembled.

Asked Nur Fazal the sufi, “What do you seek, O hunter?”

“Master—forgive me for intruding. I seek a deer to hunt for the young princess Rupade of Dhara.”

The sufi smiled. Lifting his hand, he released the deer from his embrace; it trotted off to seek its death at the hands of Mono, who took it away. Its mother stood by unperturbed.

The princess tasted the meat; immediately she shouted, “My husband has arrived!”
Vara avijgaya!

She went running from the women's chambers to the king's hall to make her revelation—which was not appropriate behaviour, for she was no longer the little girl; but for her, no strict rules applied.

“Where is he?” her mother asked her, when she was taken back to the women's quarters and quietened down. “How do you know it is he?”

“He is waiting in the forest outside the city, and I have seen him in a vision. He is fair and he dresses in white. His face is kind and his stature small, like our people 's. He has a pointed black beard. Where he sits in the forest, the animals come to sit at his feet and the trees lean towards him to listen to him. I know for certain that he is my groom …”
É to amaro varaj chhai.

The princess's choice for husband was brought before the king, who looked him over. The visitor was not the desired Rajput prince, even from a distant, less-known kingdom, he was not even a Muslim prince. But then Devija had long ceased to expect royalty to turn up to carry his daughter away to glory. Before him stood a sufi, a foreign ascetic in a white robe and a green turban; he was clean in appearance and wore sandals on his feet; his hair was long and he had a goatee. His look was fearless and penetrating.

“My daughter proposes you for her husband, O Sufi,” said the king. “What do you say to that?”

“I too have felt the pull of a kindred spirit, O King,” replied the sufi. “I have heard of the princess, Rupade—who has not, in these lands?—and of your sadness; be not sad, Lord, she has only chosen the path of Krishna.”

“You will not convert her to your faith,” replied the king, “and you will give her a home.”

“Our faiths are the same, my King, and I propose to make my home in these parts,” the sufi said.

“Good. Then I permit the two of you to marry and stay in this land.”

The queen arrived with a servant bearing a tray, and she put a sweet laddoo into the fiancé's mouth; she performed good-luck rites on him and cracked her knuckles against his head. He bent and touched her feet. The scene was grave, there was no singing, and there could have been no more incongruous a site at court than this. In the ladies' quarters there might even have occurred some weeping. To the king and queen, however much they loved her, their daughter was dead.

Nevertheless, a wedding had to be celebrated. The town rejoiced for the princess; streets were festooned with flags and banners; people came out in their best; sweets were distributed, the garba was danced in the evenings; stories of Rama and Sita, Nala and Damayanti, Krishna and Radha were recited in the temples and the homes of the wealthy. At the ceremony, the groom came dressed like a prince, wearing the costume designed for him by the princess herself with the court tailors. The bride was attired in glittering red and gold and green. The two sat and heard out the Sanskrit slokas from the chief pandit; they went seven times round the sacred fire. Finally, the king and queen shedding tears, the princes hiding theirs behind stony faces, the maids and servants openly weeping at the sight of the beloved of the palace finally departing, the groom took away
the bride. The palanquins made their way in the direction of the sunset, and it seemed they were swallowed by the sun even as the pale full moon watched the proceedings.

For their dowry the king had presented the couple with land near the forest. On this land was built a modest yet handsome house for them.

“I was brought up next to a beautiful garden,” said Nur Fazal to his wife, “far away in the west. We will also have a beautiful garden on our land, and tend it with love and devotion, and in the same manner we will tend to the spiritual needs of our followers, who will be like our seedlings.”

The home of the couple came to be called Pirbaag, the garden of the Pir, and it was lovely and peaceful. The earth sent forth a spring among the woods behind the house to nourish the land and its inhabitants.

Shimla-Delhi
.

My renegade brother
.

This journey is for Ma's sake, I tell myself, he was her darling, always took priority.

And to me, always, she'd say: But you are the older one, Karsan, you should take care of him.

He is my kasauti, Bapu-ji would say, Mansoor is truly my test.

Ma: Test is good, na?

Perhaps, Ma, test is good; but what price failure?

Reverend Yesudas: You are your brother's keeper.

And so I go to take him some money. And yes, I admit, it's for my sake too. I do want to see Mansoor.

Major Narang: “You still haven't heard from him?”

This, over the phone, earlier this evening. He knew I was up to something. My visit to the State Bank must have been reported.

“No, Major,” I lied, “I haven't heard from him.”

The bus is convenient and anonymous; unlike the train, no advance reservation is required, announcing to one and all your impending departure for the big city on the Himalayan Queen. It is faster, too, leaving the darker reaches of the Cart Road at night and arriving at New Delhi's Connaught Place early in the morning. But far from comfortable, it lurches constantly downhill, flinging you from side to side at each hairpin bend, promising
sooner or later to crack your skull against the window. My fellow passengers, a grim, bleary-eyed bunch at the end of a working day.

It was not a matter of simply leaving on a jaunt; permission had to be obtained from the Institute director. Forms had to be filled. And therefore an excuse was required.

“And so how are you faring at the Institute?” the director asked when I went to see him with my request. “Everything all right?”