Their Language of Love (9 page)

‘Do you know we are on the Grand Trunk Road?’ Raj said, inaccurately. ‘It ran across the width of India, from the Khyber Pass to Calcutta.’

Ruth exclaimed, ‘I didn’t know that!’

‘It’s been grandly renamed
Sharah-e-Quaid-I-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah,
after the founding father of Pakistan. But old names, like old habits, die hard, my dear—we still call it the Mall.’

Ruth’s tentative nods acknowledged only partial knowledge of these facts. She was accustomed to Raj’s didactic delivery, and enjoyed the courtly old-world irony he injected into his remarks. She had absorbed a great deal of history from him.

They drove past the delicate pink sprawl of the British-built High Court and the coppery
Zam-zammah
—the cannon better known as
Kim’s gun.
The traffic increased past the shiny little fighter-jet displayed on the traffic island to commemorate the brief 1971 war, the third Indo-Pak war over Kashmir. This was when East Pakistan, absurdly separated from West Pakistan by a thousand miles of Indian territory at the time of Partition, was finally able to break away and claim independence as Bangladesh.

The Mercedes turned right on Lower Mall and as it honked and nosed its way through the congested glue of scooter-rickshaws, cyclists, bullock-carts, tongas and trucks, Ruth moved nervously to the edge of her seat. A man was frantically herding a small flock of sheep through the dense traffic.

‘Don’t look at the sheep; look at me. I’m better looking,’ said Raj with a wry smile of so little conceit that Ruth turned to him and said, ‘Tell me about the shrine we’re headed for.’

‘Lahore was captured from the Mughals by the Sikh
warrior Maharaja Ranjit Singh in 1798,’ said Raj. She saw the mischief gather in his eyes as he turned to her and held up a tapered finger. ‘He had only one eye.’

‘Okay,’ Ruth acquiesced, smiling. ‘How did he lose his eye?’

‘One of his wives gouged it out for dallying with a dancing girl. But don’t quote me.’

‘I won’t,’ said Ruth, settling back in her seat, savouring the sudden sense of ease that flooded her. ‘I’m sure he
dallied
with so many, it’s a wonder he didn’t have both eyes gouged out.’

‘Now, now—don’t judge him so harshly,’ said Raj, turning to her and wagging his finger. ‘Maharajas have to patronize dancing girls. It’s their duty.’

‘Do you?’

‘Me? No. But I would, if they looked like you.’

‘Stop flirting,’ said Ruth lightly, putting on her sunglasses. ‘So? How did the Maharaja really lose his eye?’

‘Small-pox,’ said Raj.

In Pakistan Ruth had become aware of the ravages of the dreaded disease.

‘His face was pitted. He was a small man and he limped, but he was a great warrior,’ declared Raj. ‘After the Maharaja’s death the city was swallowed up by the British.’

‘And his heirs?’

‘They were weak and quarrelsome,’ he said dismissively. ‘It didn’t happen overnight. Lahore was gradually ingested, like the rest of India, to satisfy the British Empire’s boa-constrictor-like appetite.’

Ruth’s hair prickled at the image he conjured up. She could feel his eyes on her. Her hands slightly unsteady, she
lit a cigarette. The driver lowered the front windows a few inches to let out the smoke.

‘The Maharaja died in Lahore,’ he continued, touched by Ruth’s reaction. ‘His mausoleum is set in a complex of buildings that covers three acres. His Samadhi covers the spot where he was cremated. It was built by his son, Kharak Singh. We’ll be there in a few minutes. It is right opposite the Lahore Fort, close to the Badshahi Mosque.’

Raj’s voice poured pleasurably into her ears. She tried not to watch the road as they scraped through the congested traffic and concentrated instead on the small green flag in front as it alternately fluttered and grew limp at their erratic progress. Federal ministers’ and judges’ cars were permitted to carry flags. Raj allowed it out of its leather sheath only when he was on official duty.

As the billowing marble domes of the Royal Mosque floated into view, the driver glanced at Raj in the rear-view mirror and said something Ruth was too distracted to follow.

‘You’d better chuck that out,’ Raj said, turning to Ruth and indicating her cigarette. ‘Smoking is forbidden to the Sikhs.’

It is as well he did so.

The moment the Sikh gatekeeper opened the gate and shut it behind them their car was ambushed by seven or eight strapping Sikh youths. Most of them had their long hair tied in untidy knots and only a few wore turbans. They milled about the Mercedes, talking excitedly. Raj lowered the window: ‘Let the car through, my friends, I will listen to everything you say once we get through.’ Ruth knew he spoke fluent Punjabi. Some of the men caught sight of her
and stooped to brashly peer at her through the open slit. Raj raised the darkened window and signalled the driver to go ahead.

Turning to Ruth he said: ‘You’ve had your first look at the hijackers.’

‘They seem angry.’

‘They’re always angry.’

The car picked up speed and began to move. Hitching up their lungis, taking long, lithe strides, the men ran alongside, stroking and patting the Mercedes as if it was a horse. By the time the driver came to a stop before a line of elderly, neatly turbaned Sikhs holding garlands of roses and marigold, the crowd of young men had swelled noticeably. Ruth took in the complex of ancient buildings built around a grassy courtyard. The architecture was a mixture of Mughal and Hindu styles. A few newer structures stood discreetly to one side.

Raj stepped out of the car and good-naturedly saying, ‘Let me get through, my friends, let me pass,’ tried to shoulder his way around the car.

The older Sikh men, reprimanding the agitated young stalwarts and shoving them aside, pressed forward. Closing ranks and joining their palms they greeted him: ‘Saat Sri Akal, Minister Sahib.’

Saying ‘Saat Sri Akal,’ Raj returned the Sikh greeting and opened the door for Ruth.

The reception committee, taken aback at Ruth’s presence, exchanged quick glances. Pleased and flattered that the minister had thought fit to bring his wife, their faces wreathed with smiles, they placed fragrant strings of marigold and roses
around Ruth’s neck; and removing more garlands from a stick held forth by a grubbily attired, meek little man, placed them around Raj’s neck in a fragrant band that covered his chest and rose to his chin. They stood with palms pressed before their flowing grey and white beards murmuring: ‘We are honoured you have taken the trouble to grace us with your presence; we are specially honoured you have brought along your begum.’

The slight man holding the depleted stick of garlands was introduced to them. He was the granthi, the priest in charge of the precinct’s small Gurdwara temple.

Ruth, blushing furiously at being mistaken for Raj’s wife, stood awkwardly beside him. Raj’s customary pallor was replaced by a flush and the top of his ears reddened. But before either of them could think to correct the inference they were rudely drawn apart. The men physically tugged Raj away and surrounded him in a heated clamour of what appeared to Ruth to be importunate accusations.

Ruth caught the word ‘cigarette’ twice. Had they caught the offending reek of smoke off her clothes? Off Raj’s? She tried to draw closer to him, alarmed at their fury; until she realized the grievances were directed not at her or Raj but at the grubby, bandy-legged little granthi she glimpsed hovering at the fringe of the excited crowd, the depleted stick of garlands still in his hand.

At what seemed to be the end of their litany of intemperate grouses a tall fellow, his large black eyes flashing, held aloft a solitary weather-beaten cigarette stub. The contentious bunch quieted briefly: ‘See? See what we found near the
compound wall?!’ the man said, his accusation ringed with triumph. The others raised their voices to join his: ‘Yes. Look at it! We cannot permit such sacrilege. These are sacred premises! The granthi has permitted smoking!’

The vast complex was surrounded by a ten-foot-high wall, topped by glass shards and Raj knew there was no access to the premises except through the gate which was always locked. The man offered him the cigarette butt.

Raj stretched his lips in a squeamish expression of distaste and shook his head to decline the offer.

‘My brothers, if all you can find is a single crushed cigarette butt,’ he said, speaking unctuously, ‘it can only mean that the holy ground is commendably free of smokers. Instead of blaming the caretakers you should thank them for their vigilance. Anyone could have chucked it over the wall.’

But no, they were having none of it, and the little Sikh priest, his checked lungi outlining his bowlegs, stood accused of permitting desecration of the sacred premises.

‘Why aren’t the thugs in jail?’ Ruth whispered when the quarrelsome band, distracted by some flare-up amongst them, briefly withdrew their attention.

‘They have been allowed out to take part in some week-long religious rites at the samadhi. Don’t worry; they are confined to the complex.’

‘They’re dangerous. What if they escape?’

‘Where can they go? If they cross the border to India they’ll be strung up; their wanted-posters hang in all their police stations. In Lahore, with their long hair, turbans and beards, they’ll be spotted right away by the police.’

The crowd grew as the fathers and uncles of the hijackers, their grey hair tied in top-knots, or freshly washed and open to the sun, idly joined the crowd, contributing their own assessment of the crime. Some of them had set up camp in the shrine’s precincts for the duration of the trials and some periodically visited their jailed kin from across the border.

In trying to deflect their anger Raj only confused them when he suggested: ‘Let the poor fellow alone … You have a much larger enemy to contend with … don’t you? A loftier cause!’

Ruth guessed he was obliquely referring to the Sikh demand for a separate state, Khalistan. The hijackings were in fact the mainstay of their strategy to draw attention to their demand. But the cause, for the moment at least, appeared to have been relegated to the background, and the sinister machinations of the hapless granthi were of more immediate concern.

The accusations and recriminations were becoming serious. The granthi, who had so far followed them silently and hitherto pleaded his case with only a hounded look in his anxious eyes, suddenly thrust out his pigeon chest and slapped himself repeatedly with the flat of his hand. ‘So kill me. Put a bullet through me right here,’ he cried out between the loud thumps he was raining on his chest. ‘If I’m a sinner, shoot me for my sins!’

Raj hastily stepped forward and grabbed hold of the man’s flagellating arm. ‘Arrey, baba, no one’s going to kill you,’ he said, holding the man’s arm still and sounding mildly exasperated. ‘They have more important work to do than
kill you. They have a larger cause to further … A more urgent goal … Don’t you? Don’t you?’ he said addressing the young men.

The Minorities Minister could not very well spell out his thoughts about their more pressing cause—it would create a political crisis and exacerbate the tension with neighbouring India. But his insinuations, which had been accompanied by suggestive movements of his eyes and hands, were lost on these villagers-turned-terrorists. They were unable to see beyond their immediate grievances, and they read in the minister’s attitude towards the granthi only a baffling obstinacy.

The zealots now trotted out a slew of other accusations. They did so tentatively, as if randomly testing the waters of the Minister’s forbearance of the priest’s misdeeds, and ultimately hurled the charge that the granthi not only smoked, but also served meat in the sacred precincts of the vegetarian langar! It was as if God had hurled a thunderbolt!

Primed for action and as predatory and dangerous as a pride of young leopards, the men would have as little compunction in tearing the priest apart as the ferocious cats their prey. As they moved in on him Raj quickly interposed himself between them, and the numerous fathers and uncles stepped forward to drag their enraged kin away. The reception committee of elders hastily escorted Ruth and Raj up some steep steps into the mausoleum.

After the din it was blessedly quiet beneath the square roof, its fluted dome ringed with a design of cobra hoods. A
domed marble pavilion, decorated with what Raj described as
pietra aura
work, formed the centre of the sepulchral chamber in which a lotus-shaped marble urn contained the ashes of the Maharaja. Eleven smaller knobbed shapes held the ashes of four queens and seven slave girls. ‘They were dutiful wives,’ an elder who spoke English explained. ‘They flung themselves on his funeral pyre.’

The interior of the chamber was elaborately decorated with frescoes pertaining to Sikh gurus.

They were next escorted to the Gurdwara Dera Sahib. Built in 1619 it was a small shrine dedicated to the memory of the Fifth Guru, Arjan Singh. An elder with two leather straps crisscrossing his chest to hold two curved jewelled daggers, spoke to Ruth in rapid Punjabi and, noticing her bewilderment, the man who spoke English obligingly translated him. ‘Guru Arjan Singh jumped into the Ravi river on 30 May 1606 and forever disappeared into the void.’ He intoned gravely, and Ruth understood that the Fifth Guru had not merely jumped into the river like an ordinary mortal and drowned; some miracle had taken place at this point. She would ask Raj later.

They walked into a chamber and Ruth was relieved to see the maligned granthi in the sanctum where the Granth Sahib rested. The enormous holy book was covered in blue velvet as it awaited the morning and evening prayers. The floor was covered with a red and pink carpet and white pillars rose out of square, ice-cream-pink bases. A gallery with a delicate fence surrounded the room above them, and a smattering of women and children looked down from it at them.

They left the temple and walked past the five-foot-tall plinth upon which the temple stood. The worn, narrow brick, embedded in deeply grooved and depleted clay, showed the platform’s antiquity. ‘This is the oldest part of the temple,’ the English-speaking Sikh explained and pointed to a darkly shadowed space in the foundation plinth a little ahead of them. ‘That is a holy entrance … it leads to the place from which our Fifth Guru, Guru Arjan Singh, disappeared into the river.’ Had he not drawn their attention to it Ruth might have walked past without noticing it. ‘Of course, the river has changed its course,’ the man continued: ‘Every time there is a big flood the Ravi moves further away.’