DECEMBER 14
… Today I’m wandering in the city. Things don’t look so good. The city is in bad shape. The posts are deserted. I see more soldiers in the bazaars than at their posts. The Easterners who came out of Meerut like a blazing flame seem now to have grown cold. They eat different kinds of sweets, they take marijuana, they have a special taste for jalebis. From every snack-seller, they demand jalebis along with their snacks. The city’s snack-sellers are tired of the Easterners. As for Bakht Khan’s holy warriors, the chance to show their mettle in the battlefield has slipped out of their hands.
The Royal Court, which once showered pearls, is now shadowed by misfortune. A web of conspiracy has been spread there, the trustworthy have become untrustworthy. The Court beauties are still there, but they bat their eyelashes at strangers. Bakht Khan, a man of the battlefield, has come to Court and been checkmated. The generalship has been divided and shared out. Now even Mirza Mughal has a share in it. Too many cooks spoil the broth. And indeed Mirza Ghaus has leaped into the midst of it. The Timurid blood is no longer hot enough for anything but boasting and blustering. Sometimes it’s hot enough to suffice for the ladies who have fallen into their hands. Mirza Ghaus boasts too much about his fighting, and fights too little; but even more than his boasting, this verse by His Majesty echoes in the air:
The cannons cannot; so look out for your life
Ai Zafar! the sword of India is done for!*
May the Lord have mercy on this city. I have seen the walls of the Red Fort turn pale.
The simple-hearted people of Delhi are still waiting for the Persian Army.
DECEMBER 15
… The moment I stepped outside the door, there was such an explosion that all the doors and walls trembled. It seemed as though someone had exploded gunpowder right in the street. When I went on, in Chauri Bazaar I saw a lively crowd of Easterners around a snack-seller’s shop. Some were shouting for snacks, others clamoring for jalebis. I asked them what had caused the explosion.
“What did you say, you there?” one asked, cramming a handful of sweets into his mouth.
“Just now there was an explosion, as if a cannon had been fired right nearby.”
“Some son of a bitch must have set off some gunpowder,” another said carelessly.
“Look, you!” a third said angrily. “All this war stuff can go take a flying leap. You leave us alone to tend to our bellies. Go on, get the hell out of here!”
I went on, feeling abashed. Are these the men who will protect the Throne of Delhi?
I stand between the tomb of Hare-bhare Shah and the Jama Masjid, and look toward the sky. Oh my Lord! While His Majesty the Emperor, the Shadow of God, is here, what shadow is it that I see trembling on the minarets of the mosque and the turrets of the Fort?
A naked faqir, with a grey beard, long dirty tangled hair, and eyes like glowing coals, screamed wildly, “Get away, don’t you see that there are corpses here?”
“Corpses? What corpses? Where are they?” I cast a glance around.
The faqir fell silent. He muttered, as though talking to himself, “Keep your mouth closed. Who told you to reveal the mysteries of the Lord?” Then he went off toward Hare-bhare Shah’s tomb. As he neared the tomb, he vanished from my sight.
DECEMBER 16*
… Today is September 14,* Doomsday. The cruelest day of the year ’57. When I left the house, I saw the city in utter disarray. I stood there astonished — when suddenly there was a loud explosion, as though a hundred rifles had been fired together. I was bewildered. I didn’t know where I should go. My feet of their own volition took me toward the Red Fort.
When I reached the gate of the Fort, what do I see but the gate closed, the lock fastened, no doorkeeper, no watchman. Near the gate a cannon has been mounted, but there’s no one to fire it. My mind is confused; it’s stranger than strange. The Fort of Shah Jahan locked up—? Finally someone appeared. I recognized him. It’s the doorkeeper of the Pearl-showering Court. Where is he running off to? I stopped him. He kept on running, and said, “If you know what’s good for you, you’ll get away from here. A platoon of Khakis are coming.”
“And His Majesty the Shadow of God?”
“His Majesty the Shadow of God is at Humayun’s Tomb. The princes and princesses are scattered here and there. They’ve taken refuge wherever they can. The Fort is empty, it rings like a hollow pot.”
I turned back. The streets were dead silent, but from the distance came the sound of cannons being fired. Sometimes one way, sometimes another. Sometimes by covered paths, sometimes on the open road. Sometimes the street was empty from one end to the other. Sometimes terrified people, with small bundles clutched under their arms, followed by their families, were running away. In Chauri Bazaar I saw a different scene. People stood with sticks and bamboo rods. One man left his house carrying a slat from a bed-frame, and came and joined the ranks. Another came from his house armed with a blow-pipe, and took up a firm position in the middle of the street, flexing his biceps.
I approached them and asked confidentially, “Dear friends, what is your intention?” The one with the blow-pipe thundered, “To fight!”
I looked with amazement at the one with the blow-pipe, then at the one with the bed-frame slat, and then went on. Then my amazement somehow subsided. All right, fighters can fight even with blow-pipes and tongs and bed-frame slats. Those who won’t fight will abandon charged cannons and loaded rifles and run off.
Passing by the Jama Masjid, I paused. I couldn’t move. A carpet of corpses had been spread. From the direction of Hare-bhare Shah’s Tomb a furious voice came: “Who told you to linger here? Go away!” I looked that way. It was that same naked, mad faqir. A fit of shivering came over me. Walking swiftly, I went on. From then on I didn’t look to one side or the other. I went running home.
•
At home, Ammi Jan sat weeping floods of tears. When she saw me, her grief was intensified. “Son, what will become of Batul?”
Abba Jan sat there, patient and serious. He looked at me, hesitated, then said, “Is this news true?”
What answer could I give? I knew exactly as much as everybody else knew. I thought, then said, “I’m going to Irfan’s office. I’ll find out there what’s the real news.”
“Then go, and come back and bring us word.”
Everyone I ran into on the road, everyone I asked, everyone was just as informed and just as uninformed as I was myself. No one had any confirmed news. And everyone knew that it had happened, and no one believed it. Torn between belief and disbelief, on the way from home to the Shiraz I decided a thousand times that this news was only a rumor, and decided a thousand times that this rumor was real news.
My guess was that Irfan would be in the Shiraz at that hour. He was there.
“Irfan! Have you come from your office?”
“Yes. Do you want the news?”
“Yes!”
“Don’t ask. No one knows the real state of affairs. We tried very hard to make contact with Dhaka, but we didn’t succeed.”
“There’s no telling what shape poor Zavvar will be in.”
“Those people were moved from the Governor’s House to the Intercontinental.”
“And my mother is worried about her sister.”
“She has good cause to worry, but what can we do?”