‘Not sure, Plato. Depends on how you behave during picnics. Can you play an instrument? Can you sing or act? This will be your real test. I always know you’re slightly tense when you call me Dara Shikoh.’
He immediately relaxed.
‘Don’t worry. I won’t disgrace you boys. And Dara Shikoh is the only Mughal prince I really admire. Akbar was a total fake. Broadminded as far as other faiths were concerned, but a killer of those he regarded as heretics.’
In fact, my nickname was my own fault. I had misinformed many a friend that I was named after Dara Shikoh, a sceptic poet and philosopher who should have succeeded Shah Jehan but was brutally brushed aside by a younger brother, Aurungzab, the devout ruler and ascetic who left us the Badshahi mosque, a ten-minute walk from the college, as his legacy. I was actually named after an old friend of my father’s who had tragically drowned while both of them were swimming from one bank of the Ravi to another in the moonlight. Perhaps he had been named after Dara Shikoh.
Before we left for the mountains, Confucius invited Zahid and me to supper at his house. Neither of us knew where he lived, but he had eaten with us at home many a time and his mother must have insisted he invite us in return.
‘Please remember not to call me Confucius at home. Won’t amuse anyone. They’ll just think indigenous Punjabis are stupid.’
‘What about Mao?’
‘Even worse. My father thinks of him as a bad poet and a philistine.’
All we knew about Confucius’s father was that he owned the best shoe shop on the Mall. The family had obviously been there for a long time, as testified by the photographs on the wall in which young Mr Ma posed proudly with long-departed British colonial officers. My father and I went there each year to have our feet measured for summer sandals and winter shoes. Nothing ever substituted for that in later years.
Confucius had agreed to meet us outside the shop, but we waited a while for another guest. He finally arrived. His bike had suffered a puncture and the usual repair stall was not open. This was Tipu, studying physics, at F.C. (Forman Christian) College, run by US missionaries on the other side of the city. Tipu had a soft, dark face and large brown eyes. Confucius had met him at a seminar, discovered he was a Marxist from Chittagong in East Fatherland, and wanted him invited to our cell meetings. Our rules were strict. A cell could not include more than six students at a time and none of the members was meant to know about the other cells. We did, of course, since there were only two others, but we pretended it was a huge secret. It added to the glamour. There were no existing cells at Tipu’s college. He was contemptuous of his fellow students and his eyes blazed as he informed us that no self-respecting college in East Fatherland was without its Communist cells. I did know of one cell in F.C., but it would have been a terrible breach of confidence to inform him of its existence. I made a mental note to let them know of his.
This conversation was taking place on the Mall, in the middle of a crowd of shoppers. We could have gone on for hours, but were late already. Confucius took us across the road to an old nineteen-twenties apartment block, where he lived and where his mother was patiently waiting to feed us.
‘Salaamaleikum, Dara. How’s your father?’
I didn’t recognize the shoemaker for a minute. Confucius’s father was dressed in a Chinese gown and a finely embroidered skullcap. We were introduced to the rest of his family, and that was the first time Zahid and I saw Jindié, the Golden Butterfly. She stood next to her mother, wearing a traditional but stylish Punjabi salwar/kameez light blue suit, with the kameez just touching her knees. Her silken black hair, covering a head that was an elongated oval, almost touched the floor. The eyebrows formed perfect arches. No makeup disfigured her thin lips. She was a delicate creature, extremely beautiful rather than pretty, but there was not a trace of shyness or affectation as she shook hands, inspecting each of us in turn with a quizzical, semi-humorous look. I never suspected she was a romantic eager for quick results. I found it difficult to concentrate on too much else that evening. What had Confucius said about us? Did she realize I had fallen in love with her? How could she not? It had to be a mandate from heaven.
After greeting Jindié, I bowed politely to Confucius’s mother. Like her husband, Mrs Ma was dressed in an antique Chinese gown. Her hair was pinned up in a bun and her face showed a touch of lipstick and powder, but at the same time conveyed an impression of prudence and good sense.
I was so thunderstruck by Jindié that it took me some time to notice that the living room was lined with books, mainly Chinese editions, some of which were undoubtedly very old. Jindié was talking to Tipu, quite deliberately, I think, to punish me for the way I had looked at her. In fact, she ignored me for the rest of the evening, speaking mainly to Tipu and Zahid but occasionally glancing in my direction to see how I was occupying myself. I moved away to look closely at some beautiful ivory objects on the mantelpiece and then the silks that covered the walls, on which hung a plain white plate with blue Kufic calligraphy. Mr Ma sidled up to explain that it was a ninth-century piece made by potters in Yunnan, who produced such ware exclusively for the merchants in Basra, who brought it to Cordoba and Palermo. None of this meant much to me at the time. I smiled politely and asked about the books. He took one out. It looked exquisite, faded gold Chinese calligraphy on even more faded thick leather.
‘What is it, Mr Ma?’
‘The Han Kitab. You have heard of it?’
‘No. I’m sorry. China is a mystery. All we know about is the revolution.’
That annoyed him and he returned the book to its place. Confucius had observed the scene and came up to reassure me. I wasn’t bothered at all, but was becoming more and more enraged by the way his sister was flirting with Tipu.
The food, when it was served, was almost as divine as Jindié. The local Chinese restaurants were truly awful, catering to imagined local tastes. Pulp-food is always bad. This was the first time I had tasted proper Chinese food, and I complimented Mrs Ma on the quality of her cooking, the virtual opposite of our Punjabi cuisine. She explained that what we were consuming were Yunnanese delicacies, very different from what was served at banquets in Beijing. I asked if she had received any help from her daughter. The reply was an instantaneous no and a glare in Jindié’s direction. In a bid to attract the latter’s attention, I sympathized loudly, hoping to annoy her and failing miserably. She ignored the bait.
I did discover from her mother, however, that Jindié attended a women’s college. This was useful information, since the college in question was packed with seven or eight of my cousins as well as daughters of old family friends. It was presided over by a strict Indian-Christian spinster lady who took her job as principal far too seriously when it came to the social life of her students. To say she kept a watchful eye on her girls would be inaccurate. She had created a spy network of favourites who told her everything. Yes, everything, including the dreams that some of their fellow students recounted over breakfast. The college itself had been set up in 1920 by a prim Scotswoman called Rosamund Nairn and bore her surname. The girls at Nairn were considered to be almost as modern as their counterparts at Primrose in Karachi and Ambleside in Dhaka, and that was saying a great deal at the time.
Apart from my frustration over Jindié, the evening went well. Zahid and I both made sure we called our friend Hanif as often as we could — so often that he began to look annoyed. At this point Jindié addressed us collectively:
‘Is it true that you call him Confucius?’
The whole table erupted in laughter. It was only as we were all leaving and farewells were being said that she walked up to me.