Every year for centuries, perhaps indeed since 1034, Ghazi Miyan’s wedding ceremony is rescheduled around the supposed date of the real event. It’s always interrupted, as the original event was. Hundreds of baraats, marriage parties, converge on the shrine, but always some “unexpected” calamity — a thunderstorm or even the hint of one will do — leads them to abandon the ceremony. The marriage does not take place. That’s the ritual. But the baraats, both Hindu and Muslim, will be back next year.
That’s the story I want to look into. There’s a wealth of material to collect, some of it around Bahraich, but a lot in the Zalilgarh area too. I’m meeting up with some of the Dafali singers who popularize the ballads to the Ghazi. And I’m staying in town with the sadr here, Rauf-bhai — I don’t know if you know him? You do? He’s a cousin of my mother’s, and one gets a sense of Islam as it is practiced in small-town Uttar Pradesh just by waking up every morning in the Muslim basti and talking to the neighbors.
The whole point is that historians like myself, who haven’t sold our souls to either side in this wretched ongoing communal argument, have a duty to dig into the myths that divide and unite our people. The Hindutva brigade is busy trying to invent a new past for the nation, fabricating historical wrongs they want to right, dredging up “evidence” of Muslim malfeasance and misappropriation of national glory. They are making us into a large-scale Pakistan; they are vindicating the two-nation theory. They know not what damage they are doing to the fabric of our society. They want to “teach” people like me “a lesson,” though they have not learned many lessons themselves. I often think of Mohammed Iqbal, the great Urdu poet who wrote, “Sare jahan se achha Hindustan hamara” — “Better than all the world is our India” — and who is also reviled for his advocacy of Pakistan, though what he wanted was a Muslim homeland within a confederal India. Iqbal-sahib wrote a couplet that is not often quoted these days: “Tumhari tahzeeb khud apne khanjar se khudkhushi karegi / Jo shukh-i-nazuk pe aashiyan banega, napaidar hoga.” Oh, I’m sorry, you’re a good Southie who doesn’t understand much Urdu. What he’s saying is that ours is a civilization that will commit suicide out of its own complexity; he who builds a nest on frail branches is doomed to destruction. The problem is that our Hindu chauvinists don’t read much Iqbal these days.
letter from Priscilla Hart to Cindy Valeriani
February 16, 1989
…
I couldn’t face the prospect of going to dinner with his wife after what had happened, so I told him to make some excuse for me — that I had developed a headache, or something. He didn’t hide his disappointment, or the fact that he wasn’t looking forward to the prospect of his wife’s displeasure after he’d rung her and got her to organize the meal. He made me promise to come some other time — and, since I had been to dinner at his place earlier, I said yes.
In the morning a note arrived for me at the office, in a government envelope in the hands of a uniformed messenger (or peon, as they quaintly call them in India). “My dear Priscilla,” it began, and I imagined him trying various salutations — “Priscilla” (too abrupt), “Darling Priscilla” (too effusive), “Dear Priscilla” (too routine), maybe even “Dearest Priscilla” (too premature!) — before settling on “My dear.” His handwriting was firm, clear, rapid. “It was wonderful being with you yesterday. Please forgive me for this means of communication, but I realize you have no phone at home, and I must see you again. Please ring me if you can — my direct line is 23648. Or send me a note through the peon who is carrying this envelope. Yours, Lakshman.” (Again, how long had he hesitated over that closing? “Yours sincerely”? Too formal. “Yours very sincerely”? Too insincere. “Yours ever”? Too presumptuous. So the simple, slightly suggestive “Yours” — I liked it.)
I hesitated for no more than a few seconds. Using the office phone — and we had only one — for a personal conversation was out of the question. So I scrawled on the same sheet of notepaper: “same time, same place, tomorrow?” The peon bowed and salaamed when I gave him the envelope.
Oh, Cindy, I know what you’re thinking and it’s not so. I wish we could talk. I miss you so much, Cindy. There’s nothing I’d rather have more than one of our long sessions curled up on your bed, hugging those monstrously fat and cuddly pillows of yours (you should see the hard thin slab that passes for a pillow in Zalilgarh) and just talking. Writing to you about all of this isn’t really the same thing, and I’m so out of practice writing letters that I’m not sure I’m telling you really how I feel. I know the things that would worry you about all this — he’s married, he’s Indian, I’m far away and lonely and don’t know what I’m doing. If I were you, I’d worry about me too! But Lakshman’s special, he really is, and I know I want to be with him more than anything in the world. Am I crazy, Cindy? Don’t bother replying to that question — by the time your answer arrives I’ll know whether I’ve just been really dumb or whether I’ve simply found Mr. Right in the wrong place at the wrong time….
transcript of Randy Diggs interview
with District Magistrate V. Lakshman (Part 1)
October 13, 1989
RD: Mr. District Magistrate, thank you for agreeing to see me. I’m Randy Diggs, South Asia correspondent of the New York Journal. Here’s my card.
VL: Thanks. Here’s mine. But I suppose you know who I am.
RD: I know who you are, Mr. Lakshman.
VL: So what can I do for you?
RD: I’m doing a story on the young American woman who was killed here last month, Priscilla Hart.
VL: Yes. Priscilla.
RD: And I thought I’d find out from you as much as you can tell me about the circumstances of her killing.
VL: The circumstances?
RD: The riot. The events that led to the tragedy. Her own role in those events. Anything that can explain her death.
VL: She had no role in the events. That was the tragedy.
RD: She—
VL: She was here to work on a population project. And study the role of women in Indian society. She had nothing to do with the Hindu-Muslim nonsense.
RD: So she was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
VL: I suppose you could say that. If there is such a thing as the wrong place, or the wrong time. We are where we are at the only time we have. Perhaps it’s where we’re meant to be.
RD: Well, I—
VL: Don’t worry, I’m not going to entrap you in philosophical arguments. You’re here to talk to the DM about the riot, and I’ll tell you about the riot. Do have some tea.
RD: Thanks. Is this already sugared?
VL: I’m afraid so. That’s the way they serve it around here. Is it all right?
RD: That’s fine. Tell me about the riot.
VL: You know about the Ram Sila Poojan? On 15 September, the Bharatiya Janata Party and its militant “Hindutva” allies announced the launching of direct action to build a Ram temple at the disputed site of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya. The legal and political processes they could have resorted to in order to achieve this agenda were abandoned. It was clear from the kind of language their leaders were using that there would be an all-out and, if necessary, violent battle to accomplish their goal.
RD: Sorry, just checking if this is recording properly … it’s fine. “Accomplish their goal.” Please go on.