Delhi (42 page)

The rain stopped as suddenly as it had started. More
goras
joined our camp. They brought big guns and gunpowder sticks. Two Sahibs, Nicholson and Taylor who were said to be great fighters, came to lead the attack on Dilli. Banias who came to sell us provisions told us that in the city the price of ‘red pepper’ was going up and the price of ‘black pepper’ going down day by day. That one-eyed Rajab Ali started coming every day and doing a lot of whispering in Hodson Sahib’s ear. One evening as I was massaging the Sahib’s feet I asked him: ‘Sahib, what does this one-eyed man
phus phus
in your ear?’ At first Hodson Sahib looked very
gussa
and said, ‘So you try to listen?’ I replied, ‘No Sahib. If I listened in I would not be asking you.’ Then Hodson Sahib told me: ‘The old badshah says if we spare his life and give him his pension he will throw open the gates of Dilli.’

‘And what do you say?’ I asked.

‘I say, first throw open the gate, then we will talk.’

Hearing this kind of talk I thought the
hamla
would begin any day. But nothing happened. More than two thousand
goras
were in hospital; every day a few died vomitting or shitting blood. Other
goras
complained of not getting enough rum and made pictures on the walls of Hindu Rao’s mansion showing officers drinking and fucking. How could such people go into battle! Wilson Sahib Bahadur kept saying ‘Tomorrow.... tomorrow.’ And that fellow Bakht Khan,
subedar
or General or whatever he was, kept attacking our camp, killing our men and our horses.

*

Whatever else you may say of the
goras
, when it comes to fighting they fight like no other race on earth. Nicholson Sahib, for example, is as big as the demon Ravan with a beard as long as our Gurus’ (some fools called themselves Nikalsainis, even said he was one of our Gurus reborn). He is so strong that with one blow he could fell an ox. Our own Hodson Sahib, who though he has no hair on his head or chin nor is as big as Nicholson, is as brave as a lion. Nicholson and Hodson Sahib become very restless. ‘What kind of
Jangi Lat
is this Wilson Sahib Bahadur when all he can say is "Tomorrow, tomorrow"?’ they ask. The two of them go to Wilson Sahib and say, ‘We must start the battle now.’ Just at that time the one-eyed Rajab Ali brings information that Bakht Khan is taking a large army to Najafgarh and Rohtak to attack
gora paltans
coming from the Punjab. So Wilson Sahib Bahadur says to Nicholson, ‘If you are so anxious to fight, go to Najafgarh.’ To Hodson Sahib he says: ‘If you are also eager to fight, you go to Rohtak.’

Next evening we ride out to Rohtak. We are five hundred sowars and ten
gora
officers. We ride through the night and halt a mile short of Rohtak in the early hours of the morning. We have our
chai
and feed our horses. When the sun comes up, we are ready for battle. Half-an-hour later, the town gates open and out pours a stream of horsemen armed with muskets and swords. They charge towards us.

Hodson Sahib orders us to retreat. We gallop back half-a-mile. The fellows think we are running away. They chase us yelling
‘Ali, Ali.’
When they are almost on us Hodson Sahib gives the command: ‘Turn about and at them.’ We wheel round. We unsling our carbines and fire a volley. Fifty of them topple down. Then we charge them with our lances. They break ranks and scatter. Only a handful are manful enough to face us. I see with my own eyes how my Sahib really loves fighting. He draws his
talwar
, gallops up to one of the fellows and challenges him to single-handed combat. The fellow slashes, lunges and backs away. The Sahib parries his blows. ‘Try again—is this all you’ve learnt about swordsmanship?’ shouts my Sahib. When the other has had his try, my Sahib strikes one blow that cuts the fellow in two halves. Then he takes on another. Then a third one.
Wah
!
Wah
! Hodson Sahib,
Wah
!
Wah
!
You are one in a hundred thousand!

We slay over three hundred of the enemy for the loss of only two.

By the evening we are back on the Ridge. So is Nicholson Sahib. He gave that Bareilly General, Bakht Khan, such a thrashing at Najafgarh that he ran back whimpering like a dog with its tail between its legs.

Now Wilson Sahib Bahadur has no excuse to say ‘Tomorrow.’ The
gora paltan
from the Punjab marches in with all the guns we need. They are hauled into position and start firing. Within a few hours the city wall looks as if it has had an attack of small-pox. It has to be blown up before we can launch the big attack. This is left to our Mazhabi Sikhs. What courage the great Guru has given these poor Mazhabis! They go out one night with bags of gunpowder. Just as they are nearing the wall, rebel snipers spot them. Its too late to run back so one fellow charges forward with the bag in his arms.
Thah
! He falls. Two other run up pick up the charge and carry it a few steps forward.
Thah
!
Thah
! Both are killed. A third Mazhabi runs up, picks up the bundle and takes it still closer to the wall. In this way forty brave sons of the Guru lay down their lives. But it is the ambrosial hour of the dawn and the great Guru blesses their task with success. The charge is placed beneath the wall and fired:
Bharam
! The loudest
bharam
you can have ever heard! The earth trembles. A section of the wall comes crashing down. The breach is wide enough to let five pairs of oxen with ploughs pass through.

The sahibs do not tell us when we are to launch the big
hamla
. They
git mit
with each other. If anyone of us blacks comes near them, they use bad words like
belady
or
daym
or
foken
and stop talking. They are getting very short tempered.

It is the first week in the month of Assu (September). Early one morning our batteries open up:
puttack, puttack
. Stones fly like fluffs of cotton from a carder’s bow. It goes on all day and continues till midnight. At midnight we are roused and told that the big
hamla
is to take place before sunrise.

Our army is divided into five columns which will start the attack at the same time all along the city wall stretching from the river to Sabzi Mandi. We get a double ration of rum. We are promised six months’ additional wage if we take Dilli.

The night is as black as a Negro’s face. When I stretch my arm, I cannot see my hand. No one is allowed to speak. We take off our shoes and stealthily move to our positions. We are facing Kashmiri Gate. As the grey dawn appears, cannons begin to roar. The rebels seem to have sensed our moves. They let go at us. It is like the end of a
tamasha
with both sides firing away with everything they have. This goes on for about one hour. Then the guns fall silent. What an awful silence! Sweat pours down my forehead. I gulp down my rum. Then a huge explosion. Stones fly into the air. A pillar of dust and smoke rises from Kashmiri Gate. The gate has been blown up. Our
subedar
, Man Singh draws his
kirpan
and yells:
‘Boley So Nihal.’
We draw our
kirpans
and yell back: ‘
Sat Sri Akal
.’ We rush forward into Dilli city.

Rebel drums begin to beat—
dug-a-dug-dug, dug-a-dug-dug
. They let loose a hail of bullets at us and meet us boldly shouting:
‘Ali, Ali
,
Ali’
or
‘Har Har Mahadev.’
Who said they had no fight left in them! But we have more guns, more carbines, more men. So we press on over the bodies of the dead and dying. We leap over the earthworks. That one-eyed bastard Rajab Ali had lied about the rebels when he said they would lay down their arms. They come on us like a swarm of hornets without any care for their lives. Their women and children yell filthy abuse at us. They call us the
firangi’s
bootlickers and hurl rocks on our heads. (If that whore—what was her name?—is caught again it would be the end of my life).

The battle rages through the morning and into the afternoon. By the evening we have taken the bazaars stretching from the Kashmiri to the Mori Gates. We are tired and thirsty. In Kashmiri Gate there are many liquor shops. We break in and drink whatever we can find. The
goras
get drunk. All night they sing
ho
,
ho, ho
in praise of a bottle of rum. We ransack houses, take gold and coins from the dead. We drive cows and buffaloes tethered in homes out of the city wall for safe-keeping with our Mazhabis. Wilson Sahib Bahadur is very
gussa
and has all the remaining liquor spilt into the moat and orders anyone found looting to be shot. Who is to shoot whom? Sahibs say they will appoint prize agents to divide the loot. We say
accha
.

Next morning the battle is resumed. We have to fight our way into every street and every lane. Everywhere we see women in veils and little boys helping the rebels. The
goras
say the rebels killed their memsahibs and children, so they kill every woman or child that comes their way.

It takes four days of fighting in the bazaars before the gates of the Red Fort are thrown open to us. We march in through Lahori Gate with our bands playing. There is no one in the Red Fort except a blind woman and an old cripple.
Goras
make sport of them with their bayonets; one plunges his weapon from the front, another from the behind to see if they can meet in the middle of their victim’s body. They have a good laugh.

The British flag is hoisted. We present arms. The
goras
sing a song praying for long life to their Queen. A salute of twenty-one guns is fired in Her Majesty’s honour. The
goras
are housed in the palace. We are ordered to encamp in the open beyond the moat.

*

The next day we drive the rebels out of Chandni Chowk and the bazaars surrounding the great mosque Jamia Masjid. There are no singing girls in Chawri Bazaar, no whores in Qazi-ka-Hauz, no
hijdas
in Lal Kuan. But we get plenty of gold and silver, cows and buffaloes. We blow up many old palaces and set fire to many streets. The
goras
want to blow up the Royal Mosque, but Wilson Sahib Bahadur says: ‘No, it will anger the Pathans, Biloches and Punjabi Mussalmans on our side.’ The sahibs are wise.

The mosque is allotted to the Sikh
risallahs
. The space under the domes is for the men! To the long verandahs on the sides we tether our horses. There are two cisterns in the middle of the vast courtyard. One we use to bathe ourselves; the other to bathe our horses.

I climb up a minaret to have a look at Dilli. I feel like a king looking down on his kingdom. Palaces, houses, mosques and bazaars, smoke rising from many places which we set on fire. I look towards the south. What do I see? A stream of humanity pouring out of the city gates. I am still wondering where all these people are making for when I hear
thah
. A chip of the parapet flies into my beard. Some bastard is trying to kill me. The shot is from the direction of Chawri Bazaar. Now what would a chap be doing in the whores’ quarter when all the whores have fled? I am not frightened. I don’t take cover. I open my trouser buttons and show him what I have.

That evening I tell Hodson, ‘Sahib, they are taking away everything. We will get nothing but our big thumbs.’ He runs his hand over his bald head and thinks over the matter. Then he goes to Wilson Sahib Bahadur and gets permission to attack the city from the southern end.

Two days later, Hodson’s Horse rides round the city walls. We have a great game of tent pegging. Only it is not blocks of wood we stick our lances into, but people trying to run away from us. Those who escape our lances we shoot with our carbines. We re-enter the city through Dilli Gate, ride through Daryaganj and up the steps of the Jamia Masjid. After the great ride and the grand
shikar
of humans we wash our lances in the mosque cistern. The water becomes so red that even the horses refuse to come near it.

Bahadur Shah Zafar

We waited for two days. On the third morning a
gora
with a posse of fifty Sikh cavalry arrived at the gates. Their emissary was Rajab Ali, the one-eyed sycophant who had so often prostrated himself before us and begged the privilege of kissing our feet. He informed us that Mirza Elahi Baksh had promised Wilson Sahib Bahadur, the commander of the English army, to have us arrested. A Major Hodson had been authorized to execute the warrant. Our ears refused to believe that Hakeem Ahsanullah had also gone over to the enemy and was making an inventory of our properties. It is rightly said the smoother the skin of the serpent the more venom it has in its fangs.

We had no words left for anyone. The loathsome, one-eyed bastard, Rajab Ali, assured us that if we went with him our lives would be spared. What was our life worth at eighty-two? But we had to think of Zeenat Mahal and Jawan Bakht. Then there was our elder son, Mirza Mughal. He urged us to spit in the face of Rajab Ali. ‘We will make
kababs
of this
gora
and his bearded
Sikhra boorchas
!’ he boasted.

We listened to the contentious debate for an hour. We did not speak our mind but sent for Begum Zeenat Mahal and our son Jawan Bakht. We took them with us and descended the steps of the mausoleum. Mirza Mughal and his soldiers continued to shout. We became deaf to all advice save what Allah gave us. We told Mirza Mughal and our other sons to see how the sahibs treated us and then decide on their own course of action. We embraced them, little realizing that this would be the last time for us to be doing so. We bade farewell to our relatives and servants. They kissed our hands and wept.

Our palanquins were borne out of the gate of the mausoleum to where our captors awaited us. Before stepping out we recited the Throne verse ten times, ten times the Messenger Believes, and ten times Say He Is God. We raised our hands to the heavens and intoned: ‘Allah! We commit Thy Servant Bahadur Shah Zafar to Thee. Watch over us.’ We approached the sahib in command of the Sikh cavalry and enquired whether he was Hodson Sahib Bahadur. He nodded his head. We asked him if he would be good enough to repeat the assurance that our life and those of our Queen and son would be spared. He nodded his head again. We presented the famous
Zulfiqar
given by the Persian conqueror Nadir Shah to our ancestors to the sahib. Our son presented his sword. We were ordered into our palanquins. We were prisoners of the
firangi
.