The Assassin's Song (25 page)

Finally I went to my father, my hands joined in a farewell. He pulled me almost fiercely into an embrace and said, “Pir Bawa be with you.”

“Goodbye, Bapu-ji,” I whispered.

They all waved as Raja Singh held the door open for me, saying jocularly, “He 'll be back in a jiffy, won't you, Karsan—the months and years will fly …”

What broke my heart was to leave Mansoor behind; to see his face sad yet defiant, accusing: You who had everything had everything to leave and spurn. Look after him, I prayed to Pir Bawa. Turning to face the road, I realized that one of the faces I had seen this morning had been Mallika's; she had stared but kept her distance at the back. There had been more finality to the farewell than I had expected.

My flight was still a few days away, so my parents had permitted Raja Singh to take me on a detour before seeing me safely off at Bombay airport. During those days the two of us traversed the length and breadth of Gujarat. “You should see your Mother India before you leave her,” Raja
said with satisfaction. He was a happy man on the road, as I had always known, his face a catalogue of expressions, mouthing invective and opinion, as he pounded his fist on his horn and the cassette player endlessly dribbled out tunes new and old. We ate and rested at roadside dhabas, where we also checked our conveyance for possible problems. The food was coarse, the spicy, oily curries burning all the way down my gullet like acid. At night we would lie down under the sky on the string cots placed outside these establishments, and early in the morning wash ourselves at a standpipe or a well, and after a breakfast of parathas, dahi, and steaming tea, off we'd go—to the sound of pious Sikh kirtans on the tape.

I appreciated those carefree days on the road, for they numbed my sadness at leaving; by prolonging my stay on the land and saying my gradual farewell to it, I was soothing my guilt. At night I would lie awake missing home and composing letters in my head to Ma, Mansoor, and Bapu-ji; and even to Raja, who was in the cot beside me, snoring deeply. Occasionally he would startle violently, when a mosquito landed on his face or when he broke wind.

Our first morning out we travelled north to Patan, the ancient capital of Gujarat, now—to my utter amazement—a small and flat dusty town, a few isolated ruins serving as reminders of its past glory. There was a large spice market nearby, from which we picked up goods to take to Junagadh in the west; on our way there we stopped at the temple of the goddess Becharaji, patroness of the eunuch transvestites, the pavayas, who as always were impossible to tell apart from pretty women, except when they suddenly smacked their palms together in their characteristic manner to tease and embarrass you. It was appropriate that we stop at their shrine, for the pavayas often stopped at the temple of our Rupa Devi on their way here. Past Jamnagar we went to Dwarka, Shri Krishna's birthplace, and stood in a long queue of pilgrims for a turn to go inside his temple; thence past the ancient town of Somnath to Junagadh and the Jain shrine on Girnar, where we saw some very ancient monks, stark naked, looking like skeletons. The truck broke down only once, between Jamnagar and Junagadh, costing us half a day. Close by was the town where Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was born, Raja said; also proximate was the city where Gandhi was born. Junagadh of course was where Mr. David was born, as was my cricket hero Hanif, but it was a dusty, smoggy city. Picking
up vegetables and cloth from Junagadh, we raced to Bhavnagar, then to Navsari, home to a famous sufi shrine. Throughout our journey we had stopped, or slowed down out of respect, at shrines and temples, even the small roadside ones where according to legend some miracle had taken place. Sometimes the miracle was simply the discovery of a preserved corpse. It seemed that once upon a time the highways of Gujarat had been traversed by legions of holy men, and now no town or village seemed complete without its own little shrine to a saint. Finally we entered the territory of Daman on the Arabian Sea. It had been a Portuguese colony until recently, and its attraction was the hotels on the beach and access to alcohol. I could have a bath and eat a decent meal at a guest house; and Raja could guzzle down a few cold beers in private, while advising me to keep away from alcohol at all cost. The next day he took me to Bombay and the airport.

“Chhotu, look after yourself,” he said, giving me a tight embrace, and kissed me on both cheeks. He stood outside as I—full of apprehension but in the friendly company of a businessman also travelling abroad—entered the departures area, and he was still waving at me as I lost sight of him.

c. A.D. 1300
.

Death of the sufi; fall of a kingdom.

Forty years before, the wandering sufi Nur Fazal had departed Gujarat's capital, Patan, with the goodwill of its ruler, Vishal Dev—vainly styled King of Kings and Siddhraj II, titles that already rang hollow in the face of a bitter reality, the threat from a powerful army rattling its steel in the north. Vishal Dev was succeeded in time by the tragic prince known to the generations to follow by the unhappy title Crazy Karan.

The heedless devastations of war in his homeland had brought the Wanderer to the friendly gates of Patan. By a strange reversal, the conquest of Patan brought its last king, Karan, to the door of Pirbaag seeking protection for life and honour. It has been said that in the latter case the hand of fate was tempted by the lust and arrogance of Patan's king.

Raja Karan had long lusted after his able minister Madhav's beautiful wife, a padmini and a Brahmin; he managed to steal her. The minister, to revenge himself upon his king, did the unthinkable. He went to Delhi, capital of the dreaded Afghan ruler, and invited him to invade
Gujarat. Gujarat of the glorious Patan, city of poets, philosophers, and princes, known to Arab travellers as Anularra; of the bustling wealthy ports Khambayat and Bharuch trading cotton and spices, horses and slaves with the entire world, from Africa to Arabia to China; of Somnath and its temple of untold riches; Gujarat with its handsome moon-faced people and beautiful women. Come to Gujarat, said Madhav to the sultan, there is much that awaits you there; the king is ineffectual and ill prepared to fight. The pass at Abu, where two of your illustrious brethren were defeated in the past, is not defended.

The sultan in Delhi was Alaudin Khilji, self-styled Alexander the Second, who had only three years before assumed the throne, having put to death his uncle, the previous sultan. Khilji sent two generals to conquer Gujarat. From the Banas River in the east to the ocean in the west, the earth trembled under Delhi's might, and Gujarat's cities and towns fell one after another: Patan, the capital; Khambayat and Bharuch, the ports; Somnath, Diu, Junagadh, Surat. Blood flowed in torrents, the dead littered the landscapes; chestfuls of gold, pearls, diamonds, and rubies, thousands of elephants, frightened boys and weeping women trailed behind the victorious armies as the added spoils of war. The temple at Somnath, destroyed before by another ferocious Afghan and subsequently rebuilt, was destroyed again; the sacred lingam was dragged all the way to Delhi to be stepped upon. The Queen of Patan, Karan's wife Kawal Devi, was taken away to the harem in Delhi, there to become a wife of the sultan; the unfortunate Karan, losing a decisive battle, hid himself in a fortress with his daughter, Deval Devi, then fled disguised as a beggar. On his way he arrived at Pirbaag.

The sufi Nur Fazal was old, his hair and beard had turned white, and his mortal body had wasted with age. His face shone with wisdom, but his eyes had softened; the arrow of his stare had been put away. He was awaiting now his term on earth to expire; but one job remained, one debt to be paid in the karmic ledger before his soul bid farewell to the world.

He looked at his visitor. The man before him was not a beggar; he was supple in body, his strength largely untested; under the grime his skin was smooth; his fingers looked delicate, as did his feet, bleeding, not used to bare ground; his cheeks were flushed and his eyebrows were shaped.

The girl beside him was angelic. Dust could not hide the full cheeks,
the silken hair. She came in peasant clothes, but the anklet, overlooked round her leg by one who had disguised her, was as exquisite as only the finest craftsman at Patan could have turned. And there were the two gleaming conceits fixed on her ears, the studs which she must have insisted on keeping. Her wide black eyes beseeched the sufi: Help me live.

“Royalty shines through the grime and tatters of your disguise, Raja, as the sun does through clouds and dust,” said the sufi, looking up with a smile after kindly perusing the princess. “This house is your house, in your honour lies ours. Your ancestor gave me opulence and justice as hospitality; I can only offer a poor house.”

Forty years ago the sufi had offered his protection to the house of Vishal Dev were it needed; now Karan called upon that word, and returned to the sufi his ring.

“Give Deval Devi my daughter your sanctuary, Guru,” said Karan. “Make her well. I will call for her when I return to win back my kingdom. If not, another will come to take her to a safe royal house.”

“You must hurry,” said the Wanderer, “for Munip Khan the lieutenant of Alap is in the vicinity and searching.”

Karan with a few attendants disappeared into the darkness. The girl began to sob, and the pir took her by the hand.

Deval became Fatima Devi; her hair was braided and her head covered; she attended at the kitchen and served the pilgrims. When Munip Khan's soldiers arrived at the sanctuary, they noticed her extraordinary beauty and were tempted to abduct her; but they were on the lookout for Karan and his men, and she was under the protection of a sufi, who could have cursed not only them but also their progeny for generations. So they left empty-handed.

But some weeks later they returned, loud and determined. “Bring forth the Hindu princess!” they demanded.

Deval Devi had been betrayed.

It was a day when many pilgrims and refugees from the war had arrived at the holy place. The soldiers came in through the gate, tramped past the people resting on the ground, and headed for the open kitchen at the back. Deval, who was chaffing wheat, saw Munip Khan's soldiers coming towards her. She stood up in fear, looked around helplessly, and ran straight into an open fire nearby, which quickly consumed her.

When the girl was no more, a garland of flowers lay among the ashes of a dead fire. The sufi picked them up, crumpled them in his hands, and let the petals drift away in the wind. “Go, Deval, go to your beloved father,” he said.

All his composure was gone, his heart was filled with rage, and in a harsh voice he pronounced a curse: “Deval will seek her reckoning one day.”

He had preserved one flower in his hand, which he buried in a corner of the ground of Pirbaag.

The people wept. Forgive us, Father. Forgive us, Baba. Give us penance, Guru-ji. But not all had sinned. Among them there was a girl, a kitchen help grown envious of the beautiful Fatima. On her hands and her tongue thorns could now be seen growing, as on the leaves of the prickly pear. And there was a boy whose hands and tongue had also sprouted thorns. The spiteful girl had whispered her secret to the boy, who had gone and reported it to the camp of Munip Khan.

“Forgive us,” the two of them begged.

“Go,” said the Pir, for once without mercy.

He was tired now and his spirit was ready to depart. “Ginanpal,” he said, turning to his deputy. “The call has come for me. Gather my people.”

The sufi sat at his favourite spot, surrounded by his followers. He thanked them for their support and instructed them to abide by the spiritual path, the satpanth, which he had taught them. Through that path he had brought them Kashi and Mecca; he had bathed them in the Ganges; he had given them the key to escaping the cycle of 8,400,000 repeated rebirths into this unhappy world. In the Kali Yuga, the path of righteousness was a hard one, he told them. But he was leaving them the ginans to sing and learn from, and he was leaving behind his successor, Ginanpal. He assured them finally that one day he would return.

Ginanpal said, “Please don't go, Pir Bawa. The people will miss you.”

“You will take my place, Ginanpal,” the Pir told him. “But I will always be with you. Now lean forward and bring your ear close and let me whisper to you something.” Ginanpal did as instructed and the sufi whispered the sacred syllables of the bol to him. Speaking aloud, he added, “Let this bol be the chain that links you and your successors to your Pir. One day its secret will be known to all.” Then the sufi said to all those gathered,
“Look at that spot.” His eye fell on a place some twenty feet away. “Place a lamp there,” he instructed. They obeyed. And then, sighing, the Pir released his spirit. At that instant the lamp lit up and became a symbol of his presence.