Delhi (33 page)

Six months later I ventured to return home. I quote from my diary written in the summer of 1761 :

‘I am back in my beloved city. The scene of desolation fills my eyes with tears. At every step my distress and agitation increases. I cannot recognize houses or landmarks I once knew well. Of the former inhabitants, there is no trace. Everywhere there is a terrible emptiness. All at once I find myself in the quarter where I once resided. I recall the life I used to live : meeting friends in the evenings, reciting poetry, making love, spending sleepless nights pining for beautiful women and writing verses on their long tresses which held me captive. That was life! What is there left of it ? Nothing. Not a soul with whom I can pass a few pleasant moments in conversation ! I come away from the lane and stand on the deserted road, gaping in stunned silence at the scene of devastation. I make a vow that as long as I live, I will never come this way again. Delhi is a city where dust drifts in deserted lanes; in days gone by in this very city a man could fill his lap with gold.

‘Raja Nagar Mal has withdrawn his bounty. So what! I will no longer have to correct verses which are beyond correction. I have been left with nothing. I go out begging, knocking at the doors of noblemen. Because of my fame as a poet I manage to live–as a dog or a cat might live.

‘I pray that Delhi will never again see the accursed Afghans. Abdali’s troopers have more loot than they can carry on the camels and elephants they have captured. They have told their king that if he wishes to stay in Hindustan he will have to do so by himself. Wisely, Abdali has given in. He has made arrangements for the administration of the territories he ravaged and is on his way back to Afghanistan. Allah be thanked for small mercies !

‘The Afghans had become so arrogant and proud that Allah decided to teach them a lesson by having them humiliated at the hands of the Sikhs who were the lowest and the worst elements of society. A force of some forty to fifty thousand Sikhs blocked the passage of the retreating Afghans and fought them with a courage rarely seen in battle.

‘Everyone knows that though severely wounded a Sikh will not turn his back on the enemy. Their bands move rapidly, surround straggling groups of Afghans and put them to the sword. No sooner the sun sets, than they descend on the Afghans from all directions and disappear in the morning. They make life hell for the Afghans. These Sikhs grow their hair and beards long and have a fierce aspect. Sometimes they let their long hair down before they fall on the Afghans and make them fly in terror. They fill the nights with their weird cries. Their footmen fight Afghan horsemen and their swords hack through Afghan saddles. In short, these Sikhs humiliated the Afghans in a manner never seen or heard of before. The Afghans lost the will to fight and the best they could do was to flee for their lives and to leave the governance of the State in the hands of a Hindu.

‘The Sikh armies pressed on toppling crowns and thrones on their way, and chased the Afghans right upto the Attock river. Then they returned to the Punjab, slew the Hindu governor of Lahore appointed by Abdali, and became rulers of the Punjab. Now they have turned their bloodshot eyes on Delhi. What worse fate could befall a beautiful city than it become the abode of savages!’

*

Heavy as a rain-bearing cloud I wandered from one place to another. Delhi no longer could provide the food to keep me and my family alive. Once again I sought refuge in Bharatpur. My fame preceded me and people came from the south, east and west in the hope of getting a glimpse of me.

However, fame and words of praise do not fill an empty stomach. I know I have only one life to live, a hundred aspirations and a thousand desires to fulfil. I feel the weight of years on me and have become more and more like the flame of a candle flickering in a strong wind.

After the Persians, Afghans and the Marathas, came the Jats. I was still in Bharatpur when the Jat Raja Suraj Mal plundered Agra and Delhi. There was nothing left in Delhi for anyone to plunder but letters from my friends said that
Jaatgardi
(Jat lawlessness) was worse than the
Nadir Shahi
of the Iranians. The only hope left for Delhi was Nawab Najibuddaulah who kept both the Jats and the Sikhs at bay. That hope died with Najibuddaulah’s death. The Marathas whom Abdali had routed at Panipat only four years earlier again became powerful. It seemed that either they or the Sikhs, both accursed races, would become the rulers of Delhi. Allah preserve us from such a calamity !

For ten long years I went from one city to another like a homeless wanderer. When Shah Alam II returned to Delhi I also decided to return and resume my quest for fame and fortune. I pinned my hopes on Mirza Najaf Khan, the Chief
Wazir
, who being Iranian was Shiite, a faith with which, because of my mother, I had a close affinity. Mirza was a veritable
Zulfiqaruddaulah
—master of the sword. He had freed Agra from the Jats and had beaten back Sikh brigands and Rohilla freebooters. Even the Marathas were afraid of measuring swords with him. Would Allah keep his sabre ever victorious ?

That, as it turned out, was not Allah’s will. In April 1782 Mirza Najaf Khan died and was buried in a garden facing the mausoleum of Nawab Safdar Jang. The bloodstained dagger of destruction was once again pulled out of its scabbard. Najaf Khan’s nephew, Mirza Shafi, wrested power from the hands of Mirza Afrasiab—the dead ruler’s adopted son. In September 1783 Mirza Shafi was murdered by an assassin hired by Afrasiab. And a few months later Afrasiab was slain by the brother of Mirza Shafi. Not a day passed without someone murdering someone else. No one was safe.

Hunger and insecurity drove me from my beloved city to Lucknow. Here Nawab Asafuddaulah received me kindly and fixed a stipend for the upkeep of my family. However, the Lucknowis, who prided themselves on their etiquette and polished speech, displayed neither towards me. At the first
mehfil
which I attended, they looked disdainfully at my large turban, my loose-fitting clothes and asked me where on earth I had come from. When the candle was placed before me I gave them a befitting reply :

You men of these eastern regions

Knowing my beggarly state you mock me;

You snigger amongst yourselves and ask me

Where on earth can you have come from ?

Let me tell you !

There once was fair city,

Among cities of the world the first in fame;

It hath been ruined and laid desolate,

To that city I belong, Delhi is its name.

*

The Lucknowis do not understand me and I do not understand them. How can I tell my tale in their strange land ? I speak a language they cannot comprehend. They do not know that every word of Meer has a meaning beyond meaning. The language I speak is best understood by the common folk of Delhi. O Meer why bother to speak to this assembly of the dead? Tears flow like rivers from my weeping eyes; my heart like Delhi lies in ruins. The fresh bloom of the rose gives me no joy; its piercing thorn no pain. Within my heart I know that I must return to Delhi where I passed my life intoxicated with love which I drank with the rose-red wine of my heart’s blood. With a sigh I recall a couplet I had composed : ‘Already you bewail your blistered feet; it is a long way to Delhi, my friend !’

The news from Delhi brings tears to everyone’s eyes. Neither Nadir Shah nor Abdali, neither the Marathas, nor the Jats, nor the Sikhs caused so much havoc as is reported to have been caused by the ill-begotten Ghulam Qadir, the grandson of Najibuddaulah, and his ruffianly gangs of Rohillas. This villain insulted and deposed Shah Alam II before putting out his eyes. May Allah burn his carcass in the fires of
gehennum
! Only Allah knows how long murder and looting will go on in Delhi! They will have to revive the dead to find victims and bring back some loot to be able to loot again. Delhi is said to have become like a living skeleton.

Burnt in flames till every building was reduced to ashes

How fair a city was the heart that love put to the fire !

*

There is some good news. The Marathas have inflicted a severe defeat on the Rohillas. Ghulam Qadir has been captured alive, tortured and beheaded. Not a tear is shed for him. I am at peace with myself because at long last one villain who desecrated my beloved city has been punished. Will Delhi ever return to its days of glory? Only Allah knows.

I have now seen eighty-eight summers and winters on this wretched earth. The light in my eyes has dimmed; in three years I have lost four members of my family—my sons, daughter and my wife. I can neither read nor write and have no one left to look after me. Fain would I have mingled my dust in the scented dust of Delhi, but even that last wish is denied to me. Fate brought me to Lucknow into a
mehfil
where the
saqi
serves wine to everyone else but puts poison in my goblet. Here Meer will find no resting place; he must go like running water flowing through the gardens of the world.

Why do people tell frightening tales of the road to death when there are so many going along the same way to keep one company? I have no fear of dying. I had two loves in my life, Begum Qamarunnissa and Delhi. One destroyed me, the other was destroyed for me. I have nothing more to live for. For my two loves I compose the following lines :

As I opened my eyes after my death

My only wish was to once again see your face;

It was in my heart you had your habitation

Where will I find eyes to see this plundered place?

Bhagmati is to spend the evening with me. She will expect me to take her. If I do not show enthusiasm she will say I am growing indifferent or worse, impotent. I must have a good excuse tor abstaining: high fever, a broken arm or a fractured penis. But all I have is wind in my stomach. Anyone who suffers from wind knows that until expelled, it will not allow the flame of lust to be kindled.

A long time ago when this trouble first started I made a list of wind-producing items. It included many of my favourite foods: raw onions, mangoes,
cheekoos
, ice-creams, cakes... I got over the problem that faced me by making a slight change in my love schedule. I ate them after and not before. With the years I had to add other items to the ‘after-not-before’ list: rice, lentils, potatoes, fried foods. The list continued to grow till it included just about everything edible. Nevertheless by the evening my belly would be full of air. I gave up lunch and moved the trysting hour from the evening to the afternoon. It worked well for some time. But it takes two to make a tryst and Bhagmati is not a nooner. So whenever I was sure Bhagmati would visit me I restricted my breakfast to black coffee and Vitamin B tablets—the closest thing I’ve discovered to an aphrodisiac.

Today all I have had since the morning are two mugs of black coffee and a capsule of Vitamin B Complex. Still there is a balloon full of wind in my stomach and no lust in my loins. I do not desire sex; instead I pray for a long, satisfying fart. I have tried hopping round the room on one leg, lying on my back with my knees pressed against my paunch, massaging my belly. All to no avail. Verily hath Shaikh Saadi said:

O Sage ! the stomach is the prison house of wind,

The sagacious contain it not in captivity,

If wind torment thy belly, release it, fart;

For the wind in the stomach is like a stone on the heart.

O Sage of Shiraz! The wind doth truly torment me like a stone on my heart! How shall I release it?

Farting is one of the three great joys of life. First, sex; second, oil rubbed in a scalp full of dandruff; third, a long, satisfying fart. With the onset of middle age I have reversed the order of merit: farting now tops my list of life’s pleasures.

The king of farts is the Trumpet—known to our ancestors as Uttam
Paadam
—its noise rendered as
phadakaam
. It is an act of will, it is proclamatory, it is masculine. It has much sound, little smell. The louder, the less odorous. My friend, the bald, beady- eyed photographer who has done considerable research on the subject is an exponent of the Trumpet. He is of the considered opinion that the Trumpet can only be produced by people who restrict their diet to fresh fruits and non-fibrous vegetables grown above the ground. Such food is
sattvik
(pure). (Poultry, fish and meat, though nourishing, are of the secondary
rajas
category. Spices, stale foods like pickles, preserves and chutneys; vegetables which grow underground like potatoes, radishes, carrots and garlic, or are attached to the earth like onions, cabbages, turnips and cauliflowers are definitely
tamas
). My photographer friend demonstrated the Trumpet by consuming a succulent watermelon on an empty stomach. An hour later he was airborne like a jet plane.

Second in the order of farts is the
Shehnai
—our ancestors also give it a secondary status
madhyamaa
—and its sound is rendered as
thain, thain
. I prefer to compare it to the
shehnai
, a wind instrument made famous by the maestro Ustad Bismillah Khan of Varanasi. Like the Trumpet, the
Shehnai
is also an act of will and may be produced by a simple shift in position or gentle pressure on the paunch. It differs from the Trumpet in its softer tone and longer duration. The opening notes of a Scottish bagpipe sounds very much like it—
pheenh
.

The third variety is the Scraper which makes a sound like the squelch of uncured leather or the rustling of old parchment. It is in fact not one but a succession of little farts—
pirt, pirt, pirt,
pirt
. The Scraper is a by-product of eating too much of
tamasik
food. It is also a phenomenon of rectal muscles softened by age.

The fourth is the
Tabla
. It proclaims itself with a single
phut
like a tap on a bongo drum. The
Tabla
is its own master as it escapes without the host’s consent causing him or her deep embarrassment if they happen to be in company.

The fifth is the noiseless stink bomb, the
Phuskin
. Since it is unspoken it is best-suited to be planted on a neighbour as a secret gift—
gupta daan
. The donor can assume a ‘not-I’ look on his face or hold his nostrils and turn towards someone else with an accusing look. But he must heed the Japanese saying: ‘He who talks is the one who farted’. If you have let off a stinking
gupta daan
, let others guess the identity of the benefactor.

Nations have different attitudes towards farting. The Europeans and Americans are quite shameless about it. It is a part of their Greek inheritance. Niarchos (1st century ad) extolled the virtues of farting any time wind built up in the belly:

If blocked, a fart can kill a man;

If let escape, a fart can sing

Health-giving songs; farts kill and save.

A fart is a powerful king.

Niarchos knew the difference between a noiseless stink bomb and the audible varieties of wind-breaking. To wit:

Does Henry sigh, or does he fart?

His breath is strong from either part.

Exhortations to the fart are also found in contemporary English literature:

Men of letters’ ere we part

Tell me why you never fart?

Never fart? Dear Miss Bright,

I do not need to fart, I write.

Although white races eat bland
rajas
food which does not produce much wind, when they have it, they release it in company with total unconcern for propriety. This is particularly revolting in the case of the wine-drinkers making a
gupta daan
: wind produced by wine is singularly stenchful. The ultimate in white people’s vulgarity was a Frenchman who displayed his fart-power on stage. He had a slit made in the back of his trousers and for a small wager would blow out a candle placed three feet away from his posterior.

If the Whites are disgusting, the Indians are not much better. Indians have a very poor sense of humour and treat farting as a topic of jest. Since they eat highly spiced
tamasik
foods, they are the world’s champion farters and have much occasion to laugh at each other. Once a Minister of Cabinet recording a talk for the External Services of All India Radio let out a Trumpet. The talk had to be re-recorded. However, when the time came, by mistake the original recording was put on the air. It gave an Indian the unique distinction of having his fart heard around the world. The
Guinness Book
of Records
, please note.

For an unrelenting attitude towards farting the palm must be given to the Persians and the Arabs. There is a tale told of a young Iranian who broke wind in a
mehfil
. He was so overcome with remorse that he left the town. After many years in self-imposed exile he returned home hoping that his small misdemeanour would have been forgotten. Naming himself, he asked some boys to direct him to his old home. ‘You mean the home of so-and-so the farter?’ demanded the urchins. The poor man went back into exile.

The first prize for courtesy extended to farters goes to Sufi Abdul Rahman Hatam Ibn Unwan al-assam of balkh, known for reasons of his noble attitude to farting as Hatam the Deaf. It is said that while he was explaining a matter of some theological import to an old woman, the lady farted. The saintly Sufi raised his voice and said, ‘Speak louder, I am hard of hearing.’ And for the fifteen long years that the woman continued to live, Hatam pretended to be hard of hearing and suffered people shouting in his ears. Hatam the Deaf is the patron saint of embarrassed farters.

I wonder if Bhagmati will accept this learned thesis on wind-breaking in lieu of the real thing.