In the City of Gold and Silver (29 page)

 

All night long, Hazrat Mahal has debated with herself to reach the conclusion that the best she can hope for is to recreate a relationship of trust with the rajah, whereas to venture beyond that would be asking for trouble.

Thus, when she receives him at the palace the following day, her attitude is one of serene amiability. She wants to finalise the last details of the plan for the king's escape.

“As you know, Jan-e-Alam is growing weaker by the day. We must not wait any longer. If anything were to happen to him, I would never forgive myself.”

The rajah cannot help feeling taken aback:

Does she still love her husband so much or is it guilt? Whether he was involved in the rebellion or not, the British would have imprisoned the king either way, according to the principle determined by the powers that be: better to be unfair than unwise. But why am I worrying about her? What she does and what she thinks, in so far as it does not interfere with our struggle, is no business of mine . . .

“The difficulty,” continues Hazrat Mahal, “was to find a man clever enough to gain access to the fortress without arousing suspicion. But he also had to be totally incorruptible, as the British are ready to pay handsomely for any information regarding our plans. I spent a long time searching for this rare gem, and I believe I have found him in London. He is a member of Her Majesty Malika Kishwar's retinue.”

“Why in London?” asks the rajah, astounded. “Was it not simpler to choose somebody here?”

“It had to be someone totally committed. Where could I be surer of finding him than amongst those who left their families and their properties behind, without a moment's hesitation, to go and plead the king's cause in cold and hostile England? Contact was established through the Queen Mother. The man will leave London within the week. He will disembark in Bombay and from there, he will set off directly to Benares. He will not pass through Lucknow so that no one will be able to connect him to us. In Benares, the anglicised Indian will vanish . . . to reappear in the guise of one of the town's innumerable
sadhus
.
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Nobody would dare mistreat them—the Hindus implore their blessings, the others fear their curses. Our sadhu
 
will travel to Calcutta, where he will make sure he is noticed for his piety and attract attention by performing a few ‘miracles' accomplished with the aid of assistants.

“As his reputation will have preceded him, the sepoys
 
at Fort William, Hindus for the majority, will take good care of him! In addition, he will already have half a dozen accomplices on-site.”

“How clever! However, there still remains the problem we have already raised: what will the king do with his freedom? Will he lead the troops into battle?”

“He may try to find a compromise, but then it is no longer our problem, it will be up to him to decide!”

The rajah tenses and replies in an icy tone:

“I'm afraid, Huzoor, you have not fully grasped how much things have changed. These last months, tens of thousands of men have given their lives to liberate their country, to regain the freedom of their beliefs and their traditions, to recover their dignity. The British army has put the entire region to fire and sword, whole villages and fields have been devastated, women raped, children quartered. Do you really believe all this can be forgotten? For my part, I cannot ask my soldiers to sacrifice their lives if it means returning to the former situation. Furthermore, do not delude yourself, the British will refuse any negotiations with us ‘natives,' who have not only dared to rebel, but have also committed the sacrilege of attacking white women and children. They swore their vengeance would be terrible!”

“If I understand you correctly, Rajah Sahib, you would refuse to obey the king if he were to order you to stop the struggle?”

“My soldiers would be the first to refuse, Huzoor, if I ordered them to! Just like the thousands of peasants, who urged their taluqdars to join the rebellion, would refuse! Our people are patient, so much so that they are sometimes considered passive, but when they revolt, they fight to the bitter end because, unlike the elite, they have nothing left to lose.”

 

* * *

 

“How dare he speak to you like that?”

After the rajah's departure, Mammoo had joined his mistress, and he does not hide his indignation
 
at what he classifies as “deceitfulness.” Overjoyed at the opportunity to belittle the man he considers his rival, he presses the point home:

“He swore his loyalty to you and has the audacity to go against you on the pretext that his soldiers would not follow his lead! In reality, he is playing a double game to satisfy his own personal ambition. These Hindus are hypocrites!”

More malicious gossip! Hazrat Mahal turns purple with rage:

“I forbid you to speak like that! If I find out you are spreading such nonsense, I will not hesitate to have you banished! Can you not see that our Hindu sepoys worship my son Birjis Qadar, just as they do their god Krishna? I will not tolerate that Awadh's Hindu-Muslim culture, our ‘gold and silver culture,' this
 
extraordinary monument of humanism and tolerance, be threatened by the stupidity of religious prejudice.”

At her violent reaction, the eunuch lowers his head. Never has his mistress treated him in this manner
.
Going against popular opinion,
 
she had appointed him minister of the Court, and now she threatens to dismiss him. Does she really think she is strong enough to dispense with him?

“I only want to protect you, Huzoor, as I have always done,” he stammers. “Your position attracts a lot of jealousy, people speak ill of you . . . ”

“Well, let them gossip! All the years I spent in the zenana
 
taught me how to ignore it. If you want to be esteemed by all and sundry, you end up doing nothing at all!”

“Be careful, Huzoor, you have a powerful enemy who has the people's ear and is trying to undermine your authority. Several times, I heard him criticise your decisions and say you are leading the country to ruin.”

“Are you referring to that madman, the maulvi
?
”

“Ahmadullah Shah is not mad. Quite the contrary, he is extremely intelligent and cunning. He declares himself a prophet inspired by God, and vows he will wipe out all the British. His disciples come from the poorer classes and he knows how to talk to them, how to manipulate their suspicion against the rich and powerful. He criticises the weakness of the men at Court and the cowardice of certain generals. He is always at the head of his troops in battle, taking unimaginable risks. He has escaped death so many times that our compatriots, religious by nature, consider him a supernatural being who is going to lead them to victory.”

“And what exactly does he hold against me?”

“He reproaches you for not respecting purdah, wearing only a light veil over your hair when you are in the company of men, and also for protecting the British!”

“Protecting the British?”

“He heard that you had the lives of the refugee women and children spared, and even give them shelter in the palace before sending them on to Allahabad under escort.”

“And I am proud of having done so! Would this monster have me stand by and let innocent civilians be slaughtered? Does he not know that Islam forbids attacking the innocent? All these religious figures who interpret the Holy Quran as they see fit to make it serve their own purposes are our worst enemies! They are more dangerous than the foreigners who are fighting us, since they caricature our religion to such an extent that one day the Muslims will be seen as fanatics to be crushed!”

Hazrat Mahal can no longer contain her indignation:

“Maulvis, mullahs, imams, these people have no right to dictate how others should behave! Prophet Muhammad did not want a clergy. He saw only too well what damage these priests can perpetrate. He wanted the believer to be alone with the sacred book—the word of God—to be able to interpret the scriptures himself, in accordance with his conscience. If he insisted so strongly that Muslims, both men and women, study—saying that, if necessary, they should go as far as China in search of knowledge!—it was precisely in order to ensure that believers
 
would be capable of managing their own lives with the help of the Quran alone.”

 

* * *

 

Today, August 22nd, is the beginning of Muharram, the period of mourning for Shia Muslims in remembrance of Hussain, the Prophet's grandson, who along with his whole family was assassinated in 680 by Yazid, the Umayyad caliph, for refusing to recognise his authority. Since this massacre in Karbala, Iraq, Shias all over the world commemorate the tragedy every year during Muharram.

This Muharram is the first one since Birjis Qadar's coronation and, despite the battle, the regent intends to ensure it is celebrated with as much pomp as during Wajid Ali Shah's time. It will be an opportunity for the young king to appear before the crowds, and to reinforce the soldiers' morale and determination. In fact, even though the ceremony is specifically Shiite, Hindus generally participate in it too.

As soon as the
 
crescent moon appears in the sky, a long procession leaves the Bara Imambara, the most sumptuous prayer hall in all of Lucknow. Built in the 18th century, the continuous vaulted roof, measuring fifty metres long and sixteen metres wide, is the admiration of architects the world over.

Majestic
 
elephants, caparisoned in black,
 
lead the procession. Sitting astride them are the pennant bearers, brandishing the insignias awarded by the Mughal emperors—silver and gold poles topped by auspicious symbols: a sun, a moon or a fish. Close behind them, come the horsemen parading the
alams
. These holy banners are embroidered with verses from the Quran and crowned with a bronze hand, symbolising the Shia pentarchy: Prophet Muhammad, his daughter Fatima, his son-in-law Ali and their two sons, Hassan and Hussain. Zuljinah, the martyr's white horse, its head lowered, follows at their heels.

Then, trudging along, beating their chests, men wearing dark robes move slowly, bearing a copy of Imam Hussain's coffin draped with a black cloth embroidered with silver tears on their shoulders. At the end of the procession, winding their way, comes the long line of
tazia
s made of coloured wax and decorated with precious metals, fragile models of Imam Hussain's tomb at Karbala. Each district, each guild offers its own tazia, their rich decorations testifying to the donors' importance and generosity.

Finally, to the mournful beat of the drums, the penitents appear. Wearing black, they make progress, beating their breasts and wailing, “Imam Hussain! Imam Hussain!” while the surrounding crowd takes up the cries again: “Ya Hussain!” They will flay themselves all night long, their bodies heaving, their faces ecstatic, recalling their Imam, who had laid down his life,
 
opposing
 
the usurper.

For their part, throughout the town's imambaras, the women, all dressed in black, wearing neither jewellery nor make-up, join in the mourning, reciting psalms. At the palace, the regent has sent for the best
marsia
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poetess in Lucknow; a woman who, in a husky voice, recounts with an infinite luxury of details the martyrdom of Imam Hussain and his seventy-two followers, including old people and children. Her chants evoke the long march through the desert, the siege, the three days without food or drink, then the attack by the enemy's army, the deaths of the companions of Imam Hussain: a ten-year-old child and an old man,
 
even a baby, just a few months old. An accomplished tragedienne, her recital heightens the suspense. Hanging on to her every word, the women sigh and moan, until eventually, overcome by emotion, they burst into sobs, merging their own personal troubles with the sorrow of the Imam's tragedy. Harder and harder, with increasing urgency, they pound their chests in order to mortify themselves and to experience in their own flesh some of the martyrs' suffering.

It is on the day of Ashura, the tenth day of Muharram, however, that the mourning ceremonies reach their paroxysm. On this day, after seeing his family and loyal followers massacred one after the other, Imam Hussain finds himself alone with
 
his white horse Zuljinah to confront Yazid's soldiers. As a hail of arrows pierces to death this last faithful companion, the soldiers pounce on the wounded Imam, cutting his head off, and—the ultimate sacrilege—begin to play with it like a ball.

Around the Residency, the cannons have fallen silent out of respect for the Imam: for one thousand, two hundred years, fighting has been prohibited on this day of Ashura. It is a day of remembrance, for tears and prayers.

Preceded by camels with black harnesses—the camels of the martyrs' caravan—and Zuljinah, her white coat stained with blood, the procession of penitents advances to the sound of the funerary drums. There are mature men, but adolescents too. Bare-chested, they hold whips made of chains ending in freshly sharpened steel blades. “Imam Hussain!” they cry out. “Ya Hussain!” answers the crowd. Simultaneously, the chains are brought down on the naked backs, the blades pierce the skin, drawing blood.

“Imam Hussain!” They flay themselves in rhythm to the incantation, their blood flows freely in the dust. “Ya Hussain!” A man collapses, then another. Quickly, they are carried away on makeshift stretchers. The lashes intensify, the penitents now flay themselves in a frenzy, in a desperate attempt to annihilate the body, to reach the ultimate state where, joining their martyred Imam, they will merge with The One.

The whole town centre is blocked by the tightly packed throng, fervently following the ceremony. A small group of sepoys
 
suddenly emerges from around a corner, elbowing people out of their way: “Make way for the guards of His Excellency Mammoo Khan!” With difficulty they push through the protesting spectators, when a tall, bearded man steps in front of them and stands, legs apart, shouting at them
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