Apparently, unlike Jane Austen’s single woman, an ambitious woman is a problem to be solved. It infuriates me that Baba and Faraz have probably had this “man-to-man” conversation behind my back on how best to “handle” me and my resurrected writerly ambitions. I know them so well that I can almost see them in their usual roles. Faraz rooting for a “let her be” approach – his normal stance, more out of exhausted indifference than faith in my abilities. Probably after a huge argument – since all their exchanges these days end up like that – Faraz has been entrusted with the task of introducing me to Daniyal Khan – a high-brow culture vulture vetted and endorsed by Baba. It’s typical of Baba to take charge, point me towards cultural relics, curtail my potential meanderings in the town, suggest that I write about Rampur culture while slyly hoping I burn off my writerly dreams and come home. He is hardly subtle, and this makes me even more adamant to succeed. My usual response is resisting Baba’s suggestions, which are actually decisions, like a rebellious child; but I agree to the scheme to maintain peace. I can understand Baba’s frustration – I have unsettled his carefully calibrated equilibrium. He had set up Faraz in a mango trading venture, me at a job and Gul safely lodged in a medical college. Now I was wilfully unemployed with impractical and potentially unprofitable plans. Not that I earned much when I was teaching, but it was enough to ‘put food on the table’, as Baba says. Most of the time, Faraz takes care of the daily expenses, and we live in a rambling colonial bungalow, a British-era club that Baba had bought years ago.
As we drive out to the old city area, Faraz briefs me that Daniyal Khan comes from a family of scholars, is very well-read and has a library with manuscripts inherited through generations. He doesn’t know much about Daniyal’s education or career, just that he would be the best person to assist me at this stage – at least Baba thinks that this scholarly rendezvous with a possibly priggish custodian of Rampur heritage will help or, hopefully, discourage me.
It has been more than two months since I left my job. My table is littered with half-finished articles while I aimlessly net-surf under the pretext of research and detest myself for it. I fed my anxiety by asking Meezan Bhai to prepare his specialities, stress-eating and slumping into post-eating despair. The only bright spot was supposed to be my Stanford University online writing course, but I was falling behind on the assignments. What should I write about? A bored housewife? Displacement? Life in small-town India? I was drawing a complete blank, paralysed by writer’s block in anticipation of mutating into a writer.
I have hardly been to the old city around the Rampur Fort. We live on the edge of Rampur, right where the highway hits the town. Baba’s house is the only place we visit in the walled city besides a few relatives on Eid or for some special occasion. The ancient geography of the town, encircled by centuries-old walls and gates, unspools in Faraz’s commentary. He points out the neighbourhoods named after Pathan chieftains of yore, who settled down in Rampur when it was established in 1774. Some are even named after trees – peepal wala gher, Imli Asmat Khan – or landmarks. I laugh over “Inayat Khan ki seedhiyan” (Inayat Khan’s stairway), named after some person immortalised for building a two-storied house. The houses are arranged in clusters called ghers, with a common courtyard, a mosque and a cemetery. You don’t have to go far for weddings, festivities, prayers and burial; the circle of life is transcribed within the mohallas. Faraz points at the place where there used to be three magnificent stone gateways leading to the Raza Library, the erstwhile durbar of the Nawabs. The famed ten gates to the city have been demolished in the name of crafting a “smart city” by a local politician. I can still see some crumbling old houses with clay-tiled khaprail roofs. They will soon be sold off and replaced by new, uninspired structures in greens and pinks. “New money”, as Baba says, or simply a result of old families getting rich again from sons working abroad or the inevitable division of old kothis. The weddings are no longer held in common courtyards. There are several banquet halls where we have attended marriages, receptions and other celebrations. The food is unerringly fabulous, exclusively carnivorous and centred around the awesome trinity of qorma, kababs and pulao. I dress up and zero in unabashedly on the eats. My devotion to food became my redemption in the eyes of the Rampur relatives who had raised their collective eyebrows at our marriage. Marrying a Hindu woman at that time was not politicised but still unacceptable on religious and cultural grounds.
We navigate into an ever-narrowing gully with busy drains on both sides and houses squeezing against each other. I look up at the balconies jutting out, almost meeting over our heads, the web of electric wires slicing the blue sky. There is a small mosque tucked in a corner as we turn into a brick-lined lane. I can feel Faraz getting irritated. He clicks his tongue and gestures to a guy sitting on a motorcycle and chatting to a friend. The man gets off and tilts the motorcycle, and we just about manage to pass through without scraping it.
“We should have walked,” I say.
“And have these louts gawking at you!” Sweat beads dot Faraz’s forehead. I hand him a tissue, which he rejects with a grunt.
“I could have worn an abaya and scarf if that would make you comfortable.” The thought of wearing the abaya brings on a suffocating, unbreathable feeling.
“I just want this mess to be over!”
I clamp down on my words and endure his silent, martyr-like annoyance. He would have never come if Baba hadn’t forced him to. Still, I’m thankful for his help – anything to jolt me out of the place I’m in now.
The car stops at the end of the lane in front of an ancient, ornate archway. I gasp at the architectural magnificence of the carved stone pillars and the scalloped arch towering over us. Thankfully, it’s not painted in whitewash like other gates and extravagantly displays its open brickwork and red sandstone carved with intricate vines and floral arabesque – typical late Mughal architecture. A massive wooden gate embedded in the arch is opened by an old servant who bows and salams as Faraz parks his car in a vestibule area, which has another car under a tarpaulin shroud.
Faraz tells me that Daniyal’s ancestors were Rohilla Pathan chieftains who came with the original settlers and later became officials in the court of the Nawab.
“We are also Pathans from Swat, but we came in later,” he adds, unbuckling his seat belt.
I nod; I have heard the story of his pure Afghan bloodline narrated by the relatives with the silent rebuke against my Hindu “taint”. Baba often laughs and says hybridisation creates naturally superior survivors.
Excerpted with permission from The Courtesan, Her Lover and I, Tarana Husain Khan, Hachette India.
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