But I still desired her. And now that I was back in Agra the raging fire of passion which I believed to have been reduced to ashes was once again fanned into a flame.
I returned home empty handed but was warmly welcomed by my family and saw my second-born for the first time. With some anguish I learnt that barely a month after I had left Agra, the Begum Sahiba had turned cool towards my family (so the rumours had been true!) and on their last visit to the
haveli
refused to see them on the pretext of being unwell. My stepbrother who enjoyed hurting me told me with some relish how her affair with the new teacher she had hired for her children was commonly talked about. His words pierced my heart like arrows.
Next morning I went to pay my respects to Nawab Rais. Far from raising troops to fight the Iranians, he denounced the Mughals for not having made terms with Nadir, who he was reliably told, was an upright and just man, a devout Mussalman who would uproot idolatry from Hindustan. He took me inside to the
zenana
where the scene was exactly as I had left it except that instead of me there was this other teacher teaching the boys with the Begum Sahiba sitting on her
moorha
watching them. The boys greeted me very warmly, as did the teacher. But I could discern the look of triumph on his ugly face.
The Begum Sahiba had put on weight. The sparkle that had lit her eyes whenever she saw me was gone. She was as deferential towards me as she would have been to a stranger; her heart as cold as an extinguished oil-lamp. ‘Meer Sahib, we hear Delhi resounds with your name. It is a matter of great pride for the people of Agra,’ she said. How composed this woman was in the presence of three men, all of whom she had bedded! My face was flushed with anger and recrimination. I wanted to run out screaming and tell everyone in Agra that this woman had not only been unfaithful to her husband but also to her lover. They would have stoned her to death, not once but thrice. However, I did not open my mouth but made some excuse and took my leave. And the people of Agra. Far from being proud of me, they turned their faces against me. Men who had used the dust of my saintly father’s feet as collyrium for their eyes averted their gaze from me. My voice was like the echo of a caravan bell in the wilderness. After six months of this humiliation I decided to quit Agra.
I arrived back in Delhi in the middle of summer. Strangely though I had left Agra a bitter at the betrayal by a woman who had sworn to be my companion in lives to come and was plotting ways to avenge myself, I could not get her out of my mind. I sought her everywhere among the ruins of Delhi. Like the cup of the narcissus I carried the begging bowl of my eyes asking for alms of her sight. At every dawning of the day like the morning breeze I went knocking at every door of every street. I became like the flame of a candle flickering in a gusty morning wind. I burnt inside, melted, diminished and came close to death. A strange madness came over me. Physicians told me that insanity ran in my family and that it had now erupted in my blood and could only be cured by being bled out. They cauterized me, stuck leeches on my body and locked me up in a dark, dingy cell as if I was a raving lunatic. The Hakeem Sahib who came to see me was astonished at my condition. ‘What can I prescribe for a man who is stricken with the pangs of love !’ he said. The only one who showed any sympathy for me was a distant relative, an old woman who brought me changes of clothes and food and words of comfort. Allah bless her!
I despaired and said to myself, ‘Better be enchained, locked up, even die in a dungeon than be enmeshed in the net of love and longing.’ I wrote a couplet of despair :
‘The eye hath ruined me,’ the heart complained.
‘The heart has lost me,’ the eye replied.
I know not which told the truth, which lied
B
etween, the two, it was Meer who died.
I wanted to write my last will and testament with words of warning to myself : ‘Friend Meer, do everything your heart desires but never let it fall in love; love spares neither lover nor beloved.’
At long last they let me out of the cell in which they had confined me for many weeks. I loitered about the streets and bylanes. Whichever way I turned my eyes I saw signs of devastation caused by Nadir’s vandals. Not a house had been spared. The Qila-i-Mualla had been stripped of its precious stones and furnishings. Princes of royal blood had been reduced to beggary; some had to go without food for days. Who was I to complain! In despair I went looking for the dingy hovel where I had spent a night in the arms of the girl passing for a princess. Not one house in the lane had been spared. No one I asked knew what had become of the old woman and the girl. Perhaps the old woman was dead and the girl taken as a slave by some Irani soldier.
What misfortunes had visited my beloved city! Sikhs, Marathas, thieves, pickpockets, mendicants, rulers—all preyed on us. Happy was he who had no wealth; poverty was the only wealth. Seeing things in that light, I was the wealthiest of the wealthy and at the same time the poorest of the poor.
One day sauntering through the city I came to buildings recently destroyed. I had known the locality well but I could not recognize the houses because little was left of them. Nothing was known of their inmates. If I asked for someone by name, they replied: ‘He is not here any more.’ If I asked for their whereabouts, the reply was the same or ‘I know nothing about where they have gone.’ Entire rows of houses had been razed to the ground—as far as the eye could see it was one vast scene of desolation. The bazaars had gone and with them the swains who had frequented them. Where would I look for beauty now? Where had fled all my pleasure-loving companions of yesterday? Comely youths and aged men of wisdom—all had vanished. I recalled a verse composed by someone :
Once through this ruined city did I pass
I espied a lonely bird on a bough and asked
‘What knowest thou of this wilderness?’
It replied : ‘I
can sum it up in two words:
‘Alas! Alas !’
*
In the wilderness that the Delhi despoiled by Nadir Shah became, I was left with hardly anyone I could turn to for help. In despair I sought the company of Sirajuddin Ali Khan ‘Aarzoo’, who before my coming, was Delhi’s most celebrated poet. At first he seemed well-disposed towards me and even helped me to find patrons. It was on his advice that I gave up writing in Farsee and instead concentrated on composing poetry in the language spoken by the common people, the kind who thronged the broad steps of Jamia Masjid. This brought me popular acclaim. Then suddenly and for no reason known to me Aarzoo turned against me. I thought perhaps my stepbrother had written to him about my affair with the wife of my benefactor. Or maybe he thought that because my mother was Shia, I had leanings towards the Shiites (Aarzoo was a bigoted Sunni). But I was neither Shia nor Sunni, neither Muslim nor Hindu. About my faith I wrote:
I have gone beyond the temple and the mosque,
I have made my heart my sanctuary;
On this thorn-strewn path end
All my wandering and my journey.
Like other Muslims I went to the mosque every Friday. Like Hindus I had drawn castemarks on my forehead, worshipped in temples of idolatry and ages ago abandoned Islam. However, the most likely cause of Aarzoo’s anger was my growing popularity. He saw the crown worn by the
Sultan-ul-Shoara
(King of Poets) slipping off his head and being placed on mine. Envy slays friendship quicker than the sword. Aarzoo’s hostility cost me many patrons and made life more difficult for me. As I had no regular income, I owed money to Banias, vegetable-sellers, milkmen and the like.
But as I’ve written earlier why should Meer mourn his own fate when loud cries of lamentation rise from every quarter of the city extending from the marble palaces of the exalted Red Fort to the humblest hovel in Paharganj! The accursed Nadir Shah had left behind him in Delhi thousands of widows to beat their breasts over their dead husbands and forced thousands of orphans to go begging in the streets. Of the
bandobast
the less said the better. We had one king, Mohammed Shah, and three rulers: Chief Minister Nawab Safdar Jang on the one side, the Paymaster—General Nawab Imadul Mulk, and Nawab Intizammuddaulah on the other. The Emperor’s writ did not run even in his own harem; it was his Hindu wife who had once been a dancing girl and her adviser, Nawab Javed Khan, who issued orders on his behalf. Javed Khan was a
khwaja sara
(eunuch) in charge of the royal harem, and despite his shortcoming was reputed to be the paramour of the Hindu empress. Why should Meer complain ? Javed may have been deprived of his manhood in one way but he proved his manliness by ignoring my detractors and spreading the umbrella of his bounty over my head. I was assured of at least one meal a day and a change of clothes when those I had on were tattered.
For a while fortune favoured Nawab Safdar Jang. When Mohammed Shah died he put the emperor’s twenty-one-year-old son, Ahmed Shah, on the Mughal throne. Ahmed Shah preferred the company of nubile damsels and his wine-cup more than the business of State which he left to his mother and her confidant, Javed Khan.
Javed did not like Safdar Jang and joined Nawabs Imadul Mulk and Intizammuddaulah to plan his overthrow. A few months after Safdar Jang had become Chief Minister an attempt was made on his life. At Nigambodh Ghat in the vicinity of which he had his mansion a fusillade of gunfire was opened on him. Safdar Jang escaped by falling off his horse but many of his retainers were killed. Safdar Jang suspected Javed Khan of being the brain behind the conspiracy and plotted his destruction. He feigned friendship towards Javed and invited him for a morning repast along with Raja Suraj Mal Jat of Bharatpur. After the repast he took Javed aside and one of his retainers stabbed him in the back. His head was struck off his body and thrown on the sands of the Jamna. The empress went into mourning. I was deprived of yet another patron.
A regular war started between the soldiers of Safdar Jang and the empress’s retainers. Every day they clashed, bullets flew, swords flashed and blood flowed in the gutters. They hired Rohillas, Jats, Marathas and Sikhs to fight for them. These hirelings fought for their paymasters by day and robbed the poor by night. The people of the city did not feel safe even in their own homes and pleaded with the empress to give them sanctuary. She acquiesced in their request and thousands of families moved into the open space of Sahibabad gardens alongside Chandni Chowk. Mercifully the monsoons were gentle and not many people died of exposure.
Ultimately Nawab Safdar Jang gave in. He was a Shia but there were few Shias even amongst his Muslim troops. After trying to win over the Jats and Marathas (who proved to be most untrustworthy), he quit in disgust. He spent his time erecting his final resting place on the road between Raisina and the Qutub and looking after his estates in Avadh.
The rule of Ahmed Shah came to an end while he was still living in the Fort Palace. The Marathas under Holkar after plundering Delhi’s suburbs installed Mohammad Azizuddin, the great-grandson of Emperor Aurangzeb, as the new emperor. He was crowned on 5 June 1754 and assumed the title of Emperor Alamgir II. This self-styled conqueror of the Universe ruled an empire no larger than the enclosed space between the walls of the Red Fort.
Why labour the tragic tale of the King of Cities? Delhi was never the same after the Iranians had slain its soul. Kings, noblemen and their hirelings came like flocks of vultures to peck at its corpse. I stayed on in Delhi because there was nowhere else I could go except Agra. But one woman’s perfidy had made me turn my face against that city forever. Through all these killings and massacres she did not send me even one letter enquiring about my health or safety. It is best to forget that such people exist. My wife and children—by now I had two sons and a daughter—joined me in Delhi. We lived in extreme poverty. I earned very little besides name and fame. I taught my children and found that all three were more inclined towards writing poetry than doing anything that might bring us money.
In the winter of 1758, Nadir’s successor, the Afghan, Ahmad Shah Abdali, staked his claim to the empire of the Mughals. The Afghans marched through the Punjab without anyone daring to stop them and occupied Delhi. Abdali promised us security of life and property. But night had scarcely fallen when the outrages began. Fires were started in the city, houses were looted and burnt down. Afghan ruffians broke down doors, tied up those found inside, burnt them alive or cut off their heads. There was bloodshed and destruction everywhere. People were stripped of their clothes to wander naked in the streets. For many days no one had anything to eat. The cry of the oppressed rose to the heavens. Abdali who styled himself
Dur-i-Dauraan
(a Pearl among Pearls) and a pillar of the faith, was as rapacious as a hungry lion and remained unmoved by the plight of his fellow Muslims. People in their thousands fled from Delhi into the open country where many died of hunger or exposure to the elements. I, who was poor, became poorer. My house, which stood on the main road, was levelled to the ground.
In my constant search for patrons, I turned from the Muslim
nawabs
who no longer helped me to the Hindu nobility. Raja Jugal Kishore and Raja Nagar Mal were fond of poetry and sent their compositions to me for correction.
In the winter of ad 1759 events took a turn for the worse : Nawab Imadul Mulk once again soiled his dirty hands by spilling the blood of Alamgir II. Mirza Abdullah Ali Gauhar, the late emperor’s eldest son, fled to Avadh and proclaimed himself Shah Alam II (he was the seventeenth in the line of Babar). As for me my hardships in Delhi were too much for me to bear. I put my trust in Allah and decided it was safer to be among the Hindu Jats in the countryside than live in a capital that was little better than a wilderness laid waste every six months.
I moved to Bharatpur ruled by Suraj Mal Jat. When I was there the Maratha armies marched northwestwards to meet Abdali and his Afghans who had once again descended on Hindustan. On 17 January 1761 we received the news that two days earlier the Marathas had been decimated on the field of Panipat. Those who had managed to escape the Afghans’ swords were set upon by gangs of Gujars and Jats and robbed of everything including their lives. I decided to stay on in Bharatpur until the Afghans departed and peace was restored in Delhi.