The Gulmohar of Mehranpur

In the small city of Mehranpur, the Nawab suspects there may be a connection between the slow wasting of a beloved tree and the fate of the city itself.

The Nawab of Mehranpur stopped smoking his hookah and looked up at the new khansama through a thick haze of smoke. The cinnamon-infused hashish cloud made lazy wisps around the Nawab’s ruby-studded fingers, clouding his vision. He flicked his hand, the wisps went away with a feline suddenness, and the khansama began to look more like a man than a mere idea, a quivering abstraction. The Nawab saw the man’s audacity, his naaz, his tenacity, his tongue-click manner of speaking. He saw a man who carried an inscrutable pride on his bony shoulders, a man who was as sure of his words as the fact that the day waned into night.

More than that, the Nawab saw a man who wasn’t afraid of certain death.

“If tonight was a moonless night,” said the Nawab, “I would have had your head severed and paraded around the Fountains of Reshma.”

“I am aware, Nawab Saheb,” said the man.

“Say again what you said with such confidence, a moment ago. Say it so the court hears it again, like a thunderclap in a storm.”

“I can prepare a meal that brings eternal youth.”

The Nawab set aside the hookah. He straightened his back, and his bones cracked and groaned and complained in languages only bones speak, a language of age and whispers. And even his bones had heard the word “youth” from the mouth of the audacious man, the man who wore nothing but a simple tunic and a faded dhoti, with torn slippers and grime lining his toenails.

“I won’t repeat the eon-old saying that even the walls have ears,” said the Nawab. “But my walls listen. And then they speak to other walls. And then all the walls of Mehranpur speak among themselves, telling each other stories of my subjects, bringing back to me their discontents. So don’t make promises in this court that the walls curl into rumours, that bring hope to the hearts of my subjects and to me.”

“I know what you’re implying, Nawab,” said the man. “But what I say is the truth.”

“You also know that I make available, from time to time, the heartiest and most sumptuous meals for my subjects, an envious feast, so that they spend the rest of their hardworking weeks with the taste of what we serve. And they continue to work hard, because they have another feast to look forward to, aside from dreary day-to-day meals of roti and daal and achaar.”

“I am well aware of your magnanimity, Nawab Saheb.”

“Then go and make me a meal that brings eternal youth,” said the Nawab. “But remember, if you fail, then you would have caused a grievous anguish to both me and my loyal subjects. And the punishment for that would not be meted out by me, but by them.”

“I won’t disappoint,” said the man, giving the Nawab a curt bow. “I only have one condition.”

“Speak freely.”

“I would need a two-inch bar of gold, every day, as payment, for eighteen days. And not just any gold…not a corrupted alloy. But its purest form.”

The Nawab summarily ignored the ask of gold. That was not what had surprised him. “What meal takes eighteen days to prepare?” The Nawab didn’t like the agitation in his voice. But the agitation itself was a precursor to a rage that was hidden in his heart. The rage at this man’s outlandish notions.

“A meal that brings eternal youth,” said the man, his voice calm, unerring.

Later, in his bedchamber, his Diwan-i-Khas, the Nawab lounged with his begum and told her about the ache in his heart, and the rage in his heart, and the blood that swelled in his veins that told him myriad things about the state of the world.

“I am afraid one day this rage will get the better of me,” said the Nawab.

“What is the root of all this anger?” asked the begum.

The Nawab fell silent. He had looked deep inside and asked himself questions, and asked others the same questions, and answers had always eluded him. Mehranpur was a mere district-state, subservient to the larger state of Alipur, where Mohammad Ali Shah ruled with an iron fist. When Ali Shah gave alms, and spoke of promises, and spoke of expensive grains like barley and rice and millet being imported from other lands, and other riches, he never included Mehranpur in his magnanimous decisions. On occasions, the Nawab of Mehranpur had himself walked to Alipur Palace, on scorched earth, showing his love and respect for the greater state, and given much of his hoards of ruby to the Shah, but to no avail.

Mehranpur had become a mere speck of sand. The Nawab feared the small district-state of Mehranpur might soon be uprooted by the whims of the Shah. And this fear brought about rage. And the rage often made the Nawab do inexplicable things. Things which reached the ears of the Shah, sometimes, completing a circle of misery.

The Nawab was also getting old. Age crept up to him, as his days morphed into years faster than a wind could change direction. And with the Nawab, Mehranpur aged too, and lived always at the cusp of disaster. And that’s why the Nawab hated promises.

“You can always tend to the Gulmohar,” said the Begum, twisting the hem of her dupatta into knots.

The Gulmohar, the Nawab’s pride, once a majestic tree that was the envy of all eyes in all the states, grew in his orchard, but its edifice had recently begun to mirror the Nawab’s various predicaments. Its bright saffron leaves had turned to rust and its bark had started shedding all around the grass it stood on. The cool, all-encompassing shade it once provided was now a patchwork blanket of shadow. In the morning, before the khansama’s arrival, the Nawab had tended to the Gulmohar personally, sat down near its roots with chisel and manure, often singing to the tree. The nawab cut a despondent figure from afar, and the residents of the Palace spoke in hushed tones with each other about how lonely he had become.

Now, in the evening, the Nawab once again visited the tree and once again saw its drooping edifice. It escaped him, how, despite good quality manure, enough water, ample sunlight in the afternoons, the Gulmohar refused to thrive. It had started behaving like a stubborn child. But the Nawab couldn’t discipline the Gulmohar like he would a stubborn child.

If he had any children, he would have learned better ways of discipline.

“Nawab Saheb, the Shah has sent a paigam.”

The Nawab turned to face a sentry, who was holding a rolled parchment with a green ribbon and the unmistakable bright red wax seal of the Shah with a golden teardrop on it.

“Open it and read it to me, then,” said the Nawab, facing the Gulmohar again. He felt the more his eyes strayed from the sight of the tree, the more it drooped. Even now, he could tell, the branches curved downwards a slight inch, when the sentry had disturbed him.

“It’s by the powers vested upon me by the royal state that I decree…”

“The day won’t wait around for you to read the preamble, just get on with it,” said the Nawab, impatience dripping from his mouth like honey from a nest of bees. The sentry sighed.

“Nawab Saheb, it’s written here that Mehranpur will no longer get any rice.”

“How far have you studied, sentry?”

“I have studied enough letters, Nawab Saheb,” said the sentry, his words quivering and shaking. “It’s what the paigam says.”

The Nawab snatched the letter from the sentry’s hands. He read it in its entirety, trying to find any hidden meaning in the gaps between one alphabet and the next, again and again, until his eyes hurt from the effort and his knees buckled underneath him from the weight of it all.

Later that night, the Nawab dreamed of having children. Next day, at the fresh crack of dawn, as the Begum was feeding the mynah on the windowsill, the Nawab made his wish known to her, of finally expanding their family from two to three, perhaps four. When his Begum fell silent, and in her silence was all the answer, and the mynah chirped and flew away, the Nawab quietly walked out of his Diwan-i-Khas and made his way towards the kitchen.

The smell reached the Nawab first, before the low murmurs. Even as he crossed the long, marbled walkway from his court towards the kitchens, the intoxicating aroma of garlic- and cumin-infused oil reached his nostrils. He hurried, but his footfall told its own tale. The Nawab’s steps were loud and assured, and the sound of his boots against marble was like the sound of the first patter of rain. It was a sound of authority, and it was that sound that gave him away.

When the Nawab entered, the khansama was already facing the door, as if anticipating his arrival. But what was a stark surprise was the absence of any of the other bawarchis who normally assisted a khansama during the preparation of a feast.

“Nawab Saheb, if it isn’t too much, I must ask you to leave the kitchen.”

The first inkling of a long-subdued rage. The Nawab clenched his fist, then calmed himself. No other khansama had ever spoken to him with such impudence.

“Do you not wish to receive your first gold payment? Is today the first day of your preparation for whatever meal you promised me?”

The khansama’s gaze lingered on the Nawab’s face for far too long.

“Do you have the gold on your person?”

“I do,” said the Nawab. He loosened a plain gold ring from his finger and handed it to the khansama. “I begin your payment with something that’s valuable to me. This means that I trust you to do whatever needs to be done.”

The khansama simply pocketed the ring, without as much as giving it a glance.

“I will,” he said. “I have heard that there will be no rice, going forth.”

“Therefore, I assume, a khansama will improvise.”

“As a khansama must.”

The Nawab’s true name was known only to his Begum. It was a beautiful name, which meant, in a distant language, the wind that sings lullabies to a grave. The Nawab had increasingly started feeling nearer to the grave than being cradled by a gentle wind. He felt he wasn’t being true to his people, especially the ones who spent scorching summer days digging to unearth gold just for the happiness of the Shah.

Most nights, the Nawab entertained the idea of laying a siege on the Shah’s capital with his meagre army. Of course, he had heard of valiant efforts of five hundred men against fifty thousand, so he knew it could be done. But those five hundred were often led by capable generals. But the Nawab himself, with his weary bones and aching heart wasn’t much of a commander. Nor was he a poet, who could soothe someone’s heart just by his words. He couldn’t even do so with his own Begum.

He could only look backwards at his youth. But the strange ways of the new khansama, the cadence with which his utensils made sounds against each other, the sound of the gentle simmer of a something being made over a kadhai, the slow bubble, the warm, nutty scent of spices, opened for the Nawab a window to the future. A future where another age waited for him. A bright future where, perhaps if he were to be rid of his cage of age, he would be rid of the tyranny of the Shah.

But was it even possible? Or had the silent wishes of the Nawab’s heart somehow reached a cunning khansama’s ears, and he had decided to take advantage of the fact? By looting him of gold, little by little, over eighteen days. And the khansama was strict about his ways too. No one was allowed inside the kitchen for the span of the fortnight and four days, not even the Nawab. For the next few days, the only time the khansama showed his face outside the kitchen was to collect his gold. The Nawab grew increasingly agitated as the last day approached. Despite all the powers he held, he had no way of knowing what meal was being cooked inside the kitchens.

On the eleventh day, as the Nawab was tending to the Gulmohar, he received another paigam from the Shah. This time, the Shah had requested the Nawab’s presence in the court of Alipur. It was a curt letter, with only two sentences clarifying the Shah’s will.

“He wants to spit in my face as he tells me that Mehranpur will be disintegrated into smaller districts, governed by his cronies,” said the Nawab, after he read the paigam out loud in front of his Begum.

“If you take this news in a positive light,” said the Begum, knitting a sweater, her keen eyes affixed on the wool patterns embroidered on the arm and how she continued them across the chest, “the thing you’re most looking forward to, the meal of eternal youth, will be ready by the time you return.”

“It’s a useless endeavour,” said the Nawab. “I don’t even know what I will do with the youth that’s promised to me. I am powerless now. I will be powerless then.”

“I have heard that the Shah can be kind sometimes,” said the Begum. “Maybe he showers some kindness upon us.”

The Nawab couldn’t fathom the eerie calm in his Begum’s voice.

“Will you take care of the Gulmohar in my absence?”

“Of course I will.”

Before leaving for Alipur, the Nawab cast one last, mournful glance at the tree that grew in his courtyard. The ten days of sun hadn’t changed its edifice one bit. In fact, its leaves were now the colour of rust and its brittle branches one day away from falling to the ground. The Nawab feared his absence would mean the death of the Gulmohar.

It took the Nawab two days to travel to Alipur. When the dust-caked road morphed into smooth black tar, with signs painted white pointing in the general direction of the Shah’s capital, the Nawab knew his meeting wouldn’t be kind. The Nawab took the changing of the condition of the roads as an insult upon him. Because it was an insult, when the roads that snaked to the other districts saw their potholes filled and their cracks smoothened, and only the road to Mehranpur remained like a shoddy, broken thing.

Alipur itself was a city that was meant to put any visitor to shame. The Nawab had felt this shame all his life and he wanted to be done with it. So, he hurried his caravan as soon as it entered the city, not choosing to part the curtains to look outside at the shops that sold silk and cotton, and dates and walnuts, and the tall golden spires that gleamed even during the blackest of nights. When he stepped out of his caravan, he rejected what his peripheral vision told him and walked straight inside the Palace, where he was unceremoniously welcomed and ushered inside the resting chamber of the Shah.

Mohammad Ali Shah’s vast, bulky frame was draped on a diwan. From a distance, the Shah was a painting of opulence and of indulgence, and of riotous colour, almost blinding to the eyes of the Nawab. When the Nawab curtsied, the Shah merely glanced at him, and then resumed nibbling his grapes, as if the Nawab’s presence was as inconsequential as a fly.

“I thought you would not come,” said the Shah. His voice was like the touch of a feather. A voice that didn’t match his actions. “You didn’t respond to my earlier paigam.”

“There was nothing to respond to,” said the Nawab.

“Thank you, esteemed Shah of Alipur, we look forward to serving you better and falana…Words like these. Don’t you have manners, Nawab?”

“Why have you called me here?” said the Nawab, his voice at edge. “What was so important that couldn’t be requested in another paigam?”

The Shah rose from the diwan, and the view was like a huge, heavy curtain, finally unfurling.When the Shah walked towards the Nawab, he felt the oncoming rush of a tsunami. When he finally stood an inch away from the Nawab, towering a hand-span over him, the Nawab felt the fear of god.

“I could crush you, right now,” said the Shah. “But I just want the Gulmohar.”

“Gulmohar…as in…my tree…the Gulmohar?”

“Gulmohar, as in, yes, your tree, your child, your pride, that Gulmohar. The same Gulmohar which I now know is dying. I believe it belongs in Alipur. It will thrive here. The Gulmohar of Alipur. Now that’s a name that has a ring to it.”

“You can’t just uproot a tree and plant it somewhere else,” said the Nawab. “My precious…tree…it’s already unhealthy. It would require a mammoth amount of effort and I can’t just give it to you. It will die on the way. There’s no way even you could revive it. Ask me anything else. I will give you more share of gold from the mines of Mehranpur. I would make them work double shifts.”

“I have plenty of gold, Nawab,” said the Shah. “You give me your tree, and I give you back your rice. And then I will give you more. Return, now, to Mehranpur, Nawab, and mull over my words. I need an answer in a week. If I don’t receive a paigam, I would assume that your answer is a no, and then Mehranpur will be subject, again and again, like it always has, to my various dissatisfactions. But if you say yes…well…the mynah will sing again.”

And then the Shah turned around and walked back to the diwan and lounged and spoke no more.

The Nawab’s misfortunes didn’t end there. On the way back, he had to battle a torrent of rain, and his caravan got lodged in mud, and it took five strong men, all wayward travellers, suffering from the same rain, to dislodge the wheel of the caravan and send the vehicle on its way again. The ordeal caused the Nawab’s already old skin to develop an infection, and by the time he reached Mehranpur, he was shivering and cold and sick.

The rage in his heart had taken a bestial form and was bursting through him even in sickness. The rage was at the world and the unfairness of it all. His Begum made him drink the milk of poppy at night and put him to sleep. In a delirious slumber, the Nawab hurled names at the Shah, and at his khansama, and at everyone who had wronged him in the past, ever.

The next day, the entire Palace was suffused with the scent of tempered cumin and garlic, and roasted tomatoes, and cinnamon and coconut and myriad other scents, an intoxicating medley of flavours. Yet, no one was allowed to see what dish the scents belonged to. The Nawab, wide awake at the crack of dawn, realised that it was the eighteenth day, the final day, the day he was meant to taste the dish of the khansama.

For some inexplicable reason, the Nawab felt he should taste the dish in the vicinity of his beloved, the Gulmohar. And so he ordered the khansama to bring him the dish in the orchard. Then, the Nawab showered and dressed in his finest gold-embroidered sherwani and stepped out into the orchard. The sun was another golden disk in a pale blue sky. None of the brightness of the morning seemed to touch the Gulmohar, which looked shrivelled and old. A cord of pincers tightened around the Nawab’s heart. An ache ran through his body. He couldn’t bear the sight of his tree, his beautiful tree, and so he averted his gaze and looked towards the entrance of the orchard, where the khansama was standing, holding a steaming kadhai.

The Nawab beckoned the man. The khansama took his time.

The smell, as always, reached the Nawab first. What had the khansama prepared for eighteen days? What wonders did that kadhai hold, what elixir simmered inside the dull, iron confines of the utensil?

“I thank you for giving me the opportunity to serve you, Nawab Saheb,” said the khansama. “I present to you, the Red Daal of Issa.”

The man thrust the kadhai under the gaze of the Nawab. And the Nawab saw what was simmering inside the kadhai for eighteen days. And the Nawab’s quiet rage came up to the surface when he saw that it was just a daal, a plain old daal, tempered with cumin, garlic, red chilli oil swimming on its yellow-saffron surface.

A daal which could have been done in under an hour.

“What’s this? Is this supposed to bring us all eternal youth?”

“Taste it, at least, and then present me with your verdict, Nawab Saheb.”

“I’ll have a verdict for you,” said the Nawab, then snatched the kadhai from the man’s hands, and threw it away. The kadhai, flaming hot, made an ugly arc, and so did its contents, the Red Daal of Issa—which wasn’t quite red, but sort of a pale golden, like the sun—and fell near the base of the Gulmohar, staining the tree’s bark and the ground around it completely with the colour of spring. And seeing his already dying tree smeared with the wasted daal, the Nawab’s misery couldn’t be contained, and he screamed in agony, and then ordered his guards to take the khansama and imprison him in the dungeons below the Mehranpur Palace.

Later, the Nawab wept in his bedchambers, burying his face in his satin pillows, as his Begum fanned his head. Night fell around the palace, balmy and quiet.

For three days, the Nawab mourned. And soon the date approached when he had to respond to the Shah with an affirmative answer. He couldn’t bear to look at his dying tree, and he convinced himself that the Gulmohar’s fate would be better in Alipur. In fact, every one of his pupils would be better off if they were in Alipur.

Mehranpur, just like the tree, just like the Nawab, was dying.

The morning before he was to draft a paigam to the Shah, the Nawab called upon his chief gardener to speak to him about the inevitable. The gardener was a quiet, reticent man, with patchwork skin, nimble fingers, and a sharp gaze. He met the Nawab like an old friend, but the Nawab spoke like he was singing a dirge.

“It pains me to say this,” said the Nawab, in a defeated voice. “But you must call upon your years of hard work, talent, and perseverance, to do something for me. Call upon whoever you think is the most capable. Work with them. I want you to safely uproot the Gulmohar and carry it to Alipur. The Shah has demanded it.”

“But why?” said the gardener.

“Because the tree is dying and Alipur would be better suited for its needs.”

“Nawab Saheb, I don’t understand. The Gulmohar has sprouted bright saffron leaves, and its bark is healthier than ever before.”

“The price of lying in Mehranpur is terrible, so be careful. You are my friend, but I won’t entertain…”

“Nawab Saheb, please come with me,” said the gardener.

The Nawab followed the gardener into the orchard. What he saw there yanked the wind out of his lungs. His precious tree, the Gulmohar he had left to die three days ago, with its withering frame and blackened stump was living again. The bark was brown and clearly showed tree-age circles, and the branches were straight, erect, not drooping, and the leaves, oh the leaves, were reminiscent of a flower in the first bloom of spring, a dazzling saffron. The Gulmohar was living up to its name.

A word escaped the Nawab’s lips, a question. “How?”

“I had been curious about the tree. I saw something near its base three days ago. A bright yellow smear. I can’t be sure, but it seems to me that the tree has taken sustenance from that substance.”

A whirlwind of emotions stirred inside the Nawab, but none of them was rage. Confusion, regret, bitterness, a yearning for something long gone. But no rage.

“Bring the khansama to me.”

Later, the khansama was brought in front of the Nawab. Three days inside the dungeons, his thin frame slouching, bogged down by the heavy chains, and yet he had a slight smile on his face.

“All of us present in this court are seeking answers,” said the Nawab. “Something inexplicable has happened.”

“I have spent my life as a cook studying the properties of both food and gold and how they complement each other. Every day, for eighteen days, I simmered the daal under a low flame, while working with the gold you provided me. Every day, for eighteen days, I brought out the true essence of that gold and put it in the daal. It’s that essence the tree now drinks sustenance from. And that essence will remain with the tree long after all of us have gone. A sustenance that could have been yours too.”

The silence that fell between the two men was long and drawn out. Only the skittering of leaves outside could be heard, and the slow breathing of the courtiers, as they waited for the Nawab to announce something, a decision, a decree, so that they could obey, and then go back to their chambers to sleep.

“I can take another eighteen days to prepare something else, Nawab Saheb.”

“No,” said the Nawab. “I do not deserve that magnanimity. I deserve this humiliation for my short-sightedness. You may leave now. Please speak to the khajanchi for an adequate payment for your services.”

This declaration came as a surprise to most courtiers, for certainly they had been expecting a miracle, of a life beyond what the Maker had given them, a life that would go on and on, while their youth remained in stasis. But that was not to be, because of the Nawab’s folly.

The Nawab stepped away, leaving the courtiers in deep thought, and with moments to reflect. The Nawab had his own reflecting to do.

His Begum had prepared a great, warm concoction for him, as she usually did, when the Nawab was under a dark cloud. Today, he was under the darkest of clouds, and the path in front of him was murky. The concoction had clove, cinnamon, ginger, and some jaggery. The Nawab took the cup from his Begum’s assured hands and walked out into the sun, towards the shade of the Gulmohar that he had so sorely missed.

The Shah’s words were ringing in his head. The fate of Mehranpur was a smoke-grab thing, waiting for the Nawab’s one command. Their happiness, their misery, all up to the Nawab to decide. Yet, the Nawab had no answers. He thought of ancient poetry that held meaning in its meters and verses, answers to various conundrums, but none of the old poets held any answers for the Nawab.

He sat under the shade of the Gulmohar, sipping his concoction. The vast canopy of its branches hid the sun, allowing only a thin beam of light to pass. The singular beam fell on the Nawab’s feet, illuminating them. There was immeasurable beauty in that moment, a gentle kindness that the Nawab felt the Gulmohar was bestowing upon him.

The Gulmohar had forgiven him for the neglect of all those years.

Then, a wind blew, and from the canopy overhead, two stray leaves detached, twisted and curled in the air, feather-like, and came to rest on the simmering surface of the Nawab’s concoction. The leaves blended in the liquid immediately, leaving a thin, golden trail, like the afterthought of a flame. The Nawab tasted the concoction again.

The rage of all those years simmered down and he felt at tranquil ease. The Gulmohar wanted him to swim in that ease. The Gulmohar knew that his heart still beat for his city, his family, and his people. It knew that his resolve was unyielding, like a diamond. The Gulmohar had spoken to him, and after many years, the Nawab was listening.

It trusted the Nawab to do what was right.

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