The Raja was bound for a specific encampment down below: the tents of the holy man known as Sanaki Baba. This cheerful, middle-aged man was a devotee of Krishna, and spent his time in his praise and in meditation. He was surrounded by attractive disciples and had a great reputation as a source of peaceful energy. The Raja was determined to visit him even before he visited the encampments of the Shaivite holy men. The Raja’s anti-Muslim feelings had resolved themselves in pan-Hindu aspirations and ceremonies: he had started his procession from a Shiva temple, it had wound its way through the city named after Brahma, and it would conclude with a visit to a devotee of Krishna, Vishnu’s great avatar. The entire Hindu trinity would thus be appeased. Then he would take a dip in the Ganga (immersing one bejewelled toe would be sufficient), and he would have washed away the sins of seven generations, including his own. It was a useful morning’s work. The Raja glanced back towards Chowk and stared for a few seconds at the minarets of the mosque. The trident on top of my temple will outsoar you soon enough, he thought, and the martial blood of his ancestors began to boil within him.
But thinking of his ancestors made him think of his descendants, and he looked with perplexed impatience at his son, the Rajkumar, who was trailing in a reluctant way after his father. What a useless fellow he is! thought the Raja. I should get him married off at once. I don’t care how many boys he sleeps with as long as he gives me a grandson as well. A few days ago the Raja had taken him to Saeeda Bai’s to make a man of him. The Rajkumar had almost run out in terror! The Raja did not know that his son was not unfamiliar with the brothels of the old town, which his university friends sometimes visited. But to be given intimate tutelage by his crass father had been too much for him.
The Raja had instructions from his formidable mother, the Dowager Rani of Marh, to pay more attention to her grandson. Recently he had been doing his best to comply. He had dragged himself and his son to the High Court in order to introduce him to Responsibility, Law and Property. The result had been a fiasco. Procreation and the Life of a Man of the World had not gone much better. Today’s lesson was Religion and the Martial Spirit. Even here the Rajkumar had been a wash-out. While the Raja had bellowed ‘Har har Mahadeva!’ with even greater zest whenever they passed by a mosque, the Rajkumar had lowered his head and mumbled the words even more unwillingly. Finally, there was Ritual and Education. The Raja was determined to fling his son into the Ganga. Since the Rajkumar had only a year to go before finishing his university studies, he should partake — even if a trifle prematurely — of the proper Hindu ritual of graduation — the bath or snaan — in order to become a proper graduate or snaatak. And what better place to become a snaatak than in the Holy Ganga during the sexennial Pul Mela, which was always grander than usual? He would fling him in to the cheers of his retainers. And if the milksop couldn’t swim, and had to be dragged spluttering and gasping back to land, that would be hilarious.
‘Hurry up, hurry up!’ shouted the Raja, as he stumbled down the long ramp to the sands. ‘Where is this Sanaki Baba’s camp? Where do all these sister-fucking pilgrims come from? Isn’t there any organization? Get me my car!’
‘Your Highness, the authorities have forbidden all cars except for police and VIPs. We could not get permission,’ murmured someone.
‘Am I not a VIP?’ The Raja’s breast swelled with indignation.
‘Yes, your Highness. But—’
Finally, among the miles of tents and camps, after they had walked for almost half an hour along makeshift roads of metal plates laid out by army engineers on the sands, they arrived within sight of Sanaki Baba’s encampment, and the Raja’s retinue moved towards it gratefully. They were only about a hundred yards away.
‘At last!’ cried the Raja of Marh. The heat was telling on him. He was sweating like a swine. ‘Tell the Baba to come out. I want to see him. And I want some sherbet.’
‘Your Highness—’
But hardly had the man run ahead with the message than from the other side a police jeep screeched to a halt before the camp, and several people got down and made their way in.
The Raja’s eyes popped.
‘We were here first. Stop them! I must see the Baba at once,’ he cried in an outburst of outrage.
But the jeep people had gone in already.
11.8
When the jeep had first descended to the sands below the Fort, Dipankar Chatterji, who was one of its passengers, had been truly astonished.
The roads on the Pul Mela sands among the tents and encampments were packed with people. Many were carrying rolls of bedding and other possessions with them, including pots and pans for cooking, food supplies, and perhaps a child or two tucked under an arm or clinging on to their back. They carried cloth bags, pails and buckets, sticks, flags, pennants, and garlands of marigolds. Some were panting with heat and exhaustion, others were chatting as if they were on a picnic outing, or singing bhajans and other holy songs because their enthusiasm at finally getting a glimpse of Mother Ganga had removed in an instant the weariness of the journey. Men, women and children, old and young, dark and fair, rich and poor, brahmins and outcastes, Tamils and Kashmiris, saffron-clad sadhus and naked nagas, all jostled together on the roads along the sands. The smells of incense and marijuana and sweat and noonday cooking, the sounds of children crying and loudspeakers blaring and women chanting kirtans and policemen yelling, the sight of the sun glittering on the Ganga and the sand swirling in little eddies wherever the roads were not packed with people, all combined to give Dipankar an overwhelming sense of elation. Here, he felt, he would find something of what he was looking for, or the Something that he was looking for. This was the universe in microcosm; somewhere in its turmoil lay peace.
The jeep struggled, honking, along the sandy, metal-plated routes. At one point the driver appeared to be lost. They came to a crossroads where a young policeman was attempting with difficulty to direct the traffic. The jeep was the only vehicle as such, but great crowds swirled around the policeman, who shouted and flailed his baton in the air to little effect. Mr Maitra, Dipankar’s elderly host in Brahmpur, an ex-officer of the Indian Police who had in effect requisitioned the jeep, now took matters into his own hands.
‘Stop!’ he told the driver in Hindi.
The driver stopped the jeep.
The lone policeman, seeing the jeep, approached it.
‘Where is the tent of Sanaki Baba?’ asked Mr Maitra in a voice of command.
‘There, Sir — two furlongs in that direction — on the left-hand side.’
‘Good,’ said Mr Maitra. A sudden thought struck him. ‘Do you know who Maitra was?’
‘Maitra?’ said the young policeman.
‘R.K. Maitra.’
‘Yes,’ said the policeman, but it sounded as if he was just saying so to satisfy the whim of his strange questioner.
‘Who was he?’ demanded Mr Maitra.
‘He was our first Indian SP,’ replied the policeman.