Some years after he became king, this badshah, Shah Jahan, came to Dilli. He liked our city very much and said: ‘I am going to live here.’ He sent for his chief builder, Mukarram Khan, and told him: ‘Make a big fort along the river Jamna, and inside that fort make palaces for myself and my queens. I also want the biggest mosque in the word.’ Mukarram Khan bowed three times before the badshah and replied: ‘Badshah, peace be upon you! If Allah wills I will build you as big a fort as at Agra with as many canals and gardens and fountains. You will also have the world’s biggest and most beautiful mosque. I will build it on Bhojla Hill so it can be seen from Palam and Qutub.’ Then Mukarram Khan asked Ustad Ahmed and Ustad Hira to make maps. When that was done he asked the badshah to come to Dilli. Badshah, peace be upon you! Now put down the foundation stone, so we can get on with work.’

What years they were! Everyone got work. We gave up skinning dead cows and buffaloes and carrying other people’s shit. Lakhi Rai got a contract to supply labour. As I was now old enough, he gave me a job to carry mud and stones.

Dilli began to change. Every day a new building! Every day the city wall rising higher! Every day new minarets and domes rising into the sky! And so it went for many years. When the work was finished we had nine days of tamasha. Princes showered silver coins on the crowds. The badshah rode through the city on his biggest elephant and scattered gold coins by the palmful. His courtiers said, ‘We won’t call Dilli Dilli any more. We will rename it Shahjahanabad.’ But Dilli is Dilli and no king or nobleman can give it another name.

When a person is busy making money he forgets his God. As soon as he has made ninety-nine rupees he wants to make a hundred. For the years I was working in the city I hardly ever thought of my Guru. When my Bapu died and I became the head of the family, the Guru’s agent sent for me. I went along with the messenger to the agent’s camp. He reclined against a big pillow set on a big charpoy. I thought he was the Guru himself and so I went down on my knees and rubbed my forehead on the ground in front of him.

‘Who are you?’ he asked me.

‘I am Jaita Rangreta of Rikabganj,’ I replied.

‘Are you a Sikh of Guru Nanak?’ he asked.

I told him I was what my Bapu had been.

‘You paid nothing for your father’s soul nor on the accession of the new Guru,’ he said.