We continued to stroll on the roof enjoying the fresh evening breeze. Both the sun and the moon disappeared. The short dusk turned into a dark night. Suddenly the western horizon was aflame. We heard the sounds of horses’ hoofs. It seemed as if an army bearing torches was galloping towards us. Was it the Royal Constabulary sent to arrest the Khwaja Sahib? The Kotwal came in person. He had come not to arrest the Beloved of God but to break the news that the sultan had been murdered and that the city was in turmoil.

The next morning we learnt the details of what had transpired. It appeared that the sultan and his Pawar friend had come to a settled arrangement whereby each played the male and female role on alternate days. To heighten their enjoyment they would go through the elaborate charade of a marriage ceremony. One evening the sultan would arrive as a Turkish groom, sign a contract of marriage with the Pawar and then escort him to the royal couch. This was followed by the feast of deflowering (dawat-i-valima) for their cronies. The next evening the roles would be reversed. Apparently on the fateful evening it was the sultan’s turn to play the woman and the Pawar’s to bestride him. The sultan decked himself out like a Turkish bride, wearing a spider-net veil over loose-fitting garments of silk. The Pawar rode to the palace as a Rajput bridegroom would, accompanied by a band of musicians. They were married by Hindu rites, going round a sacrificial fire to the chanting of mantras. The Pawar then led his Turkish ‘bride’ to his couch and with much banter proceeded to disrobe ‘her’. When the Pawar mounted the Turk, the latter made modest protestations as would a virgin on her first initiation. When the Pawar was fully ensconced he began to play with the sultan’s now perfectly healed penis. People who know about such matters say that this is customary in the unnatural cohabitation of male with male. As the Pawar approached the climax of his passion he withdrew his member and rammed it back into the sultan’s bottom with great violence. The sultan screamed. The Pawar was overcome with an insane frenzy and crushed the sultan’s testicles in his hands. As he was drained of his mad lust, the vapours that had clouded his vision lifted. He acted boldly. He cut off the sultan’s head and had his body thrown down from the ramparts. He proclaimed that he had executed the sultan because the people did not want to be ruled by a degenerate transvestite. Thus ended the rule of the sodomite-catamite Sultan Qutubuddin Mubarak Shah. The year was AD 1320.

Delhi had a new king! One sodomite-catamite succeeded another. The Hindu Pawar Rajput from Gujarat re-named Khusro Khan had himself proclaimed emperor of Hindustan under the title Sultan Nasiruddin Mohammed.