Budh Singh is alarmed at my appearance. He asks me how and where it all happened. I tell him as best as I can. He raises an admonishing finger and ticks me off. ‘I have warned you many times not to go near graveyards. They are full of ghosts. Places where hundreds of thousands have been murdered have hundreds of thousands of ghosts. You were not attacked by bees but by evil spirits of those slaughtered by that Taimur lang (the lame one).’ He spits into his own hand.

I cannot argue with Budh Singh. I tell him to keep his charpoy near the door so he can hear me if I shout for help. I take my temperature: 103 degrees—high enough to make a man of my age delirious.

I sleep a little, groan a lot. I feel sorry for myself. How close had I come to dying? Scenes from the past come vividly before my eyes. I wonder what kind of savage was this Taimur who revelled in the massacre of innocents! I have his Memoirs. To his own words, I add some gloss.

The Timurid

One night in the spring of the Year of the Ox when we were sixty-two years old we had a strange dream. We saw ourselves in an orchard with trees loaded with fruit. The trees also had many nests and birds were pecking away at the fruit. The gardeners were making a lot of noise to frighten away the birds. We arrived in the orchard armed with a sling and a bag full of pebbles. With our slingshot we drove away the birds and destroyed their nests. The gardeners then prostrated themselves before us and gave thanks to Allah for being thus delivered of the pests.

Whenever the tablet of our mind was heavily over-writ with our designs we were wont to dream about them. We asked the saintly Shaikh Zainuddin Abu Bahr Tatyabady to tell us what this dream signified. The Shaikh, who was the pole star of religion, confirmed that we were about to undertake an expedition to a distant land which was being despoiled because it had too many rulers; that we would drive away these rules, as we had driven away the birds in our dream, take possession of their kingdoms and their subjects would kiss our feet. At the time we were in two minds. We were not sure whether we should conquer China—or proceed towards Hindustan. We consulted Syed Mohammed Gesudaraz, the saint with long hair, whom we had also adopted as our guide in matters of religion. The Syed was more specific. He interpreted the dream as follows: ‘The Holy Prophet (on Whom and on Whose progeny be peace) has taken you under His care and protection in order that you propagate Islam in the extensive regions of India.’

By then we had already subjugated most of the kingdoms of Asia. Now Hindustan through its disorders had opened its gates to us.