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.

I replied that I had no money left as I had to feast all the Rangretas in Rikabganj on my Bapu’s death. His servant smacked me on the back of my neck and exclaimed angrily. ‘You argue with the Guru’s agent!’ I had to borrow money from Lakhi Rai to pay him. I said to myself, ‘At least I am something—a Sikh of Guru Nanak. I do not know what it means but it is better than being nothing but a Rangreta untouchable.’ Thereafter every year I had to give this agent of the Guru something when he came to Dilli. Although he never allowed me to go near him or even touched my money with his own hands (his servants did that) I felt different. I was told that the new Guru did not like people to cut their hair or their beards. So I let the hair on my head grow long and wrapped a turban over it. I had quite a growth of beard on my face. The Mussalmans did not allow Hindus to wear beards but they did not bother us untouchables. We bearded Rangretas began to look different from other untouchables. And although after the building of Dilli was over I had to become a sweeper again, if anyone asked me who I was I would reply: ‘I am a Sikh of Guru Nanak.’