For some years after the building of Shahjahanabad, the badshah liked Dilli more than Agra. Then he began to like Agra more than Dilli. His visits to our city became less and less frequent. Tradesmen and artisans began to move back to Agra. People began to say that very soon Shahjahanabad would become like the other old cities of Dilli: Mehrauli, Siri, Chiragh, Tughlakabad, Kotla Firozeshah and Kilokheri—the abode of Gujars, jackals, hyaenas and the owls.

I did not earn very much sweeping drains and cleaning latrines and had to borrow money from the Bania and Lakhi Rai. I had to pay interest on their money and when I was unable to do that they refused to lend me any more. Because of this I was forced to take employment in the executioner’s yard attached to the kotwali in Chandni Chowk. This was really dirty work: first I had to get used to seeing a man’s head being hacked off; then see his arms and legs cut off. After this had happened it was my job to put the pieces together and lay them out for the people to see. As I worked I could hear the onlookers avoiding me as if I were a murderer. Every evening there were at least three to four unclaimed corpses to be carted off and dumped in the river or on the garbage mound. What will man not do to fill his belly!

As I said before, I did not like this work. I did not like to shout dom, dom whenever I went out with the cartload of corpses. I did not like people covering their children’s eyes against me and blocking there nostrils against the smelly load I carried. Even the sentries at the city gates would draw aside to let me pass. I used to console myself by recalling my Bapu’s words: ‘Son, only two people can pass through the gates of Shahjahnabad without being questioned: the King and the untouchable!’

It was on one of his visits to Dilli that Badshah Shah Jahan was taken ill. They tried to keep it secret but within a few hours everyone knew about the sultan’s ailment mainly through the badshah’s doctor who was a gossip. This is how it happened. The badshah had got up at night and complained of pain in his belly. The queen had sent for the hakeem who lived in Ballimaran. The hakeem told many people of having had no sleep because he had to stay up all night with a patient whose name he could not disclose—which is how news of the badshah’s ailment spread.