Fakeer Sarmad was wrong. The king’s sons fought each other as hungry dogs fight over a bone. Dara’s son, Sulaiman Shikoh, defeated Shuja. Meanwhile Murad and Aurangzeb defeated Dara, captured Agra and made their old father prisoner. Then this fellow Aurangzeb tricked his brother Murad: he got him drunk, tied him up and threw him into a dungeon. He then finished off Shuja, Dara and Dara’s sons. This was how we had a new badshah—Aurangzeb—while the old badshah Shah Jahan was still alive. The Mussalmans in the sarai were happy. They said that the new badshah was a good man. He did not drink wine; he did not have concubines or courtesans; he did not allow dancing and singing in the palace; he ate little, slept little and prayed a lot. He spent on himself only what he earned by making copies of their holy book and selling them. They said if all kings had been like him, Hindustan would have long ago been rid of kafirs. Alamgir was the name they used for him—‘Alamgir, Zinda Peer, is a living saint,’ they said.

Lakhi Rai was not happy. The new badshah did not give him any contracts. One day many years later when I was eating his leftovers in his courtyard I told him that the Mussalmans said Aurangzeb was a man of God because he did not drink wine or womanize. He lost his temper and said, ‘What about that slut Hira Bai?’ Then he got frightened and made me swear that I would never tell anyone of what he had said. But I could not get Hira Bai’s name out of my mind. I asked the Bania, who also sometimes gave me his leftovers, about her. He made a ring with the thumb and index finger of his left hand and pierced it with a finger of his right hand. ‘But that Hira Bai is dead,’ he said. The Bania did not like Aurangzeb because he had imposed jazia tax on the Hindus. ‘Don’t tell anyone I told you,’ he said in a low voice, ‘but a tribe called the Marathas are going to finish him. Their leader Shivaji has stuck a big bamboo pole up the bottoms of these Mughals. Haven’t you heard how this Shivaji tore out the bowels of one of the badshah’s generals with his hands? In the name of Rama, don’t breathe a word about this to anyone or they will slit my throat.’