The Nawab Sahib’s face lightened up with a smile. ‘Meer Taqi, you are a saucy lad. We will gladly put our promise on paper.’ With his own blessed hands he wrote out my allowance, signed and stamped it with his signet ring.

‘Go and prosper. Let your kalaam be worthy of your father and bring you name and fame.’

How wonderful life was in the Delhi of those days! People thronged to my home to solicit my opinion on their compositions. Wherever I went people recognized me and praised me; there was not a mushaira in the city where I was not the star performer. Friday prayers at the Jamia Masjid were a treat by themselves. Although I could hardly call myself a Mussalman and saw no great difference between Believers and Idolaters, I made it a point to join the Friday prayer because of the adulation I received from the congregation after the prayer was over. The people of Delhi loved me; I loved them and their city.

Alas! The days of happiness were not to last for ever. It was reported that the Persian, Nadir Shah, had occupied Afghanistan and was on the banks of the Indus. While preparations were being made to meet the invader panic started growing in Delhi. Rich merchants began to leave the city. I received several letters from my wife, begging me to return to Agra. She also wrote that the Begum Sahiba had stopped sending food or gifts and had employed another tutor for her sons. People coming from Agra told me that the Begum Sahiba to whom I had sold my soul was emamoured of her son’s ustad and was showering gifts on his family. I did not believe these tales and decided to call on Nawab Rais, who happened to be in Delhi on a short visit before returning to Agra to raise troops to fight the Iranians. He was full of praise for the man appointed as my successor; he was not much of a poet, he said, but a good teacher and his sons were devoted to him. He had become like a member of their household and during Nawab Sahib’s absence from Agra stayed in his haveli.

My mind was more disturbed by what was happening in Agra than by the Persian invasion. However, I stayed on in Delhi for as long as it was safe because Delhi provided me sustenance. I said to myself if a woman can be so perfidious it is best to consider her dead and forget about her rather than lose sleep over her. But the more I tried to wipe her from my mind, the more painfully she kept coming back to me. A heart on fire needs a stream of tears to put it out; a drop or two only makes it burn more fiercely. And the betrayal by a woman whom my words had made divine and with whom I had exchanged my body and my soul soured me against humanity. I became short-tempered, quarrelsome and morose.