‘Sahib, each time your name is uttered people say’ ‘Wah! Wah!’

He is pleased. Then I ask him of a story I had heard just before I left Jamia Masjid. ‘Sahib, is it true that the heads of the three men you shot were cut off and presented to the old king? What did he say?’

Hodson Sahib’s expression changes. He looks me in the eye. ‘Nihal Singh, where did you pick up that gossip?’

‘Sahib . . . People are saying . . . . ’

‘Listen,’ he cuts me short. ‘The sahibs are a civilized people; they are not like the natives of Hindustan. They do not cut off people’s heads and present them on trays to their relatives. The Company Bahadur is just—strong but just. Understand!’

‘Jee huzoor,’ I reply. I salute the Sahib and return to Jamia Masjid.

Bahadur Shah Zafar

A messenger was let into our dungeon to break the news of the deaths of our kinsmen and supporters. Our two sons, Mirza Mughal had Mirza Khizr, and grandson Mirza Abu Bakr were shot dead. We made no protest but only sent a petition that whatever was recovered by the sale of our property be expended on giving a proper burial to the dead. The bodies of Mirza Mughal, Abu Bakr and Khizr Sultan were interred in the mausoleum of Emperor Humayun. The nawabs of Jhajjar and Farrukhnagar who were hanged were buried in their family graveyards adjoining the tomb of Hazrat Qutubuddin Bakhtiyar Kaki a Mehrauli. The Raja Bahadur of Ballabhgarh, who was also hanged, being a Hindu was cremated at Nigambodh Ghat on the Jamna. Of the fate of our other sons and nephews and grandsons who were also executed we could not get any details save that their bodies were buried either at Nizamuddin or at Mehrauli. Amongst the thousands shot or hanged by the sahibs was our friend and poet Shaikh Imam Baksh ‘Sabhai’ and his two sons. No one knows what they did with their bodies.

An autumnal gale had blown through the garden that was once our kingdom. It uprooted every tree. We lost our peace of mind. We lost the will to live. As a captive bird beats its wings against the bars of its cage, we banged our head against the walls of our dungeon and lamented our fate. There was a time when the world seemed like a flower garden where the afternoon sun warmed the buds to unlock their treasure chest. The same world now exuded the stench of a hundred thousand rotting corpses. Here was a city bathed in the day by the sun, by the moon by night; here was a city in which lived women as beauteous as the houris of paradise! Who despoiled this city? Where has he taken away the loot? This was Delhi, the queen of all the cities of the world, now a ruined desolation. ‘O Zafar, what calamity has come to pass? Or is it that thy own youth hath fled?’