The Shadows of Love

These were languid days somewhere in the last decade of the eighteenth century. Time and its trappings seemed eager to shed old feathers for a new plume. A new century was beckoning with amorous pout. In April Lord Wellesley, busting with fiery pragmatism, had arrived at Madras. During the century just about to bid adieu, the firm foundation of British conquest of India had been laid. The enigmatic checkerboard was full of ploys and pulls. Internecine struggles among the successor states after the Mughal break-up had created a dangerous and fatal mist of intrigues in which late Mughals, Afghans, Marathas, Rohilla Chiefs, Jats, Rajputs, and Nawabs of Oudh battled for supremacy in north India. Power, the seductive songstress, was calling shots. The ensnaring temptress was attracting human passions to grab land, power, and prestige with malicious excitement.

In the south meanwhile, Mysoreans, Marathas, and the Nizams provided ample scope to the East India Company to further set its political designs on firmer grounds. The Portuguese had been left innocuous by this time. In their amicably shrewd manner, the Dutch and the French for some time made the scene even murkier pulsating with political ambitions. In a nutshell, mother India had been impregnated with the semen of colonialism. The favourite child was to grow in its full reformative and exploitative form.

Exponential sequence of British control over Indian Princes took firm foot-hole under Lord Wellesley. Robert Clive, Warren Hastings, and Cornwallis had done enough spadework for Wellesley to start a subsidiary alliance system on an aggressive scale. The imperialistic Governor General’s hot-headedness found Tipu Sultan bowing out forever on May 4, 1799. Nizam, the ever-swinging pendulum among Marathas, Mysore and the English, was offered some territories from the vanquished empire of Tipu Sultan.

In this mild winter of coastal southern India, English supremacy was taking energetic yawns to welcome the new century. But these bright sunny days interlaced with gentle and sometimes torrential showers of N-E Monsoons tried to allay all intrigues at the crossroads of empire-building adventures and misadventures. This fine weather had to be utilized for the propagation of the Governor General’s imperialist designs.

The company had started by lending troops to friendly princes; then they took to field-sharing for common interests with the native states; still later, the native princes provided money for training and maintenance of wholly British army units. Now the Governor General wanted the protected Indian states to abandon all foreign relations to them allowing subsidiary British force in the heart of their territories. For their upkeep, some territory had to be provided to the British whose revenue would be used for operating the company.

Nizam-ul-Mulk had died in 1746 and his son Nawab Nizam Ali of Hyderabad had witnessed almost half-a-century’s ascension to sovereignty by the trading company that was now becoming a great political power. The French had intrigued with the Nizam, Marathas, Scindhias, and rulers of Mysore and the Carnatic region to upstage the surging British supremacy. In between had been the hot-beds of court intrigues with the Marathas and Mysore. Pax-Britannica-lorn Company was playing cat and mouse with the rulers to extend its dominion from sea to sea across the peninsula. Old, helpless, and wizened Nawab knew that he himself and his fellow native rulers were mere incompetent cogs in the whole scheme. For 50 years he had explored every possible alliance with every possible survival technique—betraying others before they could betray him. His illustrious father, the kingdom maker on the ruins of the Mughal Empire, had settled deep in the south to escape the horrific degeneration among the later Mughal nobility that split royal blood limitlessly while the crown of Hindustan waited for the next winner to grab it.

Nizam Ali knew that the European bayonet fighting techniques supported with field guns were sure to prevail over the traditional fighting techniques of the native rulers. The Presidency towns were progressing rapidly and developing military fortifications supported by an almost free-wheeling and dealing navy. Lord Herbert, Madras Governor since 1794, and his Madras council were doing things that made it look like the sun was rising fresh over the dusky sun-setting ruins amidst chaos across the peninsula.

Way back in 1766 the Nizam had entered into an offensive defensive alliance with the Madras Council. For the next 20 years he was almost an innocuous player in the game among the Englishmen, Marathas, and Mysoreans, being kicked from one court to another. Weak enough by 1788, he surrendered Guntur to the English—his only outlet to the sea—that connected their northern and southern possessions on the Coromandal coast. However, the ever-greedy Madras Government let him down in March 1795 when they watched from a distance while he was humbled by the Marathas carrying their flag with lofty impetuosity. As the Maratha storm was building up to hold him by the throat, he had run to meet Sir John Shore to bring him to action. But the latter was firm-footed with his prudent policy of conspiring only through passivity as more and more intrigues among the native rulers unfolded in the south.

Drenched in pleasure and luxury, Muhammad Ali (died on Oct 13, 1795), the Nawab of the Carnatic, played host to the duo’s meeting at his magnificent palace at Chepauk, a tiny fishing hamlet in the suburbs of Madras. Having abandoned Arcot, he was fattening his vanity through blatant show of extravagance and lavishness by borrowing from the company officials at exorbitant rates of interest. More pagodas he wasted, lower sank his existence, and still greater became the company’s hold over the revenue and administration of his dominion. The old Nawab’s motto in life appeared to be: What is the use of loitering knee-deep in the shallow brook of one’s passion; go deeper and deeper, throat deep or even drown yourself in the depthless sea of your desires. Omdut-ul-Umara, no longer young and energetic, was almost a mute spectator to his father’s pathetic fall to debauchery.

Mir Alam, the Nizam’s minister, was almost dying of an urge to have an alliance with the English. He looked at the faces of sahibs like a dog does at its mater. His each pore was taut with goose-bumps to become a cringing lackey of the white men. But Ali Jah, the Nizam’s son, appeared to smell the prospects somewhere else. At that time, ‘somewhere else’ could be easily interpreted as the French, who were ever ready to take up the cause of any native ruler against the British. So the Prince was putting up his nose in air to smell some prospects from the Isle of France, modern-day Mauritius.

Caught in the ironical drone of times it had been a grand and gala affair. It appeared as though before dying in October later that year the Nawab wanted to give a quick summary of his gluttonous festivities. There was amazing amiability in the air. However, there was an undercurrent of frightful expectancy—strong tobacco smouldering in the clay bowls of smoking pipes, oriental nymphs wearing bodice with sleeves and crests embroidered with gold, Company soldiers in red doublets and leather cross-belts; company officials in their ceremonial uniforms and ornamental cloaks, their shoulder seams tight with excitement and pride; stockings, breeches, and doublets of the Company standing in stark contrast to the jewelled fineries and gemmed headgears of the natives. The stout phrases of colonial modernity appeared pulling the creases and folds of silk, satin, and gossamer of the oriental robes of the Nawab, Nizam, their sons, and important ministers.

A special company attired in particularly designed canvas jackets gave the Governor General the Sword of Honour as he came—parading his promptitude—barging in, smelling sovereignty from the sickening smoke of depraved, debilitated oriental air. His jewelled sword-scabbard glinted under the noon sun and stamped the doctrinal emphasis of his plans in the East. Impenetrable self-possession loomed over his features. His jet black boots gave musical screeches as they majestically trampled over the velvety carpet rolled out for him. Scampering and pioneering through the shower of choicest flowers from the Nawab’s garden, his triumphant march met a flowery obstacle as a rose got entangled in his shoe buckles. The flowery shackle chimed with scared intonation. His Excellency’s jaunty dignity halted to catch the fleeting moment. The silver-laced buckles coiled the rose like a mating snake. The beautiful hand, the gentle thrower with honeyed poise, was still hung in air. It was a landmark time carrying harmonious subtleties. The fleeting moments stopped to pause in amazement.

A flower at his feet! Fascinating exactitude of the incidental happening sashayed an intimated silence on the onlookers’ faces.

The cocky, shrewd professionalism drawn stiffly around the Englishman’s mouth turned to an appeased curve and then changed to a smile. There was a languid dissipation of stony protocols. Abandoning his majesty, the Governor General was just about to stoop down for it if not for the aide-de-camp in his staff holding a colonel’s rank who beat the top boss in agility and got tiny stem off its silvery noose and proffered it to His Majesty. The latter even more surprisingly held it against his nose and had a full glance at the beautiful thrower as he crossed her. Her image stabbed him like an enchanting female does to a male. It was beyond ranks, race, and religion. Plain instincts! Taking out the ostrich feather—gifted to him by a seafaring Knight friend whose overblown spirit and energies had found him waddling in African and oriental deserts—he braced its tip against her scarlet red blushed cheek. Her face lit up with a beatific smile of feminine triumph over masculinity irrespective of race, colour, ethnicity, and rank.

The Governor General was a very shrewdly tailored warrior-politician. He took every step with utmost care and caution. Somehow the swift horses of his polished tongue became uncontrolled and exclamation went giddy.  It was uncharacteristic of his persona. After all, it is perpetually feasible for the savoury soup of female beauty to put cardinal regularity at a backseat for some moments at least.

The luxurious refinement over her features proclaimed her panoramic presence. Her eyes were mocking, consenting, defying, and proud as if seeking a pleasant punishment.

From the European finery of a tall, strapping blonde with glistening blue eyes, a staffer’s wife whose beauty had aroused the basic instinct in him while he was furtively engaged in empire-building, came a jealous rustle of her gown. Looking into her eyes, he promptly declared:

“Whoever gets the flower gets her kiss!” His Excellence threw the flower with guttural pronunciation.

It was incredulous. He betrayed a dazzling spendthrift air—an exceptional easy-aired moment. Many hands were raised for the grab even at such a short notice (mostly European) because among the natives only the translators understood what had been proposed.

Robertson, the young lieutenant of the company manning the fort batteries at Madras had not raised his hand to grab the petalous trophy. His handsome face appeared lost somewhere far. He had not seen his lover for two years and during this period his pining love for her had increased exponentially. With perfumed, honeyed breaths his soul gasped for his lady love’s touch. He carried her well-drawn and safely framed little palm-sized portrait in his pocket. Quite incidentally, the flower hit his pocket having his lady’s portrait and instinctive suppleness of his hand cupped to prevent it from falling. It was like His Majesty had thrown something for him to catch and he just followed the instinct to grab it and make him happy. Immediately it was followed by a long round of applause. Meanwhile, Muhammad Ali’s translator told him about His Majesty’s little jaunt with tongue. Defying all decorum, the Nawab’s pathetically over-sized portly figure hit the diwan’s soft gravity-defying plane as if it waited for this very opportunity. In heightened disdain with ranted and cascading breathing, his puffed up eyes threw silent, impotent obscenities at the foreigner. But he had to maintain the decorum of unfading smile on his lips. His heart was almost stabbed. And why not! After all, Swapnasundri was the most prized possession of the Arcot court. The crest jewel of the royal dancing troupe, she was an unparalleled picture of beauty and poise in her lithe movements, features, and body contours. A mere look at her was sufficient to satiate many passion-aroused souls. The spirited sunshine and facetious charm of her body and movements suffused the court with continual bouts of amusement. Her masterly tact and regally swift swirls literally fanned away death and despondency from the old Nawab. 

“His Highness has no right to tatter our ijjat like this!” the debt-driven Nawab blabbered to his interpreter.

At this age, his feet dangling in the grave, he made love to her through his eyes and his lusty touch gratified him more than anyone else even during the heyday of his youth. After all, sex is in the mind and its gratification takes convenient shapes as one grows old. His consumed, decimated body came back to life as this rejuvenating spring of youth sprayed its watery mist on the dried desert of his physique. Her smoothly gyrating curves sent jitters down his bent spine, making him tauter and upright for more debauchery to follow. He was addicted to her visage and it was only due to this type of addictive liking that her honour was almost safe in comparison to other girls in the royal dancing party. Her strictly guarded luxuriant chamber had enough defence to thwart any wavering eyes of any courtier of any designation. Only prince Omdut-ul-Umara had succeeded in penetrating the silky veils of her bedstead and make love to her almost once in a fortnight. Just this frequency was manageable given the Nawab’s all-round efforts to keep his flower safe from all prying black-bees. She allowed him to fall over her without giving much in return because her heart beat for someone else. Still apparently she tried to do her best to appease him because she knew that what happened to her just fortnightly could normally happen many times a day by different scions of nobility like it happened to many other courtesans surrounded by barbarous debauchees. So she had to maintain her exclusivity and did it well. The definition of saving your honour varies, given ones position and standing in life. Among the freely available courtesans, it was her sense of honour that earned her respect and safety not available to other girls.

However, apart from the body, the heart also craves to make someone the sovereign of his or her soul. In her case it was a young cavalryman in the select body of Nawab’s guards. It was a love of sight, sighing, and cravings—its gurgling impulsiveness chained by their circumstances.

Coming to know what the matter was, Swapnasundri’s precariously hanging pride got a furious storm-shake. She felt like any other cheap, commodious, flesh of utility to be sexually devoured by anybody in the court. Tragically pursing her lips, she left the scene. Looking at her unease and sense of dignity wounded, the Englishmen around heaved a pleasant sigh of some relief as if they had already taken an upper hand in cutting down the native blackies to their real size.

Out of sheer courtesy, the Nawab had arranged for the Governor General to sit on the royal, precious-stone-embellished golden chair. More than courtesy it appeared a still potent mortgage in future. His Majesty’s thick hairy hands proudly spread over the filigreed arm-supports of the chair. After a few drams of Highland Whiskey, His Majesty turned merrier.

“Nawab sahib, by the quirk of time’s sudden ordinance that flower from your garden now belongs to this lieutenant!”

“She represents our court’s honour, culture, and tradition,” the Nawab tried to put it emphatically but managed to bleat like a helpless lamb.

“He will give her due respect,” the top Englishman gave a long, drawling laugh.

“Your Majesty, can we talk about more urgent matters?” Nizam Ali blubbered through his interpreter trying to subdue the glare from his garrulous, sly looks. “The Marathas are baying for my blood. I hope as the Company promised I will receive armed help without any delay,” the old ruler already appeared to have surrendered to the ferocious Marathas plundering his territories.

“O yes...Nizam Sahib’s case deserves more seriousness than discussion about just courtesans,” His Majesty seemed to have come to administrative matters all at once. “I hope the young lieutenant won’t take to his heart if we agree not to force down the providence’s verdict of drawing her out of the rotting harem and put her in an orderly attic for some civilized lovemaking,” he again gave into the tease of light moments puffed by the whiskey and laughed garrulously patting his thighs.

Deep in the secret recesses of his old debauched self, Muhammad Ali used choicest foul words, but kept a well-meaning smile on his haggard features. He needed to raise more loans from the Company so had to grin condescendingly at whatever His Majesty chose to say at this moment.

When it was time for the treat of the affair, the exotic dance by the royal troupe, the most splendorous feather, Swapnasundri, was missing. However, not having much clue about the traditional Indian dances, the half-drunk British enjoyed this gathering of oriental women sashaying their curves and movements of limbs to the tunes of sitar, drums, and shehnai. While the prominent Company officers, members of the Madras Council, Governor of Madras Lord Hobart imbibed their spirits in wine, Swapnasundri, considering her pride tattered by a foreigner, had taken a decision to leave the Nawab’s court. She called for the prince of Hyderabad, Ali Jah, and put forward her proposal to become the crest jewel of his harem. Before they left the place stealthily on horsebacks, she left a message with one of her maidens for the dashing cavalryman who made her heart beat many times whenever she came to face him. So, while ribbons and sashes of various ranks lost away their distinction in the drunken merrymaking back at the place of meeting, Swapnasundri was heading to a new palace and court to shower the celestial charms of her movements. Prince Ali Jah, so far sulking morosely in the debauched shadow of his father, was very much enjoying this enlivening adventure in his life. More than her looks, he was enchanted by foul words escaping her beautiful rosy pouting lips against the Europeans. The uncontrolled rapidity of her sweet voice made her appear the carrier of bewitching majesty. With gallant, gay gallops his heart was beating with tantalising excitement. Many a time he adjusted his gold and silver embroidered gown. She was looking at the new prospects with imperturbable ease. The way she held herself appeared to subdue the poetic enfoldment of her softer sex; instead some majestic tact oozed mysteriously from her hardened expression.

All tired and mired in feminine sweat, from a distance she looked with fresh vanity at the ramparts of the Hyderabad palace. When the palace gate’s locking bar was raised to welcome this new addition to splendour and luxury, even the armed guards around the gate could not help being mesmerised by this new ray. She was exquisite. Just from the mere first look one could sense the class and contours of her exclusivity. The prince’s middle-aged overblown physique shook under a thunderous wave of lust, love, and excitement for this new diamond of his harem. His hand slid around her waist. But she was no ordinary concubine. Swapnasundri was different. She was witty and she knew how to manage the lust-blinded males around her. She knew that the exclusiveness around her blew from direct inaccessibility and rare exquisiteness—the uncommon instinct to spare herself from becoming a commoditised courtesan. She could very well access the value of her favours and knew exactly what she had to be given in lieu of these apart from respect and dignity. She proudly drew away his hand as the strong tortoise-shell embellished wood and iron-work was bolted again behind them. Helplessly the prince could only caress the precious ruby on his sword hilt. Sensing suppliant lust in the prince’s demeanour, she flatly refused to be lodged in the harem quarters reeking with the odour of unchecked sex and orgy.

“Very well, you deserve a better place surely!! Indeed, eh!” she had already taken a firm grip on his senses with her furtive, fleecing, escaping manoeuvres.

She was led to the section where there were ivory-panelled doorways leading to a spacious chamber exquisitely decorated with colourful draperies, silk curtains, and marvellously carpeted floor. All worn out of tiresome journey with a sigh of relief, she threw her feminine weight on the divan inlaid with precious stones. In tumultuous enthusiasm the prince rolled his multi-ringed fingers over his paunch bulging under gold-worked and intricately embroidered ceremonial cloak.

In the days to come, the prince’s lust-smitten concrete steps to impregnate the soft, wily, pleasantly contriving curtain of her feminine refrain were thwarted by the increased threats of Maratha attack and the Britishers’ lukewarm response to the pleading of their partner. Meanwhile, after getting her message through the court maiden, the real prince of her heart deserted his armed unit and reached Hyderabad. The feminine secrecy in her apparently innocuous physique was sufficient to get him inducted in the royal cavalry guards stationed inside the palace. She had played her cards very smartly and hence could very well avoid invoking the prince’s jealousy on account of this favour of hers to the deserter.

Nothing substantial changed for the nobility. There was the very same interminable indulgence in pleasures defined by riotous debauchery and wincing orgies. Very soon the Maratha menace was at their doorstep. In the battle of Kharda (1795), the still left respect and dignity was tattered to dust due to the Englishmen’s neutrality. Swapnasundri’s real prince’s valour did not go unnoticed. He fought bravely. Pushed to the brink of survival, the Nizam called for French help and under a fearful secret arrangement with them paid for the maintenance and training of 14,000 men under French commander Francois Raymond. As astute in court intrigues as in warfare the French commander was consolidating a pro-Tipu, pro-French, and anti-British party at the court. Minister Mir Ali, the main English pawn in the court, was the chief stumbling block in his scheme.

While whole of the Hyderabad court was mired in these intrigues, Swapnasundri became the sole strain of sanity and relaxation as she carried the mighty task on her slanderous shoulders with finesse and surprising dexterity mixing her artful dance and coquettish manners with sound scheming logic of her brain. Much to the forgetful delight of the dispirited nobility and debauched royalty, her dances in the Rang Mahal took them to a world of oblivion where they could for solacing moments forget the tattering realities biting the very existence of the state. Once in a month, the mighty balconies of the amusement hall were thrown open for the common masses to sip the nectar of her gracious movements and eyes moving to express uncountable expressions. Her beatific, rapturous smile drove away gloom from thousands of eyes.

As the queen of courtesans and dancer beyond any skill known to anyone else in the state, she knew how and where to spend her favours and extract the advantages almost as per her will. She allowed Prince Ali Jah to make love to her only in lieu of most special purposes and motives. He was almost her puppet. She knew exactly well how to pull the cords. The strong female in her had the out-worldly nymph-like dexterity to ensure a smooth ascension into the arms of the real prince of her heart without arousing Ali Jah’s suspicion and jealousy. She knew she was playing with fire. But the heart’s cravings are unstoppable and she very well took the risk. She had enough contrivance in her kitty to keep their love-making sessions unknown even to the closest of her female attendants.

Under Francois Raymond’s clever leadership and training her lover rose smoothly through the ranks. His capabilities had tremendous prospects and these were polished rapidly by the Frenchman. Fortification of the capital was going on. Recruitment and discipline in the army showed satisfactory trends. The prince of her heart became the main stay of Hyderabad weaponry in subjugating and punishing the refractory tributaries and chieftains.

Although she was leading very much of a public life, she appeared majestically inaccessible. Powerful resonance of her seductive charms and vibrant audacity of self-respecting will power created a halo around her persona. Exponentially fuelled by her hate for the Britishers, Swapnasundri became the ringleader in the pro-French party at the court. Mir Alam was their main foe. He was ever coiled around the Nizam and sang him lullabies of British prudence and competence. Like a child sometimes the Nizam rolled in her lap and she like a firm mother in all control ranted out her overflowing condemnations of the Britishers, the old ruler just meekly ogling at the movement of her bewitching lips. Her monumental charisma assured his ruffled and scared soul during such moments.

Her prince charming was now an officer leading a trained and disciplined company of musketeers. The sight of him leading his company of 90 infantrymen in a parading and saluting position in front of the Nizam gave her the happiest and proudest moments of her life at the court. The Frenchmen too, almost all of them voracious guzzlers of champagne and terrible eaters of roasted ducks, admired her beauty and dancing skills. To them she stood out as somebody worth taking seriously amidst all that appeared inexpressibly ridiculous.

There was clandestine communication with the injured lion of Mysore, Tipu Sultan, with the prince of the Carnatic and with the French General, Perron, who maintained Daulat Rao Scindhia’s 40,000 army under his well-meaning, disciplined command. Apart from these court intrigues, French privateers, pirates, cannon-laden merchant ships with ruffian crew members, as well as those carrying legitimate company ensigns were also in touch and part of the French scheme ably directed by the Governor of the Isle of France in the Indian Ocean. Their combined effect had become a menace to the Britishers in the Indian Ocean. Revolutionary wars back home had given a storm push to the French fight against the Englishmen in the East.

The Captain-General of the French in India was furtively trying to win over as many Indian allies as possible. Under his initiative a secret meeting was arranged in the wild tracts of Central India in Scindhia’s domains. It was the area once occupied by the Gondwana kings during old times. The campsite was chosen in a grove of teakwood. Nature showered its bounties through small rain-fed rivers, lakes, and sambar, cheetal, and neelgais frolicked freely, barking deer galloped, hyenas hooted, jungle cat walked stealthily, sloth bear slumbered contended, and tiger, leopards, and cobras roamed menacingly. Through utmost secrecy, the French Captain-General invited Daulat Rao Scindhia, Perron, Raymonds, Prince of Hyderabad, and Swapnasundri. They hoped to hatch a concrete plan for the British expulsion from India. Time seemed appropriate to exploit John Shore’s relative neutrality in Indian affairs. Further, a plan for the overthrow of the old Nizam by his son was also taken up. The old Nizam had this incurable malady of licking English boots despite their numerous let-downs. When it became apparent that the pro-British party led by the minster Mir Alam had reached the brink of success, the prince and Swapnasundri decided in finality to ease the old ruler’s fragile shoulders from further carrying the burden on this treacherous path.

It was 1797. The pro-French party fought well. The prince of her heart would have definitely beaten the sagging and dispirited loyalists of the old ruler if not for the Britishers who suddenly arrived on the scene. Tormented by love-pangs for his fiancé back in England, dashing lieutenant Robertson fought with extreme ferocity. While Rahim Khan, the Muslim lover of the fairy of Hyderabad court, was led by the love-promptings of his lover’s celestial charms. He led the charge against the Englishmen with equal vengeance. In this war of swords, spears, axes, cannons, pistols, and muskets, dangerous, heterogenic, and chaotic meanderings of a shocked and bleeding time brought Robertson and Rahim Khan face to face in a life-to-death sword duel. Blood in their eyes told each other that it had to be necessarily a fight till finish. Rahim khan was a classic sword fighter. Just as he was about to finish his fallen rival, a musket ball ripped through his bubbly heart. The valiant fighter collapsed on his back. Bruised and lacerated, Robertson saw his enemy dying. The handsome dying soldier kissed the precious ring on his finger and when the last breath was forced out of his collapsed body he gasped aloud “Swapnasundri”.

This name had become a thorn in the English flesh. Her angst and hate for Britishers had become an issue of helplessness, sarcasm, bubbling intrigues in the English camp. After that incident even Robertson had become the butt of many jokes about her. The repertoire of these jokes increased over time as did her role in the French intrigue machine. On the impulse of a vague instinct he freed the ring from the dead soldier’s finger and wore it as a war trophy. He just wore it; a simple impulse without any greed or malice. He knew that only providence had saved his life, so in the heart of his hearts he was aware that it was no winner’s take-away. It was indeed the dead heart’s symbol of love for the famed dancer. She had herself put it on his finger as the undying token of her ever-existing love for him. This token carried many dreamy descriptions of their secret love-making sessions. Looking at it through the corridors of his war-numb senses, the image of his lady love surfaced sending down sweet-sour pining pangs through his war-battered body. His blood-drenched fingers braced his doublet pocket carrying the portrait of the queen of his heart.

Now when the most valiant fighter had fallen, the pendulum swung and the revolting army was systematically routed by the combined forces of the Nizam and the Britishers.

Before she could be arrested by the victorious party, Swapnasundri escaped into the forests. Not able to accept this blot on their victory, Mir Ali launched an all-out search to capture the famed lady. He seemed crazily drawn to suppress her regal flamboyance. Very much eager to have a relook at the face of this charming foe, Robertson led a party to arrest the coveted lady. He had not forgotten that look of feminine pride almost two years back. With much reinvigorated self he carried his red-doublet attired soldiers through the thick green foliage.

Swapnasundri, the nimble footed dancer of unparalleled classic grace, exotic postures, and scintillating persona, was now on the run. Her gold-encrusted leather sandals with gold studs along the sides firmly locked into the metal straps of the saddle belt. A precious-stones-studded locket was bumping against her heaving bosom as her horse galloped carrying her mythical weight. Then one of her attendants in a linen night shirt and cap—probably a French Infantryman’s cast off—fell headlong from his horse as a musket ball hit him around ear. Her soft curvaceous body safely hidden beneath the silky folds of her flamboyant oriental finery shivered at the bloody scene.

Robertson, the tall young lieutenant with piercing blue eyes was on the scene. What a tough career he was pursuing here in the forests of Asia! Away in his native land he grew up on a culturally rich diet of school choir, festive finery on Christmas, and Scottish and Polka dances in his school. He was fairly talented and suitable to fall deeply in love with a lady of fair morals in a circus troupe who sang Greek songs of love to him. However, his was a conservative upper-class family where the baton of maintaining the legacy of courage and conviction was handed down the generation; where the historical—but tragically unfulfilled—ambition had been to win Earldom and coveted titles like OBE (Officer of the Order of British Empire). The spreading tentacles of colonialism were opening new vistas for such talent. So instead of becoming petty, secure personnel in the Company like the desk clerk, they preferred arm-bearing.

The peak point of their lineage had been achieved by his great grandfather who rose to a prestigious position at Bombay fortification. During nights his eyes were awake like the keenly burning watch-fires ever eager to spot the gleam of Portuguese sails in the Arabian Sea; while his fort batteries ever eager to catapult cannon balls on any naval frigate sneaking into the Bay where the Company ships were docked. He had a strong knack for recognising the incongruities of colours on gun-ports, hulls and the consequent mismatching of crown flag and Company ensign thus marking out Dutch East India Company vessels, Portuguese privateers, and pirates. He had honed his skills to give prompt orders with the precision measuring to a fraction of a second to his gunners. He dined with prestigious native families under chandeliers on tables glittering with oriental crystal. The handsome Englishman had plum shades of sensuousness over his battle-hardened features. In the breezy, warm, and moist weather he had a raging affair with a young Parsi female from an upper-class business family in Bombay. She would arrive in her stately carriage. His grandfather was a ship commander in the Company’s naval squadron at that time. A real seafarer his galleon had laid anchorage at so many different points that the hull of his ship boasted of planking made of different wood ranging from pine, oak, teak, sal to any type capable of breaking sea ravages. He had become an important instrument in the British scheme of sea intrigues. In the skirmishes off the coast of Diu—little Portuguese island off Kathiawar—all his sea acumen came to be tested. The Portuguese won the loyalty of their neighbours, the Siddhis of Janzira. It was a maritime warrior tribe of African origin. Their culture and music were distinctly shaped by their seafaring instincts. Just when the British thought they had defeated the Portuguese, from a little island hidden by lagoon reeds came a long volley of musketry. Lead and iron balls and grape shots came all too sudden without any prior hint. Most of the British party was gutted to blood and bones. His great grandfather was the only one who survived. His blood-soaked appearance won the sympathy of Maldharis, the local herdsmen in Girnar stretch of dry deciduous forest and grasslands. They gave him special treatment because of the colour of his skin. He convinced them to take him to the state of Junagarh. Using his experience and cleverness he caught a lion and a leopard to present to the Maharaja. Meanwhile, he drew the images of a cheetah, peacock, and boar on the parchment paper he carried in his canvas bag. In spirit-easing solitude he secretly made love to Maldhari women at nights while jackals hooted around mischievously. But then his frisky horseplay was stalled. From the tumultuous cusp of his orgasm he was pulled into the faulty shades of death. Just a day’s journey away from the Maharaja’s palace he was brutally murdered by an envious young man whose girl he was enjoying that night.

His fate unknown, his son and then grandson tried to build the family prestige on land right there in England. But this safe anchorage in the safe waters of headland’s lee bored the latter and he sent his son to the oriental lands before the young man would have wasted his life on a petty circus girl but not before the revolting young man got engaged to her in secret. When he set on sails he promised never to forget her till his safe and earliest return; when he would just lay his sword and shield to rest and enjoy the lovely loneliness of their marital bliss. It was a summer-scented day and melodious wind was whispering in his ears egging him to eat the forbidden fruits. However, the marvellous myth of chastity was written too emphatically in terms of norms. Furtively fluid gush of passion was checkmated and the ominously smouldering lust changed to an ethereal kiss. They parted with fragmented dreams of a happy future after his return.

Swapnasundri, the fair-hipped maiden, who rested under the feminine whiffs of air born of shiny flywhisks, was now under dark, masculine gusts of enemy seize. They had heard so much about her. More than anything else their eyes were full of curiosity, wonder, and amazement at this female who had become almost mythical on account of her beauty and talents.

Realising that her small band of armguards would be easily decimated by the Englishmen, Swapnasundri forbade them from falling into any foolish bravado. One of her guards was wearing a blue French doublet. A young sergeant in Robertson’s company spat an obscenity and shot him in the head. He did it without even sparing a look at the company leader’s face. Robertson thundered to discipline him. She was arrested and taken to Madras fort. Meantime, with extremely impartial look at the offender, he handed a roll of wax-sealed parchment paper to a native footman. He untied the red ribbon and read out the charges against the famed damsel of the Hyderabad court. The Nizam, now totally under British control, had promptly issued a death warrant against her. There was an air of extreme defiance over the misty strains of her exquisite features. Their eyes met. She looked at Robertson with strange pride. Her look still seemed to chase away the looming strains of subjection, servitude, and submission. Her dark eyes explored the bluish depth of her captor’s. In the sepulchral silence of that moment she caught that flashing moment when his hands had grasped that flower. That was the breaking moment from the former court. The declaration had stabbed her ego. A faint smile seeped from the corner of her luscious lips. It was as though she airily proposed something. A strange serenity was spread around her persona. He could feel the power of her charms. In discomfort he just looked the other way when they arrested her. 

Manacled like a criminal and lying in her dark stone cellar she heard the military band of victory and arms of honour for the young lieutenant. Massive stone walls and redoubts made of masonry hewn from the rocks of plateau made her soul cringe with pain at the realisation how much the foreigners had strengthened themselves at the cost of local resources and traitors’ support. Inside the slave-like cubicle in the basement of the massive fort she was pushed against cold stony walls with shackles screwed almost to her womanly bones.

Robertson had a good grasp of Latin and apart from that he knew some common sayings and smattering phrases in Dutch and French. His two years of stay in India had added dozens of more native words, so that he could understand some, made others understand as well through his keen linguistic skills accompanied with frantic gestures. The beautiful conspirator who had been imprisoned in a slave cellar haunted his conscience. Such had been the force of mocking defiance on her exquisite features that he could not help going to see her. He was driven more by curiosity to see this interesting persona. She was totally unlike what she was supposed to be. Her beauty was bewitching. She was supposed to be satisfied with seducing men around. But she carried untraditional sense of respect for a lady of the court. More importantly, her motives reached beyond the world of dancing and carousal. She appeared like a bright ray of guiding light in the darkness devilishly dispersed around. When they had arrested her she was solemnly composed and sedate resignation in those big dark eyes pulled his being with a strange magnetic force. That look of utter free will and independence even made her holding onto some mysterious egotistical whim. It was completely unlike other natives who psychologically deprived themselves of self-respect and confidence to get scared of Englishmen, hate them in secrecy, or cringe before them to draw favours. He felt she was above all this. He could very well sense that steadfast demeanour amidst the wild revelry. Her spirit appeared ultimately pristine. He knew that she had recognised him as the flower catcher. At that time the narcissistic strains oozing out from her curvaceous body seemed to declare to this world that her sense of self-respect could not be touched even by the superior coloured race. He himself carried the traces of a white man’s burden to evangelise the less-cultured oriental world. He had been victorious in that battle. His ego murmured with complain. After the victory, his ego had exponentially expanded. With her exuberantly feminine grace she seemed to subdue his sense of victory. However, in chains she wasn’t defeated in the conventional sense of the term. He felt an irresistible urge to overpower her sense of pride. He reached her cellar with a vague sense of punishing attitude. The battle and the related happenings and mishaps had laid bare the secret of her love affair open by this time. He knew he possessed the ring of her lover.

“This butterfly will find herself on flames as soon as she sees the ring of her lover!” he had a strange convulsion in his body to somehow see her cowering down like a broken female pleading for mercy, seeking favours for life.

“Swapnasundri, that cowardly lover of yours, was killed by me in straight man-to-man fight,” he declared flaunting the war trophy on his finger. He didn’t look her in the eyes. These were too proud. Moreover, his soul wasn’t that incorrigible enough to speak a lie to torment somebody and still look into the eyes with cold-blooded muse. 

What remained still unbroken inside the crystal palace of her heart came crashing down under the force of this utterance. Tears welled up in her fiery oval big eyes. The unhindered splendour of her majestic persona still shining in chains appeared to melt and flow down to mix in dust around her feet. “More than his death I weep over the fact that he got killed at the hands of a poor English soldier like you!” her native tongue lashed him like a sword cut.

“Calm down my lady! I had stronger claim over you than him. Do you still remember that flower thrown to decide your fate by His Majesty?” Robertson’s repertoire of native words and fervently amused gestures conveyed the message.

Through tears she stared at him like a wounded tigress. In the snail-like silence the dreary undertones of her captor’s declaration filled her heart with inexpressible sorrow. Of all the fragments of lust-driven love that nobility threw around her, she had secretly gathered a love nest in her heart. It had been broken now. She really loved her soldier. She had to take revenge. In order to sustain her hate for the Britishers she had to play her cards again. The blow was crushing. Struggling against the chains and crying over her lover’s death she decided to live afresh and die in a different manner so as to assuage her wounded soul. No blow was sufficient to decapitate and throw her into the pathos of passivity where there was no hope, no reason to live. The wall of this man’s character looked breachable to her fuming femininity. Heavily manacled, her rosy weight sagging under iron chains jewelling her coarse-clothed homespun cotton sari she moved towards the cellar bars. Her bare feet took little steps of some vague determination. Her eyes stared at his white face with a mysterious smile lurking around the corner of her lips. Holding the bars she protruded her juicy dry lips. He was almost jutted against the bars. He wanted to move away but a strange magic held him back. She took out her hand and held him by neck to draw him closer. He just helplessly gave in. It was outrageous. It was totally unexpected. He was shocked. Before he could even react in any way, she kissed him. Face to face. A full kiss. It was the lethal kiss of a vindictive hissing female snake. Full of danger and unprohibited pleasure. Its relentlessly cascading effect rippled each and every pore of his skin. Its jolting strike numbed all his senses.

“Swapnasundri settles all dues. Doesn’t keep anything due either good or bad. The chance fall of that flower entitled you for the charm of my lips,” she had always used her seductive charms to her advantage. “The men in you is more impotent and helpless inside this slave red dress than the female is in me in these thick iron chains,” her fragrant breath hit him hard in the face and the tremors went deep into the chambers of his ego, his distinct self, his identity.

There was an uncontrollable surge of feminine power in her eyes. Delightfully vague vistas of her consent would make it impossible for anybody interested in maintenance of morality. He was standing stonily. She looked deep into his eyes. “Swapnasundri chooses to live even in the face of death!” she raised her chin and her lips parted as the gateways of unheard pleasure and sensuality.

“Within a week the tribunal will decide which type of death suits the anti-British tigress in you,” he tried to hold onto the ramparts of rigidity, his duty, his status of a winner.

“Eh, liberating death. That would be freedom. How much I myself wish for it than rot in the prison of these rot English people. Do it tomorrow. Why take a week? You will be doing a great honour to be a soldier,” her nostrils in a shapely nose were drawn as she hissed out her resentment.

Perturbed by the incalculable hate hovering around her limitless beauty, Robertson walked along the stony corridor. The man in him continued to be mischievously tickled by the robust pull of her sensuality all this while. She had irresistible charm. For sure the battle hard soldier in him had been shaken. It was a sleepless night. Her image was nightmarishly striking at his senses. Her persona was too powerful and on top of that her act had been even stronger. The experience was strangely exhilarating and uplifting beyond imagination. Next day too he could not help going to her cellar.

“Trying to fleece that stone-hearted beauty in chains, eh!” his senior jested.

He just winked in return and said, “I have legitimate claim over her. His Majesty’s flower fell in my hands. So I can very well try for the remaining few days of her life,” he just laughed it off as a casual remark.

Our basic instincts are much stronger than any logical scheme driven by rules, conventions, and duty. Definitely some changes were rapidly forming up in the young lieutenant’s rationality. His line of thinking and emotions had been misaligned from the normal course. Of course the event had thrown an episode beyond all expectations. She had acted totally opposite to her fabled persona during that moment. The firebrand and proud antagonistic nymph had shed her stony inhibitions and touched his love-deprived physical self with the pining warmth and softness of her flowery lips. Whenever he came out of Fort St. George’s secret underground chambers reeking with slavish, damp air, he felt the warm tropical fresh air of an open free world slapping his being with contradictory glaring visions. In the mysterious underground corridors the Madras government was spreading its strength by clobbering down all the wrong players coming as rock beds in its sledge-hammering movement on the path of intrigues, wars, and trade. Passing along one of the damp corridors he had crossed the storage vault of ice blocks. Ice had been imprisoned to entertain company officials, convenient free merchants and hobnobbing dealers. The coldness in the air brought him back from the footloose fantasies. It was like the air back home. His lady love’s face rose in his conscience and tugged at the moralistic cords. He paused and recalled the parting kiss. It was however too far both in terms of time and distance. The present beckoned him with full force. He walked out into the open tropical air, his conscience in a benumbed slumberous state, and a new experience beckoning him with ecstatic coquettish charms.

His strangely shaken love-cords found him musing, “Charm of East lies in the free air of warm and humid panorama! Alas, ice and flower have been caged!” It was his heart’s own-decided outpour, beyond the chains and reach of his reality and calculated judgement.

His love appeared to cast off its old skin and get a new shining one. The surroundings seemed bathed in paradisiacal delight. This experience was beyond all cultural nuances. Today’s talk and the look on her face were tormenting his soul. She was smiling resignedly and fiddling with the inscribed bracelet on her wrist. But all the harsh realities had not been successful in subduing the proud vanity of her strong persona. She appeared divine and too cheap side by side. He could not assess why he was continuously thinking about her. And that kiss!? It defied all logical senses. Was there some motivation in it? Was it just a joke, an emotional outpour of a broken heart on the verge of death? What it was, he just could not make it out. Her helpless pulls at the merciless grasp of iron chains made him recall some long forgotten song about a chained flower. Yes, he was continuously thinking about her now. To make it worse, it was more than just thinking. He was feeling for her. He feared the massive wooden rafters, stones, and iron grates would crush the oriental flower any time. He was in this world outside, alive and free. She was there in a dead world, more dead than alive and this flicker would be blown off by predetermined hand of justice in the Fort. Anxiously he looked at the roughly plastered stone walls of the premises and officially authoritative brick masonry of the building where the formalities of her case would be completed leading to the inevitable judgement. He felt a painful shiver serpenting across his spine. Had the fangs of her fake, poisonous love bitten deep enough to intoxicate him, killing his reason and paralysing his senses? He felt alone in the victorious crowd of Company officials, soldiers, free merchants, dealers, and recuperating ship commanders and crew members scampering with ease and joviality. Beneath the place where he stood was the safety vault for gold and bullion—the fruits of colonialism. The little cubicle situated at the end of a long corridor divided into multiple security tiers. Here the Governor let loose a guffaw of ecstasy while he inspected the gold and bullion stacked to the ceilings.

The verve and vigour of these new love-blooms had taken him in its flowery grasp. Walking forlornly he reached the Madras Bank building. The newly constructed building galore with fresh-found financial optimism. The offices and warehouses on the lower floor were echoing with excited voices of traders and merchants. Above them were the halls of free public exchange buzzing with official and unofficial prospects of money outflow through trade, barter, exchange in spice, gold-starred pagodas, gold bars, and bullion. Out on the first-floor balcony facing the Broker’s office somebody hollered at the man on the ground:

“Now that the day’s lighthouse is all blazing which way does thy ship sail to?”

“No, last night that thing was nicer in inviting me into her harbour than this one,” the onlooker yelped from below as the tropical sunrays hit his seafaring face. “So I prefer to stay for cosy anchorage here,” he dismissively waved at the lighthouse hovering 90 feet above sea level at the building top.

A man was loudly reading some names from the second storey balcony of the managers’ committee room. Robertson raised his eyes in the direction, but instead of the man his attention was caught by the big sign board hanging from the end of the timber beam. “London Coffee-room” it read. Many times he had beaten his homesickness there. But today the malady of his heart was totally different, not to be assuaged by any coffee served there.

Again the chained figure loomed large in his memory. The rebellious undertones oozing from her wounded self were creating ripples in his disturbed self. Today when he had approached her cellar he found her coming out of the tiny wooden cabinet erected in the grooves across the floor masonry. Adjusting the folds of her rumpled sari with chained hands she looked at him from the corner of her eyes. She knew how to pass a message just through eyes. It was a look of crisp summation. It sent the message that time could be infinitely ecstatic, happy, and long with this body if somebody cared to free it, otherwise it will just carelessly run into oblivion. In her solemn grandeur she appeared a queen of silence ruling over men’s hearts just through eyes. His heart was beating fast. He was all alone in the crowd. Despite best of his efforts he just couldn’t free himself from the tentacles of her charm.

Warmed by fervent coffee an enterprising European big landholder was gesticulating, “If that seditious French-hobnobbing Tipu is obliterated, I’ll turn Mysore’s tropical slopes into international hub of coffee!”

In fact in the coffee-room more alcohol did rounds than coffee. Coffee, however, was the prominent point of discussion from the traders’ viewpoint. Robert Massey, a free merchant, drew out a blazing gold leaf from his breast pocket.

“The Italian harlot liked my love-making so much that at parting she tearfully gave me this present,” he thumped his chest.

“Well, here in life, love and loss complement each other,” Peter Hughes, a ship commander, philosophically poured out jangling handful of star pagodas to ensure they were still in his pocket. He had the medallion and citation to prove his seaworthiness and efficiency. Many privateers sitting on adjoining tables looked at him carefully, giving him due respect.

Mr. Cassin, a notorious outlaw back home but wayfaring in the East as if on parole to further the Empire’s strength, slapped the ebony table; his other hand busy in the unknown chambers of his leather jacket. He took out an ivory case inlaid with flashing gemstones, garnets, and turquoise. Others were dazzled by its costly look. The Governor had given it to his lady love but he stole it from her during last night’s banquet. He considered everything fair in love and breaking a law for some profit. Before he could brag something about it, he saw Mr. Nelson, a member of the Exchange Committee, about to enter coffee-room. The well-meaning gentleman stood in the doorway, but moved away as if realising some more urgent matter.  

Peter Hughes, the efficient, shrewd commander dealing in spices, oriental fineries, gold, silver, topazes, emeralds, and olivine was lost in the blurred vision of some paradisiacal rich island. As a commissioned privateer he had enough skill to bear the storms of pirates and naval frigates of rival companies in the gloomy waters of unchartered seas. The keel, ribbing frame, and planking of his galleon-cum-frigate had woods from as many destinations as his seafaring spirits allowed him to spread his wings. So pine, oak, sal, and teak—a profitable mixture of Eastern and Western lands—studded his hull and bulkheads. Even now when his ship was standing low in the harbour—indicating heavy cargo—its anchor cable without much strain as the ship was safely docked in the safe waters of the headland’s lea. As the light dimly penetrated through the hatches to reach the lower decks, it could barely see the faces of slaves and prisoners in leg-irons in the slave deck. A fortnight back he had plundered a French privateer ship. Cassin had performed remarkably well in this favourite outing. Since their meeting the commander’s cargo had been increasing in the holds.

From the tone of their conversation Robertson knew that they could help him. He had already reached a conclusion after hearing their adventurous conversation.

“Would you help if somebody’s love is in need?” he addressed the commander.

“Why should we if it does not fetch us any profit apart from the union of two hearts?” his aide, the outlaw, threw back.

“Not even if it comes with plenty of gold and silver?”

Some ears were definitely raised. Promptly the outlaw closed the matter. “We will talk in our skiff at sea.”

The commander waved towards two of his boatswains and off they went to the dock and then into the sea to discuss the finer points of the deal. While passing the ship, Robertson read the ship’s name on the transom. The man on the anchor watch saluted the commander.

“She is a princess. Her people will pay enough for her release,” he tried to befool them.

He could not reveal her identity to them fearing punishment by the Admiralty Law. They will flatly refuse, he knew. So he just discussed the possibility of boarding their ship to reach homeland. Not smelling something too fishy, and taking him love-dazed to the extent of paying any cost in money, the ship commander quipped, “We’ll be leaving next week.”

Cassin had broken every law of the land back home and the world outside. He had miraculously escaped death many times both in the hands of those authorised to protect law and the people like him ever eager to tear it to shreds. Robertson baited him. They went sightseeing the budding colonial town. Moderately elegant Governor’s palace loomed over their head with a vague warning as they walked plotting by its stone and brick walls. An old gentleman, a multilingual interpreter, greeted Cassin as he passed with a European and a native. Standing at the quaint and sleepy market square, they decided to enter a broad dusty side street. After passing a few stores, Robertson confided in him the plan with such friendly audacity and openness that even the outlaw was taken by surprise and did not say much except being drawn into the plan degree by degree, his instinctively law-breaking self-pandering him all along. A rattling carriage went by and the horse taps on the dusty street were swallowed by the disciplined notes of the Drums Corps marching on the Fort premises for a patriotic parade. Robertson knew that the farce and tragedy of her trial had begun that afternoon.

Robertson had proved his mettle for the cause of the Company. Add to it, his demeanour was too disciplined. So nobody suspected anything when he took Cassin with him to meet Swapnasundri. She had been condemned to death on the fifth day from the verdict. Much to their strategy-forming minds it was a day after the scheduled departure of the ship to England.

“The flower deserves all risk for setting her free!” Cassin was itching with excitement. They greeted a medical missionary as the holy man tired in charity in the East crossed them.

Their plan was to take her into the ship just before its sail-off around midnight, for it was a peculiar custom and convention with the idiosyncratic commander to draw off her anchor cable about zero hour to go with her rigging and sails flirting with a night song. Nobody except for them was to know the secret. The jewel was to be hidden in the holds even without knowledge of the commander.

Cassin’s options came to a satisfactory stop at a certain Reverent, a famed medical missionary who had the propensity to avert death and pain to any limit if the compensation came to be the acceptance of Christianity by the to-be-relieved being. Cassin, the all-out plunderer, had workable knowledge of Latin, Dutch, French, and Spanish—all the required tools in the mouth of an over-ambitious outlaw eager to spread wings internationally.

For a decade, France was boiling in revolutionary wars. However, the front against the Britishers was left untouched; only its form and character changed. The Ministry of Marine and Colonies was sending military adventurers and nobles at seafront. The merchants, privateers, pirates, and company officials were all acceptable and accommodated as long as they served as the cogs of expansionist designs. Port Luis was being used by the French privateers to disturb English shipping in the Indian Ocean. Hardly a fortnight passed when the rival vessels were not engaged in skirmishes. The Captain-General of the French in India was furtively contriving against the spreading tentacles of Englishmen in India. A good chunk of French nobility had taken to the sea. Back home, the Revolution saw peasants burning their luxurious chateaux. While the last sinews of monarchist France were being uprooted, the surviving nobility was taking to a new form, status, and function.

Cassin had a French confidante named Madec—a vestige of the royal past—a baroque musician who performed in front of the royalty on extravagant sets in the royal halls. But the famed Versailles operas looked unfathomably distant after the blood-soaked revolutionary decade. His patron noble and Madec were at sea when the revolution broke out, so they decided to be seafarers till the storms on the land subsided. Their private vessel very easily became an agent of sea war against the Britishers managed from Port Luis. Just for the sake of old days Madec was training the crew in baroque music, just to have some leisure days to beat boredom on board while their ship rolled in the doldrums. One night when under the spell of moderate champagne his small group was performing under moonlight on the open deck an ugly shape of a galleon approached. Britishers Peter Hughes and Cassin had arrived on the scene. The French vessel was nastily overpowered. Many died and many were taken slaves. The survivors’ fate was chained to ringbolts in the bulkheads of the slave deck. Humming his classical music, the musician was the only one who came alive after a month-long journey to the African coast during which the day’s only meaning had been tiny gravel in the middle of stew bowl. Before getting off, the survivor was ordered to man the deck pump. Standing in the poop-deck, Cassin saw the surprising effort of those hands. The former musician worked lost in some old tune that he had played to thunderous applause back home. Cassin laughed at the character. Then after a month, while they were enjoying hospitality at a tiny British settlement, the Company slaves revolted and what Madec did then was sufficient to make him a life-long confidante and upkeeper-cum-friend of the famed outlaw.

Reverend Father Alfred Barker was an old ritualistic character. The medical missionary carried enough reputation to force greetings from anybody coming across from the highest to the lowest. He had played an important role in the colonisation of Indian elites. His missionary customerage ranged from the Indian merchant princes to ordinary millworkers. To do something by breaking the systemising fencing was something Cassin’s soul ever craved for. Moreover, the last journey had been a nondescript one. Lounging dispiritedly on the deck while the unfilled sails of the ship hung lifelessly in the desperately calm and eerie doldrums, in a mood of criminal boredom he had shouted at Madec manning the whip staff; and handed out an old battered violin ordering to play something more sorrowful than the berating doldrums. To keep his spirits alive, the outlaw was fabulously clothed in period clothing and appeared an archetypical colonial icon. Perhaps he hated to set foot on ground. Whenever they stepped onto any Company settlement, he taught walking on stilts to the children. He was a man of great whims and fancies.

The famous medical missionary got a new ray of life in his old eyes after coming to know about the prospects of converting a rebel native woman. Cassin knew exactly well how to convince Father Alfred, the garrison chief, and the Governor that her belated baptisation should take place in the twilight of the day before her execution. Standing in the stable-yards and hatching the final sinews of the conspiracy, he looked anxiously at the stony ramparts where the watchfires would burn to easily show the big wooden ship cradled, its larboard side facing the coast. He had told the commander that on the evening prior to the ship’s departure he would go into the sea in a longboat to catch some fish and would join the ship a few kilometres down the coast. Three storm lanterns burning in the ship’s stern galleries were easily spottable. The commander as usual was aware of his useful man’s idiosyncrasies and consented as long as the rascal outlaw helped him in their plundering seafaring moves.  

The word in the Fort was that the legendary British-hater had fallen for the handsome lieutenant. Before death she was Christening herself to marry him and be his wife for a night. It had satisfied many a British ego. This submission to their faith was even more satisfying than the scenario where she would have fallen at their feet pleading for life. The church was situated north of the Fort. Cassin ordered three of his trusted boatswains to wait by the shore at the nearest point. Much to his excitement he saw a British naval frigate moving up the coast. Its differently painted gunports in the hull seemed to prompt and instigate the lawbreaker in him.

The rebel female warrior was put in light chains for the occasion. In the twilight the horses carrying the prisoner carriage swiftly moved on the dusty road. Robertson, Madec, and Cassin waited with bated breath to strike. Swapnasundri was sitting impassively, her eyes downcast. Whenever she lifted her big eyes she looked only at Robertson. Swaying raylets from the lantern dangling from the carriage roof added a mystic aura to her oriental beauty. Robertson’s eyes were continuously set on her. It was sufficient to obliterate the last vestiges of his fiancé back home from his heart. A shudder of horror sauntered across his spine at the thought of the executioner in his dirty canvas apron working the noose around her wheatish neck that one time wore costliest of necklaces and pendants. He was so much lost in the thoughts that he was totally unaware of Cassin’s crude jokes about the beauty in the cage.

Tracing the last signs of the day through the barbed little window, he harked the two sepoys inside to stop the carriage. “Why?” they chorused while the one outside sitting by the side of the coachman had a careful view of the coconut grove by the roadside.

“The lady wants to ease herself,” Robertson said.

“But we did not hear her saying anything,” they intoned a bit irritated.

“She indicated to me through a gesture.”

“Haa haa so much in love with each other,” they drew out their share of fun in the jokes that were spreading about the two of them.

One of them moved to the tiny hatchet behind the coachman’s seat. Opening the wooden slit he let out instructions.

As she sneaked into the coconut grove, the notorious seafarer and his accomplice jumped at the sepoys while the helpless native coachman looked meekly at this strange turn of events among the foreigners. He just sat there obediently holding the bridles. It was not a bloody battle. It turned out to be just a scuffle as the Company sepoys had been caught unawares from such a breath-feeling short distance. There was no chance of using weapons, just jostling and pushing was involved. The three rescuers easily overpowered them. They tied their hands and feet and gagged them. Doing this Cassin thumped the powder flask flanking his left side dangling from a flap in his broad waist belt. Then drawing out his sword from the right hip he moved towards the cowering coachman. The man quietly surrendered and fell at his feet. Prodding his chin with sword end he made him stand up. He never lost an opportunity to miss one more loyal, obedient fellow in his tow. One look at Robertson was enough to pass the message.

“Do you swear by all your Gods to serve this man faithfully as long as you live?” Robertson jabbered in his thickly accented native wordings and disjointed phrases.

Immediately the man started swearing in the names of as many Gods he could recall in those fearful moments. To add to his superstition, Cassin drew gunpowder from the flask and put a bit in the muzzle and asked the man to take a pinchful from it and lick it. He did it without losing time, all this serving to save his life.

“Now I have control over your death!” he guffawed.

It turned out to be the oath of poor native’s service to the superior being in front of him.

Tying the horse reins to a roadside tree, they dumped the three men in the grove and moved up the coast to look for the skiff. It was a bright starry night by now. From the bag of his trickeries the outlaw quickly brought out a plucker and set her free. He handed out a man’s wear to her and she took it with a new meaning in life. Within fifteen minutes of his blowing a signal whistle his men came running.

Sitting on the oak planking of the skiff she stared at the stars with a strange detachedness. They devoured fish, bread, and bacon while she sat demurely.

“You old fart, you have plucked tons of skin off people’s backs with that braided knotted leather whip of yours!” Cassin was joking with the ship’s whiplasher.

Looking at the star position, Cassin assessed that it might be the time when the mooring lines of the ship were being removed and her mizzen sails unfurled. So keeping a safe distance from the coast they rowed down the coast. To give a clearer signal, the ship had two extra lanterns on the larboard and starboard allowing the skiff to see it from up or down the coast as the big ship made straight into the sea for supporting fathoms and then move to its right down the coast on its journey around the peninsula.

As they intercepted the ship, Cassin hollered, “Put down the side lights! I want to enter like a thief, for I am a class thief and super outlaw in reality!” He started singing in a bawdy, rowdy tone. Rope ladders were cast down from the ship’s entry-port.

“Do as he wants, the bastard is drunk. Otherwise he will create a scene and we will be delayed by an hour!” the ship commander ordered the burly coxswain just about to throw the rope steps and the boatswain chain overboard. Cassin slumped into the hauling chair while Robertson and Swapnasundri gingerly made their way upwards. All their confidantes from the boat were on board by this time and were manning the ropes from above. Under the starlight Madec led Robertson and the disguised fugitive across the deck. He stepped down the open deck hatches to lead them into the stern cabin of the outlaw.

While on the deck, the commander embraced his most useful crewman-cum-colleague. “Feasting in the sea after christening the bride of a night! Hope they are enjoying their sole wedding night in all majesty!” surprisingly there were some traces of irony in the commander’s rough tone.

The word in the Fort and the city had been that Robertson would marry the freshly christened prisoner and would next day hand her over to the noose of justice. It had created a strange excitement across all ranks and classes. People were simply curious about the situation. After all, it was such an odd occurrence.

“It was a nice ceremony. Christening and the wedding. Both of them did not seem gloomy. Appeared rather starry eyed for the prospects of a night. Each and every moment of their once-in-life night will be sucked by them with infinite greed and grandeur!”  the lewd character in Cassin appeared a bit toned down under the gravity of the ironical incident.

Her beauty shone even more vigorously on Robertson’s dazed face. Hiding in the holds she and the deserter talked hesitatingly. But their looks told more than any talk could ever have done. They had a light intake of biscuits and bread. She but had eaten a bigger morsel of freedom. But was it really freedom? She had her doubts. She felt uprooted from all her past. A new life was beckoning. It takes some time to come to terms with your redefined self. All this was unreal like a dream to her. She was gripped by contradictory emotions. The proud female in her knew that her charms had seduced a white man to the extent of turning him a traitor to his people. But here was the man who had killed her lover in a duel. This though would create a stifling admance in her demeanour. She felt like she had cheated her former lover by eloping with his slayer. But wasn’t it revenge to uproot him from his identity and take him on an unknown course. He had lost his identity for her. Too big a sacrifice she thought. Despite best of her efforts she couldn’t hate him from the core of her heart. In eloping with her he had literally accepted a death sentence if ever caught in the path of law. She hated him—the one who had killed her lover—less than any other Englishmen. She tried to convince herself to hate him and take revenge upon him whenever a suitable chance arrived. But hadn’t he killed him in a fight, an instrument where the deed escapes the categorisation of evil or good deed. The warrior in her knew that he was no sinner in killing somebody in a straight fight. 

Like the beautiful flower sipping few sips of dew and few quantum of sunlight to shine brightly for the world, she was catching at the slightest straws of hope, of real freedom, of dignity, of respect. She hated the Englishmen. She even hated Robertson for being one of them. But he had cast away literally his whole identity, his British self, to get her freedom, to elope with her. She wanted to love him for this sacrifice. But all this had been too quick, nightmarishly beyond her belief. So she was too shocked to have a logical sense of her position.

Robertson knew that by eloping with her he had opened all avenues of the unsparing law of his land. “I will marry her and raise my family at some nondescript colony in Africa under a new identity,” his brain was now settling down to a scheme for the future.

As a court dancer she knew the rules of etiquette and courtesy. And when she sat impassively these just oozed out of her in all their silent majesty. Robertson’s shaken and turbulent mind suddenly flashed a vivid image of her fiancé. The image went crackling like a thunderbolt across his being. He remembered how she had sat sewing by the window and he hovered around blowing love kisses. But only love knows its real cooings; its criteria of right and wrong; its choice of one over the other. His aching heart knew that he loved Swapnasundri more than anything and anybody in the world now. Some hidden instinct vaguely settles the predicament regarding any judgemental thought regarding the morality of right or wrong. When you know your truth, you stand by it, and it supports you in return despite all the apparent proofs of your wrongdoing. If not for this, he would not have had the courage and heart to cut all his past, all his identity in one single stroke with a single soulful stroke of love-sabre.

Both of them carried bigger storms inside them than the sea outside. The heaving events had shaken them to the core of their basic values. They remained numb for almost two days. Life but is too impulsive and slowly takes us back in its exciting folds. She was looking at his handsome features. Here was a man who had forsaken his identity for her. More importantly he hadn’t tried to win her over physically in lieu of all the losses he had accrued. She could see that it was real love from his side. He had been so caring, so respectful, and so decent in his manners. Still unsure about her feelings she moved to him and surrendered her much coveted body out of her free will. The fury of all her contradictory pathos oozed out from her rosy lips. She kissed him so forcefully as if to subdue any voice stopping her from moving ahead. He melted under the heat of her passion. She showered all her warrior self in making love. She wanted to forget her past. He reciprocated with equal fury of flesh. Deep in the whirlpools of her oriental sensuality he forgot all fear and apprehensions. After the storm was over their perspiring faces and dreamy eyes said much more than what could be expressed through words. In the sleepy grandeur and after-glow of love-making he whispered in his broken native language to explain the real cause of her former lover’s death. She sobbed on his chest. He caringly grasped her wheatish back and kissed her dark hair to assure that he really loved her.

It was the seventh day of their journey. There on the bosom of the Indian Ocean the ever unfolding naval intrigues between the Britishers and the French were far more treacherous than the strongest storm the sea could let loose.

It was the brightest of a noon. The ship’s fate came in the compass of a notorious French Privateer. His fathomless character of sea adventure could not stop him from an attempt at piracy in broad daylight. That was how privateers, pirates, and commission holders on both sides functioned in multiple roles ranging from waging wars, committing piracy and trading, all depending on the most suitable chance. Even before the man with telescope perched on the watch-ring at the top mast could shout warning instructions the attacker came hurtling dangerously. It was a wooden behemoth; a type of modified carack for long and lugubrious warfare; to wear and tear the enemy through stamina rather than swiftness. It was lethal as this large ship of burden approached furtively from the front. They tried their best to escape. But the wind was such that their escape was thwarted and the enemy’s approach was aided. The seaman at the capstan got panicked at the sight of the Hercules wooden monster which through false display of colours and flags had sneaked so close without raising too much alarm.

Battened down deck hatches were thrown open to coordinate the warring parties on the upper deck and the lower ones handling guns. The engineer who was working on pawl and pintle ran and got busy in loading his musket. The efficiency of the attacked ship can be gauzed from the fact that it was the first one to catapult all armoury stored behind its gunports. Tallow candles in the lovers’ chamber shook at the ship’s recoil. It was poetic justice as lead balls struck the false flag in the first salvo. After the deafening thunder of guns a pall of smoke, silence, and gloom descended on the scene. It was broken by cries of the maimed and shouts of still intact bodies. However, they had missed the opportunity of first strike. They had aimed too high. The hull and decks were almost safe except for inconsequential markings born of grape shots. Then hell was let loose by the enemy ship. It was astute marksmanship. Hawsers and sails went to pieces. Kegs, casks, and barrels on the upper deck were blown into the sea.

Robertson’s reverie was broken. Instinctively his hand touched the ornate pommel of his sword. Rising in a valiant soldierly manner he stepped out. His sword in hand, he moved to his lady love and kissed her lips—a long and passionate kiss. It held them like a magnet and then gasping for breath she had to push his heaving chest to break the floodwaters of his torrential gushing love. Saluting her like she was a queen he ran upstairs. There on the upper deck, despite the havoc wreaked by the enemy’s first strike, the crewmembers and the fighting party all had an iron-willed expression to last till the end of their strength. The steely resolve had been apprenticed in years of being together and having borne agonies and enjoyed ecstasies together. Claymores, swords, sabres, muskets, and pistols appeared livelier than the humans wielding these. The game of death and destruction glared through agonised cries, shouted orders, bursts of volleys, challenging swords, puffs of smoke, and angry volleys of filthiest words. Then the planking under their feet shook as the reloaded muzzles spewed vengeance. Most of it was absorbed into the hull of the enemy ship. But their cheers were short-lived as they saw almost a dozen of skiffs being lowered into the sea with the help of thickest hemp ropes and cables. Now the enemy was diversifying, a clear advantage in naval warfare. The second strike from the enemy went into the hull at the level of water-level holds. Water gushed in as the scattered travelling trunks, oak chests and teak tables came flooding with water. Like an afraid gazelle she too laid her nimble hands on a light sword showcased against the bulkhead and came out of her hiding hole. Moving through knee deep waters she found the seamen furtively manning the pump-handles to siphon out the flooding waters. Her beauty struck them like a hallucinating daydream, but the urgency of the task at hand was such that they had to go back to their work in all attention. The cowering figure of a British lawyer in his bow-tie and winged collar almost dropped on her as he ran downwards from the scene of battle. It was the nasty world of illogical injustices above where his jurisprudence had little relevance. Looking at the sword in her hand, he dropped his eyes, trying to hide his cowardly shame.

With her gazelle-eyed mocking look she seemed to urge him to pick up weapons and fight. She had been in contact with many males, hated majority of them and at the most respected some, but had not loved anybody except for the valiant soldier, the prince of her heart. It was a strange new feeling about Robertson. There was a mysterious sense of goodness about him. She respected him for that. More than her own life she was scared for any danger to him. Possibly she could see her love for him through the deadly gunsmoke. A feeble smile surfaced on her dry lips. It was the most passionate kiss she had ever received in her life. It was lifefully given by somebody almost on the brink of fatality after having negated the very life that defined him. Its effect was seeping into her bosom and heart. Out of wartime excitement her sensuous lips started quivering.

An Italian merchant brig, a small sailing vessel, was fleeting from the scene of war. A couple of nautical miles away, the English captain of a schooner hailed the Italian:

“Witnessed piracy fellow! I suppose the French have drawn one more nail in the coffin of our shipping.”

Pursing his lips into the announcement cone, the Italian hollered back, “Very soon it might be two if you do not take to your heels! It’s again the very same square-rigged three-masted monster! Wonder when will you Englishmen construct something to beat it in strength?!”

The ship mentioned was the crown of French piracy in the Indian Ocean. Without losing any time in commenting on the Italian feedback, the English Captain immediately ordered to change the course of his ship so as to pretend all along his life that he never was near the incident. However, the takeover this time had broken all records of efforts by the French ship. The opponent was a nastily tough nut to crack. Monstrous hull of the attacking ship was tightly secured to the English vessel. Almost the whole of the enemy ship’s fighting crew was now baying for blood on the attacked ship’s deck. The imposing bulk of the notorious French privateer shone in the bow. His splendid seaman’s livery was far more attractive than his coarse features.

His blood-smeared sword that had sliced through many English coats, medallions, and breeches shone triumphantly in the sun. Wearing a black leather eye-path on his decimated eye-socket, he would spare quick side glances with his sole eye, even while his sword cut the enemy’s breast. He relished bloodletting as much as he enjoyed his animalistic forays in the sleazy nightclubs with waitresses, dancers, and harlots. Coffee shops and ale houses in the port cities shook at the news of his arrival like he was some ghastly typhoon.

With the swiftness of a tigress, she finished two opponents. For a moment her resplendent aura brought the fight to a standstill as the bright star off her beauty beat even the sun in dazzling the scene. Lowering her head, the sword held tightly by her nimble fingers, ready to take on any attack from any side, she came fighting in Robertson’s direction. Then hell broke loose again as the enemy fought with reinvigorated strength as if to grab her as the most coveted diamond in the plunder. Of course this living diamond was far more precious than any form of wealth hidden in walnut chests in the holds below.

The more she fought the more she realised her love for him. She wanted to stay with him as his wife and mother of his children. She had forgotten her past. A new life was beckoning her through all this bloodshed. Their eyes met whenever the moments allowed. Her looks gave him all the strength to fight till the last ounce of his strength. He knew that she was fighting for him only. This mere thought gave goosebumps on his wounded body. Winning her heart was even more satisfying than the prospects of making love to her in the lee of rocky outcrops with all her consenting self under him. However, the inevitable that had been delayed for too long happened at last. The English resistance broke as Cassin fell as dramatically as he had lived. Peter Hughes lay half dead at the point where formerly he used to watch his helmsman struggling on the whipstaff. Robert Massey, the free merchant, who had amassed a mound of star pagodas in South India, was babbling his proposals of showering gold on the one-eyed pirate if his life was spared and he was set free at the next halt. Cassin’s French orderly, his hands tied behind, was crying over his master’s body. The big one-eyed hawk was foolishly ogling at the oriental aura clinging to her injured occidental lover. Robertson had been stabbed. Fatally for sure. His face heaving with mortal pain had the cushion support of her soft bosom. Blood was tickling down her slender arm. The Englishman looked deep into her teary eyes and all his pain appeared to subside as a faint smile surfaced on his lips. Her sorrows gushed out through streams of tears. She had been a very strong woman and could decide and choose what happened to her body even though surrounded by unchecked orgies around. But the sight of her dying lover shattered her. She had at last loved him like a woman without any scheme or motivation. She had made love to him just as a prompting of the flesh emotionally guided by overpowering emotions. She had dreamt of spending her life with him without any splendour or luxury. 

“Such diamonds are beyond the laws of piracy,” the pirate thundered in French. “In all illegal honesty and respect for her beauty I make a bid for her favours,” he announced in broken English, hoping she would understand smattering of this language. “If anybody can beat me in price he is welcome to come with the offer,” he threw challenging glances around.

People seemed to take back steps as if to avoid the scorching fury emanating from his eyes. His hand touched the drawstring of the purse hanging by his powder horn. His thick fingers jingled the gold coins. Money for her! Just like any other sellable female would have attracted the lot! The ever-burning lamp of pride in her flared up at the gutsy filthy whiffs of this announcement. Having a deep look into the eyes of her lover she laid him against the deck railing and stood up with full dignity for herself. Nodding to Cassin’s French orderly to follow her she drew her majestic steps, completely undaunted and fiercely feminine, towards the auctioneer.

“How much you can pay for me?” she calmly whispered without any outward sign of rage inside her. Cassin’s orderly, the multilingual artistic French, translated it for the pirate.

“Ho ho my whole ship is at your disposal my queen!” she got the message as he swiped the length of his ship with a movement of his spread out hands.

“This is for my body?” the rage in the depths of her heart was now surfacing through her beautiful eyes.

“Most of it for your body, and some sail bits can be spared for your heart,” he put the end of his sword against her bosom just above where her enraged heart was thumping rapidly.

“But there lies someone who has given all just for this heart,” she tightened her grip around the sword. “My heart is now completely satisfied with the favours it has got. As for the body, you can pay for my corpse!”

She drew all the power stored in her lithe frame and lunged forward, allowing the cold steel to sneak into her real womanly heart. Turning around she had a long look at Robertson now fatally unconscious and slumped on the deck.

She was in death as she had been in life. From beginning to end. Judged either good or bad. Such people who are true to their self, who know their truth, are real characters. She always held her feminine majesty in highest esteem. Even when she deviated from the path, it again was just to maintain the identity of her real self. She never had the slightest doubt about the narcissistic pride and self-respect for herself and lived and died for it.

Extraordinary in the ordinary

Ordinary beings possess extraordinary potential to win against odds, to jump over hurdles, to smile over tears, and, most importantly, to be happy when there aren’t enough reasons to be. They are the faceless constituents of a massive commonality. They are surrounded by a swiping generality. They are coloured in the monochromes of mundane reality. Still they are special. We have to acknowledge and celebrate the extraordinary in the ordinary people. I see heroes and heroines in my simple characters. They fight, and oftentimes fail, but write a little passage in the infinite book of life: an ordinary life that was lived substantially. On the small stage of life, they live very intensely. Somehow, the world would not be the world that is still beautiful without their contribution. They heave humanity onwards in its march to some better destination.