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Authors: William Dalrymple
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all …’
‘Ten tons? Of silver?’
‘That’s what they say,’ replied Suleiman dreamily. He looked at his watch. It was nearly three o’clock and his absent lunch was clearly on his mind. ‘Ten tons … though it’s probably exaggerated. Certainly everything valuable was taken: even the chairs were stripped of their silver backing.’
‘Were the guards in league with the robbers?’
‘The case is still going on. It’s directed against some poor character who got caught: no doubt one of the minnows who had no one to protect him.’
Suleiman walked over to the window and shouted some instructionsin Urdu down to the servants in the courtyard below.
‘I’ve asked them to bring some bottled water. I can’t drink the water here. My stomach – you’ve no idea the hell I’ve been through with it, the pain. I have to keep taking these terrible antibiotics. I’ve been to specialists, but they can’t do anything.’
Shortly afterwards the bearer reappeared. There was no bottled water, he said. And no, Rajah Sahib, the
khana
was not yet ready. He shuffled out backwards, mumbling apologies.
‘What are these servants doing?’ said Suleiman. ‘They can’t treat us like this.’
He began to pace backwards and forwards through the ruination of his palace, stepping over the chunks of plaster on the floor.
‘I get terrible bouts of gloom whenever I come here,’ he said. ‘It makes me feel so tired – exhausted
internally
.’
He paused, trying to find the right words: ‘There is … so much that is about to collapse: it’s like trying to keep a dike from bursting. Partly it’s because I don’t live here enough … But it preys on my mind wherever I am. I feel overwhelmed at even the thought of this place.’
He paused again, raising his hands in a gesture of helplessness: ‘I simply can’t see any light at the end of
any
of the various tunnels. Each year I feel that it is less and less worth struggling for. Sometimes the urge just to escape becomes insupportable – just to leave it all behind, to take a donkey and some books and disappear.
‘Come,’ he said, suddenly taking my arm. ‘I can’t breathe. There’s no air in this room …’
The Rajah led me up flight after flight of dark, narrow staircases until we reached the flat roof at the top of the fort. From beyond the moat, out over the plains, smoke was rising from the early-evening cooking fires, forming a flat layer at the level of the treetops. To me it was a beautiful, peaceful Indian winter evening of the sort I had grown to love, but Suleiman seemed to see in it a vision of impending disaster. He was still tense and agitated, and the view did nothing to calm him down.
‘You see,’ he explained, ‘it’s not just the
qila
that depresses me. It’s what is happening to the people. There was so much that could have been done after Independence, when they abolished the holdings of the
zamindars
who were strangling the countryside. But all that happened was the rise of these criminal politicians: they filled the vacuum and they are the role models today. Worse still, theirs are the values – if you can call them values – to which people look up: corruption, deception, duplicity, and crude, crass materialism. These are seen to be the avenues to success.
‘The world that I knew has been completely corrupted and destroyed. I go in to fits of depression when I see the filth and dirt of modern Lucknow and remember the flowers and trees of my youth. Even out here the rot has set in. Look at that monstrosity!’
Suleiman pointed to a thick spire of smoke rising from a sugar factory some distance away across the fields.
‘Soft powder falls on the village all day from the pollution from that factory. It was erected illegally and in no other country would such a pollutant be tolerated. I spoke to the manager and he assured me action was imminent, but of course nothing ever happens.’
‘Perhaps if you went back in to
‘Ten tons? Of silver?’
‘That’s what they say,’ replied Suleiman dreamily. He looked at his watch. It was nearly three o’clock and his absent lunch was clearly on his mind. ‘Ten tons … though it’s probably exaggerated. Certainly everything valuable was taken: even the chairs were stripped of their silver backing.’
‘Were the guards in league with the robbers?’
‘The case is still going on. It’s directed against some poor character who got caught: no doubt one of the minnows who had no one to protect him.’
Suleiman walked over to the window and shouted some instructionsin Urdu down to the servants in the courtyard below.
‘I’ve asked them to bring some bottled water. I can’t drink the water here. My stomach – you’ve no idea the hell I’ve been through with it, the pain. I have to keep taking these terrible antibiotics. I’ve been to specialists, but they can’t do anything.’
Shortly afterwards the bearer reappeared. There was no bottled water, he said. And no, Rajah Sahib, the
khana
was not yet ready. He shuffled out backwards, mumbling apologies.
‘What are these servants doing?’ said Suleiman. ‘They can’t treat us like this.’
He began to pace backwards and forwards through the ruination of his palace, stepping over the chunks of plaster on the floor.
‘I get terrible bouts of gloom whenever I come here,’ he said. ‘It makes me feel so tired – exhausted
internally
.’
He paused, trying to find the right words: ‘There is … so much that is about to collapse: it’s like trying to keep a dike from bursting. Partly it’s because I don’t live here enough … But it preys on my mind wherever I am. I feel overwhelmed at even the thought of this place.’
He paused again, raising his hands in a gesture of helplessness: ‘I simply can’t see any light at the end of
any
of the various tunnels. Each year I feel that it is less and less worth struggling for. Sometimes the urge just to escape becomes insupportable – just to leave it all behind, to take a donkey and some books and disappear.
‘Come,’ he said, suddenly taking my arm. ‘I can’t breathe. There’s no air in this room …’
The Rajah led me up flight after flight of dark, narrow staircases until we reached the flat roof at the top of the fort. From beyond the moat, out over the plains, smoke was rising from the early-evening cooking fires, forming a flat layer at the level of the treetops. To me it was a beautiful, peaceful Indian winter evening of the sort I had grown to love, but Suleiman seemed to see in it a vision of impending disaster. He was still tense and agitated, and the view did nothing to calm him down.
‘You see,’ he explained, ‘it’s not just the
qila
that depresses me. It’s what is happening to the people. There was so much that could have been done after Independence, when they abolished the holdings of the
zamindars
who were strangling the countryside. But all that happened was the rise of these criminal politicians: they filled the vacuum and they are the role models today. Worse still, theirs are the values – if you can call them values – to which people look up: corruption, deception, duplicity, and crude, crass materialism. These are seen to be the avenues to success.
‘The world that I knew has been completely corrupted and destroyed. I go in to fits of depression when I see the filth and dirt of modern Lucknow and remember the flowers and trees of my youth. Even out here the rot has set in. Look at that monstrosity!’
Suleiman pointed to a thick spire of smoke rising from a sugar factory some distance away across the fields.
‘Soft powder falls on the village all day from the pollution from that factory. It was erected illegally and in no other country would such a pollutant be tolerated. I spoke to the manager and he assured me action was imminent, but of course nothing ever happens.’
‘Perhaps if you went back in to
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