The Magic of Saida (17 page)

“Here, take this notebook. Do you know how to write?”

“Yes, Ji, I can write very well.”

“Can you count?”

The young man nodded and rolled his head side to side: of course.

“Whose son are you?” Tharia demanded. Punja explained his background, and was abruptly told, “Let’s go. Come with me. Get on the boat, we’re going to check out that dhow from Kutch.”

When Punja’s story would be related many years later, it was always to present him as a simple yet independent soul, who left all
and went away to seek a destiny in Africa. He was an ordinary guy, capable but not especially brave or pious. The moment he met Tharia Topan his course, set initially for him by Sidi Sayyad, was further directed as by a firm but friendly wind; the great man offered him employment as a clerk. Some years later Punja Devraj was Tharia Topan’s chief assistant, an influential man in his own right, and as incorruptible as his master.

Down the street from his house, as a grateful businessman, Punja endowed a mosque in honour of Sidi Sayyad of Singpur. It came to be called the mosque of Saidi Puri, and on the special day of that saint, a goat was slaughtered and cooked for a feast. On that occasion, Punja might say to his friends and neighbours that Saidi Puri had returned home. He would relate his oft-told story of his journey on foot through the great Gir forest to pay homage to the saint; he would relate the miracle of the goat; and embellishing a little he would tell of a strange incident involving a lion from the forest. The story went as follows. On his way back home from the shrine of Singpur that fateful day, as evening fell, Punja sat by the roadside under a tree to say his prayers and eat what remained of his roti and pickle. He was nervous; all was quiet around him save for the whisperings from the swaying branches overhead. Suddenly Punja heard a roar that startled him—and saw in the near distance the silhouette of a lion, its face turned directly towards him. Terrified, Punja first called on the name of Imam Ali, whose symbol was also a lion, and then he took the name of Sidi Sayyad. The lion gave another, gentler roar and walked away into the dusk. Who could it have been but Sidi Sayyad himself come to wish him bon voyage! Punja Devraj stood up and resumed his journey without fear.

One afternoon, some fifteen years after Punja’s arrival in Zanzibar, he was summoned to the palace. Upon arrival at the royal house, which looked out at the harbour, he was made to wait in the cavernous lobby, before being taken upstairs to the receiving room to see the sultan. The room was on the front side of the building. Said Bargash, whose father had moved the capital of his Arab empire from Oman to Zanzibar in 1837, was seated on his upholstered chair, making
use of the carved armrests. On either side of him stood a Baluchi soldier. The other notables, sitting before the king in two rows, discreetly stood up and walked away outside to the corridor to murmur among themselves.

“Punja Devraj, I have a mission for you,” the sultan droned after the greetings, in a toneless, tired voice, and flicked his prayer beads as he did so. He was dressed in a black outer coat over a white frock, with thin gold embroidery running down the front, and a green-and-black turban with specks of gold. His ceremonial dagger was tucked in at the belt. His eyes probed the Indian who stood before him.

Punja Devraj was a small, thin man still in his thirties, dressed in European-style trousers and a white linen coat, with a black fez on his head. Along with other island notables he had been in the sultan’s presence during the annual Eid and Maulidi festivals, close enough on a few occasions to bow before him.

“I am your servant, Your Highness,” he replied quickly to the sultan.

Punja was a nervous man at that moment. A sultan was a sultan, no matter what; he deserved loyalty, especially from a Muslim. He was a commander of the faithful and his name was invoked at Friday prayers. But he was of a family that were a breed apart in every way and full of intrigues and whims. For the most part they left you alone to do your business, and to run your private life. You were advised to let it stay that way. The men were arrogant; their women haughty—and diverse, and beautiful, Arabs, Africans, green-eyed Circassians. When they passed you on the streets, in their gleaming silks, their faces covered, attendants by the side and behind them, you respectfully but hastily greeted them, and the slaves bowed down to the ground. A man could be stopped and whipped on the spot on the mere suspicion of disrespect. The princes were often at daggers drawn, moreover, when you avoided them and their worthless hangers-on even more. Bargash himself had not long ago attempted to wrest the throne from his brother Majid, and when he failed he was forced into exile in Bombay. Tharia Topan had accompanied him. But Tharia was a powerful man.

“Tharia recommended you as trustworthy,” the sultan continued, “and I trust Tharia.”

“I will be happy to serve, Your Highness,” Punja replied.

The sultan’s eyes fixed thoughtfully upon Punja, while the brown beads in his hands clicked their uneven beat.

“The matter is urgent,” Said Bargash said finally, with an ever so slight change in the voice. “And it is secret. We cannot play our hand openly—or else Allah knows what will be this island’s fate.”

Punja was well aware of the king’s troubles, as who was not, even the lowliest servant on this island. They were of concern to the town’s eminent citizens, the businessmen, who worried about its future and their fortunes, and they were the talk in the gatherings of immigrants in their temples and mosques. Zanzibar was in the midst of a crisis, your barber would tell you that. The way of life long known on the coast was under threat because a different and powerful race of people, hitherto only casual visitors in these parts, had arrived in numbers, bearing arms and with intentions. The once energetic sultan, who had returned from exile with ideas of greatness, was losing control to Europe. While Punja had been waiting downstairs in the lobby, a tall, bearded Scotsman, as well known to all Zanzibaris as the palace building itself, had come down the stairs from the royal presence. On his long face was the genial smile that could have said anything. Dr. John Kirk was the British Consul.

Yes, Sultan Bargash had his worries. The grey in his full beard was of recent vintage, as were the bags under his eyes that gave him the rather mournful new look. Now his sister Princess Salme was in town, and five German warships had their guns trained on the palace.

Two decades ago, the princess had had a scandalous affair with a German businessman; bearing his child, she had escaped in a British ship to Europe, where she had become a Christian and married the man, called Ruete. On her native island she could have been executed on two counts. Now she was back to make demands upon her brother, protected by the warships. Dressed like a European, the woman walked about freely and arrogantly, accompanied by her half-breed, gawked at by the public. There were factions in the palace and among the clergy who demanded Islamic justice for her adultery and her apostasy. The sultan could do nothing. It was likely that Dr. Kirk had come to discuss these developments regarding the princess and the warships.

The sultan said, “You saw the mzungu, Kirk, walk out of this hall as you came in. He is our protector, as you know.” He paused. “But beware when a wolf appoints himself your protector.”

And beware when a sultan tells you secrets. Due to what was he, Punja Devraj of Verawal and now of Zanzibar, a trader of modest achievement, privileged to hear politics from the sultan?

“The Europeans have their eyes on our territory,” Sultan Bargash said. “The whole of Africa Masharik. Like bandits they have swooped down upon us. The mainland, all along the coast from Mombasa down to Kilwa and Lindi, and way into the interior up to Tabora and Ujiji, has been under us, the Omanis. But the Europeans have the guns. They will take it. I have been assured that this island will not be touched, and perhaps the mainland coast. I want to send you to Kilwa, my friend. I want you to reassure my subjects in Kilwa and the coastal regions to the south that their welfare is very much upon my mind. And I want you, Punja Devraj, to be the new ambassador and customs collector in Kilwa. Will you leave Zanzibar and go to Kilwa on my behalf?”

So this was it. Not a question but a command. A promotion and a trust, but also an exile.

“Yes, Your Highness,” Punja replied. “I will go on your behalf and reassure your subjects. And I will collect customs duties. Rest assured that your flag will keep flying high on the coast.”

“As God wills. You are a good man, Punja. I can see that. I will have a letter prepared for my Vali in Kilwa. He may be forced to return to Zanzibar—for a short time, if God wills—but you should remain. And shortly I will also send an eminent man to see you. He will tell you of matters that I cannot know about.”

As I gather and construct this history of my shadowy ancestor, I cannot but be awed by the prospect—how precarious yet true it appears, how necessary it is. My life as a child had begun and ended with my mother, whom I lost, who would occasionally release to me tantalizing snippets of information, always ending with the formula “And God knows the rest.” My father’s antecedents she had turned into characters out of the
Arabian Nights
. Only Mzee Omari, the poet, had hinted at Punja Devraj’s life and activities in Kilwa, but that story
was tied into a knot involving the poet’s own shame, and he was not going to reveal it all. That so much of our history lies scattered in fragments in the most diverse places and forms—fading memories, brief asides or incidentals in books and in archives—is lamentable, but at least they exist. All we need do is call up the fragments, reconfigure the past.

Once on a visit to Los Angeles, at a literary soiree of East Africans—a gathering where the samosas and chai were as important as the book reading—I came across a Zanzibari instructor of Swahili at the university, who happened to be a descendant of Tharia Topan, the customs master who had summarily hired my great-grandfather at the docks and later in all good faith had him sent to Kilwa to meet his fate, and make mine. Thus our scattered selves—precious and rare like the rarest of stones.

The man who came to see Punja Devraj at his home was a tall, charismatic figure in the crisp white kanzu and white kofia of a pious Muslim. He was more African than Arab, with a rich and scraggly glistening black beard that rather became him; he spoke in a full voice, and his pleasant smile revealed an attractive set of even white teeth. His name was Wasim, and he was a follower of Sheikh Ayesi of Somalia. That sheikh was a Sufi teacher worshipped by many in Zanzibar. Every time he arrived on the island, his followers received him with much ceremony and bore him away on a palanquin, singing, playing music, and bearing flags. It was in one such procession that Punja had seen Wasim, striding cheerfully alongside his master’s lifted carriage. The Sufis achieved their piety through devotion to their sheikh and following his teachings. They met in the evenings for their dhikri, or chanting sessions, during which they invoked the name of God. The power of that holy chant,
La ilaha illallah
, recited in ecstatic unison, was mesmerizing, and often just enough to attract many to these mystical orders. But in these dark times, Wasim told him, the aim of the Sufi orders in Africa and in India and in the Middle East was also to preserve Islamic ways from corruption by the Europeans, and therefore to take measures to throw off the yoke of foreign colonialism, and moreover to spread Islam in regions where it had not taken root.

Even the sultan, said Wasim, was a follower of Sheikh Ayesi.

“I hear you,” said Punja. “But what can ordinary folk like us do who do not bear arms or have the ear of sultans?”

“When you get to the mainland,” said Wasim, “be sure to give support to our people who are resisting the white man. This is a jihad. Soon we may be able to drive the infidel out.”

Punja said he would do all he could to support the cause of the sultan.

By this time, Punja had two wives. His Indian bride Sherbanoo had followed him to Zanzibar, bringing with her their young son. Meanwhile, in the manner of other men, he had also married a second wife, a local Arab woman called Zara. By these two wives he had a total of six children. He left all of them in Zanzibar to set himself up in Kilwa.

It was a placid little town that suddenly appeared in the distance edging a harbour, embraced from the left and right by dark green forests of tall, slim mangroves. As the kidau, the small dhow, sailed in, the white seafront shimmered against the morning sunlight, the building to the farthest left much bigger and higher than the rest, evidently the administrative quarters, the boma. The dhow anchored, and Punja alighted onto one of the boats which had arrived to row the passengers to the shore. As he came ashore and climbed up to the landing at the town square, a thickset figure stirred from amidst the waiting crowd and pushed forward to greet him. The man looked eerily familiar.

“Punja Devraj,” said the man, “welcome to our town. God bless. We have been eagerly waiting for you.”

They stared at each other, a twinkle in the other man’s eyes.

Punja returned the greeting, then asked: “You wouldn’t be … you were not at …?”

“Singpur!” they shouted at once then burst out laughing. What a coincidence!

Kassu Ghulamu, for that was the man’s name, had been present that day many years ago at the shrine of Sidi Sayyad in Singpur, a younger member of the large party which had come to seek help for their sick child. Punja had observed him at the communal meal as one who had stayed in the background and kept silent. He had seemed the same age as Punja was. The sick girl was healed and was now the mother of his five children, Kassu proudly informed Punja.

“You were not expecting me, by any chance?” Punja asked. “Or do you go to greet every dhow that arrives?”

“Word travels, but we also come to greet new arrivals. And besides, a certain Sufi has spoken well of you.”

“His name wouldn’t be Wasim?”

“He comes by.”

Kassu too had resolved that day in Singpur to go to Africa. “When I saw your interest, Punja Bhai,” he said, leading the way into the town, “when I saw the light shine in your eyes as you heard of this place called Zanzibar, I knew right there that you were headed for Africa. That resolve came to me too, but slowly.”