The Taj Conspiracy Read online

  THE TAJ

  THE TAJ

  Manreet Sodhi Someshwar

  westland ltd

  Venkat Towers, 165, P.H. Road, Maduravoyal, Chennai 600 095

  No. 38/10 (New No.5), Raghava Nagar, New Timber Yard Layout, Bangalore 560 026

  Survey No. A - 9, II Floor, Moula Ali Industrial Area, Moula Ali, Hyderabad 500 040

  23/181, Anand Nagar, Nehru Road, Santacruz East, Mumbai 400 055

  4322/3, Ansari Road, Daryaganj, New Delhi 110 002

  First published in India by westland ltd 2012

  Copyright © Manreet Someshwar 2012

  All rights reserved

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  ISBN: 978-93-81626-13-9

  Typeset by Arun Bisht

  Printed at Manipal Technologies Ltd., Manipal

  This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, circulated, and no reproduction in any form, in whole or in part (except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews) may be made without written permission of the publishers.

  For my brother and sisters,

  and the conspiracies of childhood.

  And as always, Malvika and Prasanna,

  the loves of my life.

  Agra

  I

  t was the new moon’s thirteenth night in the month of Magha. In the moonless dark, a fine January mist hovered over the Taj Mahal like a veil. A man walked down the pathway to the monument, his jacket collar upturned as he cut his way through the mist that parted—seemingly in deference, or fear. Ahead, the marble edifice loomed in all its splendour, immune to the diaphanous vapours shrouding it, to the cold wind that rose from the river, tearing at it with ghoulish howls, immune as well to the man striding towards it, quicksilver coursing through his body.

  Much like that common metal—the only one that is liquid at room temperature—this man was singular, elusive. Now as he watched the dome, its marble eerily aglow in the moist haze, he reflected on its grandiose beauty. Taj Mahal: a monument to love built by an emperor griefstricken at the loss of his wife. And yet, an emperor with an entire harem for his personal pleasure, inconsolable over the loss of one wife? An edifice of glittering marble inlaid with a filigree of precious stones whose sole use was to house a gloomy mausoleum? The man squared his shoulders and breathed in deeply. How much history lay obscured and sealed under that marmoreal gloss in a centuries-old cover-up?

  History, after all, was written by victors—a rewrite was long overdue. What he knew about the Taj Mahal would divide the nation in two—again.

  Two men sat in the sparse room, in the triangle of warmth provided by a radiation heater glowing red in one corner. They had known each other for some time; there was an easy familiarity in their manner. One of them had brought along biryani for dinner, in two pre-packed Styrofoam containers, having consumed which they sat across from each other, their sated appetites contributing to the genial atmosphere. A little saffroncoloured rice remained in one Styrofoam container, where it now sat congealing, the ghee glazing individual rice grains.

  On the wooden table between them was a celadon plate, blue-grey, a fading floral motif testimony to its age. Outside, the mist hung close to the glass windows, eavesdropping in the colonnaded corridor, spying on the unfolding scene.

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate it. The gardener brought it in. A bored bull dug it up with his hoof!’ He gestured towards the foliage that extended beyond the corridor to a corner where a bullock cart used for lugging material was standing. ‘Can you believe it,’ he laughed, ‘even the bulls of India are archaeologists by nature!’

  ‘Well,’ the man opposite responded, ‘what would you expect, in a land littered with history and artefacts?’

  The first speaker nodded. ‘Much of it, unfortunately, buried over time.’ A curious look passed through his eyes—which the other man noticed—before his customary sanguine expression returned. ‘Here,’ he slid the artefact across the table, ‘take a closer look. Perhaps you want to hazard a guess as to its age?’

  The other man leaned forward, squinting in concentration as he observed the even glaze, the minor chips, the gloss that would shine through after a thorough cleaning. His left hand tugged at his collar as he proceeded with his examination. He licked his lips, jerked backward and started to inhale open-mouthed. His breathing turned rapid, his face reddening as both hands struggled to unbutton his shirt. His eyes became glassy. He stuttered faintly, ‘W-w-what ... help ... d-d-doctor ...’

  The first speaker observed the frantic gesticulations as the man writhed and gasped. With a deliberate slowness, he leaned forward and took the celadon plate. He flipped open the Styrofoam container’s lid, took a pinch of the leftover saffron rice, held it up to the gasping man and then deposited it on the plate. The blue-grey colour bleached into an opaque greyness. A sharp intake of breath punctured the laboured breathing of the other man.

  ‘Honestly,’ the first speaker trilled, ‘for someone with your knowledge, you can be awfully dense at times...’

  Understanding dawned on the writhing man, his hands now attempting to tear at his chest even as he doubled over with the effort to get air into his lungs. In a desperate attempt to stand, he grasped at a wooden chair, the veins in his hands bulging blue.

  ‘A celadon plate,’ the first speaker instructed, his voice carrying censure for an ignorant pupil, ‘also called a poison plate. A handy tool used by the Mughal emperors: prior to each meal, a sample was sprinkled on the plate— even a trace of poison and the plate would change colour. Or—’

  A loud pop sounded as the celadon plate cracked into two jagged halves.

  ‘—break,’ the first speaker completed, pleased with the demonstration. The next instant, the writhing man convulsed, before his head hit the wooden table and his body slumped.

  Pakistan-occupied Kashmir

  H

  igh in the Pir Panjal mountains, snow had come early. The howling wind, piercing at this altitude, smacked it with fury, sending snowflakes shooting in all directions. Some found their way to the mouth of a recess cave where, piling up, they shielded a hidden labyrinth.

  Inside, Jalaluddin, leader of the militant Kashmiri organisation called Islamic Jihad, was in his rock bunker. He squatted on a wool rug, a map spread out in front of him. The large map, almost a square metre in size, showed a meticulously detailed plan of the Taj Mahal, the mausoleum, the twin buildings flanking it, its Charbagh gardens, the riverfront scheme, the four entrance gates. Inserted into the architectural details was precise information about security at the monument, with numbers: metal detectors, barbed-wire barricades, police personnel and vehicles.

  Jalaluddin had been in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence until, one day, they were ordered to sideline the Kashmir cause to ferret out the Saudi sheikh Osama bin Laden. He quit and rallied a force of Islamic Jihadis— IJ as they came to be known. The agenda he set was simple and straightforward, without the bureaucratic baggage of the ISI: liberate Kashmir from Hindu India.

  And in the decade since, Kashmiris had learnt that when all else failed, the person to turn to was the man who had first stood up to the Indian security forces. Two young women who had left home to tend to their family’s apple orchard had gone missing; their battered bodies were found in a stream the next day. The police refused to register a case and fired on the protesting family instead. When news reached Jalaluddin, he left his snowy hideout at night and sought out the girls’ father, from whom he learnt that a shopkeeper with a store near the stream had seen a police truck parked on the bridge and heard women crying for help. Within the following week, five more bodies were found in the stream—all of men in unifor
m, all decapitated. Soon it was public knowledge that the police camps lined along the stream, shielded by razor wire and sandbags, had lost five personnel. And the legend of Jalaluddin was born, a saviour living up to his name by upholding the glory of his faith.

  Now his ex-general, a dreaded ISI man who planned simultaneous peace overtures and terror attacks, had embarked on an outrageous mission and sought his help. As he pictured the marble monument in his mind, Jalaluddin saw rivulets of blood streaking it crimson. He watched the flurry outside with satisfaction: snow had begun early, which was a good omen. It heralded a severe winter, one that would freeze the mountains and kill the kafir soldiers on Kashmir’s slopes.

  Agra

  M

  ehrunisa Khosa parked her car at the designated spot for motor vehicles and decided to walk the one kilometre to the Taj Mahal. In any case, at that hour, predawn, there was no horse carriage or government-operated electric bus to transport her to the monument. Arun Toor, the supervisor, had suggested the time—this way they would get an hour or so before the monument opened to the general public at sunrise. She had left Delhi at two in the morning, and the drive, free of traffic, had taken less than two hours.

  Mehrunisa looped a turquoise Pashmina shawl around her neck, dug her hands into the pockets of her tan leather jacket, and looked around. She had walked this route frequently in the last six months—the Taj was integral to her research, and Arun had proved helpful. And yet she had a feeling of disquiet. The early hour, and the dense fog which swallowed an outstretched arm, had rendered everything unfamiliar.

  She clutched the shawl for reassurance—it had been her mother’s—and it came to her that ‘pashmina’, the Indian word for cashmere, was derived from the Persian ‘pashm’. Mehrunisa’s research on the Persian influences manifest in contemporary India’s architecture, food, language, and culture was ostensibly an attempt to connect with her Persian mother who had succumbed to cancer a year back, but as a child who had grown up between cultures, it was also a search for her identity. Squaring her shoulders, she jutted her chin, holding it at that angle which her father would tease befitted a Persian princess, and started walking.

  At the entrance to the Taj Mahal, a police patrol was dozing. When Mehrunisa had succeeded in waking a policeman and shown him the special pass provided by Arun, he stared at the lone woman, the mist swirling around her, and leered, ‘You want entry?’

  That would have bemused Mehrunisa a year back when the thirty-year-old had moved to Delhi from Florence to live with her godfather, the famed historian Vishwanath Kaul. Professor Kaul was the only scholar the Government of India had permitted to measure the Taj Mahal, a monument he had worked on for most of his fifty-odd years as an art and architectural historian. His book, The Taj, was regarded as a definitive work on the monument.

  Though Indian by nationality, courtesy her Punjabi Sikh father, Mehrunisa had always lived overseas. After her mother’s death, she had decided to live in India for a while, to get to know the country that was supposedly home. The intervening months in Mother India’s lap had recalibrated her bullshit detector, especially with regard to the Indian male. One way to subvert a patriarchal society that had rendered the average man a chauvinist, was to foist class on him—in the hierarchy of Indian prejudices, class and caste were still supreme. The typical male in authority—policeman, government officer, bureaucrat— suffered a feudal mindset, and Mehrunisa, equipped with a fair complexion, hauteur on-demand, and an exotic accent, could project upper caste-class with élan. Holding her five-foot-nine frame erect, with a toss of her black hair and a flash of her grey-green eyes, she punched her mobile phone, feigned a call to the Taj supervisor, and angled the handset towards the policeman, ‘Your boss.’

  The constable recoiled, working the saliva in his mouth; meanwhile, his drowsy companion sat upright. Seeming to recognise her, he straightened his shirtfront and said to his colleague, ‘Why waste time—don’t you recognise Madam? Only yesterday the supervisor mentioned that she’d arrive early.’

  Mehrunisa rewarded him with a smile.

  ‘Inspector Javed, of CISF,’ he said, referring to the Central Industrial Security Force that had been guarding the Taj Mahal since 2002. He got out of the van and motioned her towards the side entrance. With quick steps he marched her to a grille-iron door, where, after a routine security check, he stretched his arm in the direction of the Taj Mahal. A powdery mist mingled with the central canal and shrouded the tree-lined walkway, at the end of which the marble monument, framed by four slender minarets, seemed suspended in ether.

  ‘I’ve seen it daily for five hundred days now—you’d think the effect of its beauty would decrease,’ Inspector Javed said. ‘Forgive my colleague’s behaviour,’ he continued, gesturing in the direction of his vehicle. ‘The Taj is a national treasure. We have to guard it,’ his eyes darkened, ‘from fanatics.’

  Mehrunisa walked down the central walkway towards the mausoleum, the mist ponderous over the gardens, and shivered involuntarily. As a child she had accompanied her godfather to the monument frequently. One summer, however, while exploring the complex, she had stumbled upon a basement room. As she probed the dank interiors, the door clanged shut and no amount of shouting fetched help. Ultimately, she was located at dusk, by which time she had petrified. Thereafter, Mehrunisa had developed a fear of basements, refusing to ever enter one. In an attempt at perspective she acknowledged that fear with a moniker: ‘basement issues’. She cast a glance around: most visitors fixated on the marble monument didn’t realise that a vast labyrinth of rooms, corridors and basement stairways ran beneath their feet. In the Mughal era, the subterranean levels had a functional inner life. Now, they were closed to visitors.

  Inside the mausoleum, at the door that led to the tomb chamber, Mehrunisa paused. It was ajar; Arun had told her he would leave it open before he retired for the night. Beyond lay the paradisiacal house of Mumtaz Mahal, the beloved wife for whom Emperor Shah Jahan had put all elements to work—even sound. The large domed chamber with its perfect acoustics was renowned for one of the longest echoes of any building in the world. She had seen visitors test it with their screams during the day, ignoring the need for repose amidst the tombs. Until now Mehrunisa had only heard about the ‘sound of infinity’—now she waited to experience it. It was an unusual privilege accorded to the first visitor: as soon as the person walked in, vibration caused by air moving through the huge ventilated dome reverberated through the room. Now, with eager anticipation, Mehrunisa stepped inside and shut her eyes. A faint whoosh filled the air. Mehrunisa glided across the room, the sound trailing her every movement. It transported her to the snow-clad Zagros mountains, standing atop a summit, one hand clasped in each of her parents’, as in the quiet they heard the mountain breathe. A smile lit her lips—it was magical! She stood still, the sound getting fainter with each ripple, until the sacred moment was over and she opened her eyes.

  The large hall, together with the tomb chamber over the actual burials below and the outer dome above, was the Taj Mahal’s core. A bronze lamp hanging above the cenotaphs cast a golden glow. During the day nobody noticed the lamp, even fewer were aware of its romantic history. A gift from Lord Curzon, a viceroy of British India, it was inlaid with silver and gold, and modelled on the design of a lamp that hung in the mosque of Sultan Beybars II of Cairo. The story went that on a visit to the Taj, Lord Curzon was so dismayed by the smoky country lanterns used by his guides to show him around, that he resolved to present the Taj with worthy lighting. For a century now, Mehrunisa reflected, an Englishman’s love had illuminated the imperial Mughal tomb.

  The faint light filtered into the main chamber through the marble filigree screens that formed an octagonal periphery around the two cenotaphs. The marble was cold beneath her woollen socks and Mehrunisa curled her toes. A quick glance at her wristwatch showed 4.30 a.m.—at best, she had an hour-and-a-half or two before she had company. She intended to spend the time studying the exquisite pie
tra dura on the cenotaphs in the tomb chamber, an impossible task during regular hours. Access to the tombs through the marble screens was through a low gate. It was closed to the public, but Arun had promised to open it for her.

  Where was he? She scanned the entrance doorway— Arun should be joining her any time. Perhaps he was preparing tea in his office near the great gate, inside the Darwaza-i-Rauza? Tea would be good in this chill, Mehrunisa acknowledged as she dug into her voluminous Birkin bag for a torch. Depositing her bag in a corner, she switched the torch on.

  Its powerful beam cut a yellow swathe through the chamber as Mehrunisa approached the gate in the marble screen. Mumtaz Mahal’s cenotaph was in the middle, as per the original plan. However, on his death, Shah Jahan was buried alongside his wife and his cenotaph rested next to her, disrupting the famed perfect symmetry of the Taj. The original tombs were in a basement chamber below, a common practice in mausoleums of the period. Mehrunisa shone her torchlight on the cenotaphs, eager to get into the hallowed space—and her heart contracted. She sucked in her breath.

  How had she failed to see it?

  A body lay on the marble floor beside Mumtaz’s tomb. Motionless. Mehrunisa moved her torch in a shaky arc, trying to focus the light on the supine body. As it revealed the face, a scream tore from her throat. The cry sailed up the soaring marble dome, rebounding in a powerful echo. Arun had first demonstrated to her the high-domed chamber’s remarkable acoustics, saying her name loudly, so all around her had cascaded, like droplets, nisa-isa-sasa. Now her scream fell on her like shards as, six feet away, she saw Arun Toor, dead, his blood streaking the marble floor crimson.

  Agra

  T