Song of the Dervish by Meher Murshed

Author:Meher Murshed
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9789386432056
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2019-12-06T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12

Soaring with Angels

The forbidden red ruby and song

My verses, says Amir Khusro, were on everyone’s lips. Musicians put tunes to his words; and even bent old men flew into ecstasy on hearing those melodies.

But how did this all happen? How did he blossom into this genius? Khusro’s master, Nizamuddin’s journey started when he got that call one night when he was at the mosque. He knew he had to go to Baba Farid. That meeting changed Nizamuddin’s life. He would serve the poor for the rest of his life and realise his Maker. Khusro, on the other hand, was nurtured in the home of his father, a soldier, and his grandfather, the army minister of the sultan — the shadow of the sword hung over the child’s cradle. Why did the old man with a gift for prophecy say the baby Khusro would grow into a man of words who would be two steps ahead of the poet Khaqani? A baby born to a soldier and raised by the chief of the army was more likely to wield the sword. But Khusro was different. Destiny gave him words that would take him to another world — there he would compose verse. The child was a prodigy, weaving rhyme after rhyme. The old man could see something no one could. The boy was growing up to be an artist who could paint with words, a weaver of tapestry of poems laced with Divine emotion.

There was a noble, Malik Chajju, a nephew of the sultan Balban, who was lifted into raptures on listening to Khusro’s compositions. Chajju loved the arts, and once gave away all the horses in his stable to a poet, Shamsi-e-Muin, who had sung his praises. Khusro, about 20, was too young to enter the sultan’s court, but instead, entered the services of Chajju. Times were turning. The poet was also coming to terms with the death of his maternal grandfather, Imad-ul-Mulk. The palace was in grief, the Turks were mourning and even the Brahmans were weeping. With Imad-ul-Mulk’s loss, Khusro now only had his mother. Nizamuddin still had not made the call. Chajju’s court had. And that’s where Khusro went.

Sultan Balban had become a conservative king, but his nobles were still leading the high life. The smell of perfume filled their courts and the forbidden red ruby flowed incessantly as did Khusro’s words. Chajju was happy and so was Khusro, who thrilled his master with the verses he composed. But because Balban had become stern and did not entertain revelry, the parties at these princely courts had to be held on the sly. Bughra Khan, the sultan’s son, came to one of these parties thrown by Chajju. A lover of verses himself, Bughra Khan brought along two gems of his court, the great poet, Shamsuddin Dabir whom Khusro greatly respected, and Qadi Athir.

The evening was set alight with verses; the princes were spellbound. The poets, feeding off the delirious audience, took their art to higher and higher realms.

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