IT is the year 1784. There lives Kamla, a handmaiden to the Queen of Awadh. She rushes home while her friend Mehru goes to see her cousin Nuruddin, an efficient Nazir-i-Mahal, participate in a wrestling bout against a foreigner. Nuruddin suffers defeat. Suddenly there appears a dark stranger Jawahar Ali Khan who floors the foreign wrestler.
Meanwhile Nawab Asaf-ud-Daula tries to woo his wife, the Begum who, he fears has lost interest in him. Seeing the drought and starvation in the kingdom the Begum tells her husband to build a large imambara, the construction of which would provide work and food to the workers. The idea appeals to the Nawab.
Haidar Baig Khan is a Turkish minister in the Nawab’s court and he wants to snatch the throne from the Nawab. He is not averse to seeking help from an angrez, John Bristow, Resident of the East India Company, to help him in his machinations.
Nuruddin meanwhile goes to see his ailing uncle, who is also the foster-father of Kamla. The bedridden uncle gives his adopted nephew a pouch of jewellery which is to be given to Kamla at her marriage and a scroll which is to be read only after his death. Nazir leaves for Lucknow and is waylaid by a robber on the way. Nuruddin overcomes them and saves the life of a darvesh who has fallen prey to the robbers.
After saving his cousin Kamla from the British Resident and gets her married to his best friend. He leaves the city forever to go out in the world as a darvesh. -MG
(Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi – 110017.)
