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without quite evoking the Indian The idea of androgyny annexation that leaves Outram with a tradition of ardhnarishwar,23 so cannot with ease be nagging doubt about the morality of Weston mediates between the Court of rendered transparent to a the course of action he must pursue. the Oriental monarch and the His moral confusion stems from two Residency of the European despot. culture, such as that of grounds. First, Wajid Ali’s modes of Not insignificantly, he serves as the nineteenth-century communication and dissent are rather official translator, but his real England, where novel, which is visibly clear in the last endeavor consists in effecting a certain masculinity and femininity meeting between them, when Wajid kind of cultural translation. Wajid Ali occupied clearly Ali, walking over to Outram, hands Shah must be rendered more him his crown while refusing to sign hospitable to the ethos of the soldier. demarcated spheres the treaty which would have stripped To Outram’s astonishment, if not him of his crown. Outram is stunned, annoyance, Weston finds the king to tastes abominable: Outram’s coat, and says curtly that he has no use for be a rather accomplished poet; and three months after his last meeting the crown; the head of this wretch, as when Outram demurs, Weston comes with Wajid Ali, still reeks of the Dalhousie was to put it unabashedly, to the defence of the king with the perfume used by the king, and the would have been better. The coloniser comment that his poems don’t prospect of another interview with him asks of the colonised that if he is to translate well. The suggestion here is is wholly unappealing. “It would be a dissent, he must do so in the undoubtedly that the idea of damned sight more convenient,” says prescribed manner, in accordance with androgyny cannot with ease be Outram, “if he were in purdah too, like codes of rationality to which adult men rendered transparent to a culture, such his womenfolk. At least one would give their adherence.24 Wajid Ali as that of nineteenth-century England, be spared the extreme proximity.” Yet, behaves as might a woman, with a where masculinity and femininity though Wajid Ali cuts a poor figure degree of supposed unpredictability, occupied clearly demarcated spheres. with Outram, the king was and with a gesture that betokens moral Nor is Weston very critical of the unmistakably the “biggest bundle of disapprobation of a man in a position king’s conduct or his other pursuits: contradictions” Outram had ever come of strength who knows no charity. his suggestion that Wajid Ali might across, and quite unlike other Oriental Secondly, as Ashis Nandy has be looked upon as an eccentric king monarchs he had known. What kind suggested, Outram’s discomfort with must not be taken lightly, for here is a of monarch is this who, on the one Wajid Ali arises from the fact that reminder that colonialism acquires the hand, prays five time a day and never Wajid Ali speaks to a side of Outram force that it does precisely because of drinks, and on the other hand keeps that the general has repressed. If its homogenising tendencies, and its “a harem the size of a regiment”, a Outram is troubled by the realpolitik inability to accommodate pluralistic king “who sings, dances, versifies, to which he must subscribe as the and diverse forms of living. Certainly, plays the tom-tom, flies kites from the agent of the British empire, he can Wajid Ali’s propensity towards palace roof and struts around the stage make “peace with his conscience” by feminine conduct is an eccentricity, surrounded by frolicking nautch- reminding himself that such a king, particularly in a world where the girls?” decadent and unmanly, ought never to spheres of masculine and feminine We must not suppose that it is have been on the throne in the first activity are sharply defined. merely the illegality of the impending place.25 Perhaps, on the other hand, Unlike Weston, Outram appears to it is precisely the presence of certain be uncompromisingly hostile to Wajid unpredictable qualities that mark Ali and altogether indifferent to Indian ...here is a reminder that Wajid Ali Shah as a king not only culture, though he is mindful of the colonialism acquires the entitled to rule, but as one uniquely fact that a grave injustice is being force that it does precisely deserving to fill that role. This point committed against Wajid Ali. “We’ve because of its is pressed home by Wajid Ali himself, put up with this nonsense long homogenising tendencies, who displays a supreme confidence in enough,” he tells Weston. “Eunuchs, his own way of life, even while he is fiddlers, nautch-girls and ‘muta’ wives and its inability to torn by uncertainty about the propriety and God knows what else.” Outram accommodate pluralistic of his conduct. In a long monologue finds Wajid Ali’s figure repulsive, his and diverse forms of living. addressed to his ministers, Wajid Ali 48 MANUSHI turns to the Prime Minister, Henceforth, in what constitutes and pointing to the love that one of colonialism’s most his subjects have for him, lasting triumphs, the and the popularity of his heterosexual couple may well songs, he says: “Go and ask entrench itself as the principal the Resident Sahib: how nexus of human relationships many kings of England have in India. Secondly, if one written songs? Ask if Queen recalls Mir’s despondent Victoria has composed songs remark, “If we can’t cope with which her people sing?” our wives, how can we cope The force of his rebuke, I with the British army?”, the must stress, is not merely other inference must perforce rhetorical. It is rather the be that, henceforth, our two case that Wajid Ali has, in jagirdars will be better able to Nandy’s words, “a deeper cope with their wives. The and more wholesome concept of to think that even colonialism was not masculinity of the coloniser would governance”; more pointedly, he does so totalising as to preclude the appear to have triumphed, and the not subscribe to the split between possibility of cultural mediation, and androgynous Krishna of the rasa lila, masculinity and femininity, although it is even possible to the Krishna whose role Wajid Ali is responsibility and playfulness, work maintain that by a strange twist of shown enacting in the prologue of the and leisure, the political and the history, victory is always more film, has yielded to the other Krishna cultural, the realm of politics and the calamitous for the victor than it is for of Indian traditions, the Krishna who realm of poetry, which very much the vanquished, the conclusion to admonishes Arjun to fight like a man. forms part of the ethos of the Ray’s film would belie that reading. As Shatranj ke Khilari tantalisingly coloniser.26 It is to this cleavage that The shot that should have been fired suggests, masculinity may well be Wajid Ali is adverting, and it is to the by Mir Ali at the British is fired at born with modernity and the nation- other side — the repressed, feminine Mirza Ali, and the displacement that state. side — of this split in Outram that he colonialism seeks, as a way of can hope to make some appeal. The entrenching itself into the fabric of the Notes culture of the colonised, has taken cool, steadfast logic of the coloniser 1. This paper was prepared for the Conference is not available to Wajid Ali; nor does place. But worse is to come, for after on “Satyajit Ray: Women, Discourse, and he have the skills of the negotiator who their altercation, Mir and Mirza sit Counter Discourse”, University of California, drives a hard bargain. Wajid Ali will down to resume their great passion. Santa Cruz, 7-8 May 1994. I am grateful to Now the game will be played in the my wife, Anju Relan, for her strenuous efforts hand over his crown, but not sign the in locating a video print of this film for me, new treaty; and so he shows again the Western style: the pawn will move and to my research assistant, Mark Mairot, maddening ambivalence with which two squares in its initial move, and for his timely help in obtaining some of the he can live, incomprehensible to the the queen will take the place of the material used in this paper. bewildered Outram. Wajid Ali lives minister. That coupling, of the king 2. It is in Ghaire Bhaire (The Home and the and his consort, of husband and wife, World, 1982), that Ray finally took on not between the male and the female, colonialism and nationalism. Ray is on but in the interstices between the which could not be effected throughout record as having said that he had wanted to neither-female and the neither-male. the film, now becomes real. make this film for thirty years, but the singular fact remains that nowhere else did Ray himself has said that he was Ray show any engagement with the period “portraying two negative forces, ...in what constitutes one of of colonial rule in India. Nor do any of his voluminous writings, mainly short stories and feudalism and colonialism. You had colonialism’s most lasting science fiction, betray this alleged interest in to condemn both Wajid and Dalhousie. triumphs, the heterosexual the “Raj period”. This was the challenge. I wanted to couple may well entrench 3. Dalhousie’s letters suggest that he was make this condemnation interesting by unreasonably keen on taking Awadh under bringing in certain plus points of both itself as the principal nexus his administration from the outset.

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