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would be in River Town long after we would be gone. They, like the monkeys, were permanent residents of the town. We were only transients. I felt the pull of the ocean’s rip tide once again and decided not to struggle, to let myself be pulled along by that sweet feeling of helplessness that obliterates an otherwise individual sense of impending doom.

A KBAR’S H AREM

    L OCAL VILLAGERS MAINTAINED that Akbar The Great, the 16th Century Mogul Emperor of India, liked to stay in a village near River Town on his way to hunt tigers and other wild game in the jungle just north of the village. He liked to bring his harem of women and even built a small palace for them, called the rang mahal (colored palace,), where the women could sit behind a screen, enjoy the fresh country air and gaze out on the village activities without being seen behind the screen. I heard this story, or some version of it (some claiming it was Akbar’s son, not Akbar himself) from different people and was anxious to see for myself what remained of the palace.
    There were many remains from the Muslim past in River Town, all woven in with elements from the present. Muslim armies passed by River Town, traveling along the old badshahi sarak (King’s Road), near River Town, leaving their cultural and linguistic footprints behind them. Signs on shops in the bazaar were still mainly written in Urdu, the Persian script brought to north India by the Muslim invaders. The older shopkeepers still read Urdu newspapers, while their sons and daughters, often unable to read or write a word in Urdu, conversed in Hindi or Punjabi, and did their school work in Hindi. Everywhere one looked, the earlier influences of the Muslims were apparent in dress, speech and architecture, though most Muslims fled the town in 1947, during the Partition of India into India and Pakistan. Those who fled were replaced by Hindu merchants and Sikhs who fled Pakistan and settled into life in River Town. The language of the marketplace became a mixture of Hindi, Urdu and Punjabi.
    When the rains let up and a cool breeze dried up the roads, Roshan and I set out to find “Akbar’s Palace.” We rode tandem on my new India made bicycle, a sturdy balloon tired model, heavy but indestructible and well suited for the rough village roads. There was a rack on the back where one could sit side-saddle, while the other person pumped the pedals. We fought our way down the lane leading out of River Town and into the fresh air of the countryside. The villages looked lush from the rains, with tall stalks of sugarcane ripening for the Fall harvest. Other crops, mainly wheat, grains and vegetables would be planted and then harvested in the Spring. The villages were mostly occupied by Rajputs and Jats, the main agricultural castes in the villages around River Town.
    Every mile or so, Roshan and I switched places. My legs burned when it was my turn to pedal, but Roshan urged me on from his perch on the rack over the rear fender. Finally, we reached a village of tumbling down houses and crumbling mud walls. As soon as we entered the village, we were swarmed by a gang of young kids tagging along at our heels and asking questions. We asked to be taken to the village headman’s house, where we introduced ourselves. As usual, the introduction involved an account of some relative of Roshan’s who had a connection to the village sometime in the past. The headman pulled out two chairs for us to sit on, while he sat on a charpoi and continued to suck on his hooka (water pipe). Between long drags on the pipe, he filled us in on details of the village past, explaining that the village had once been the home of opulent Hindu merchants and skilled Muslim artisans who made musical instruments for the Mogul court in Delhi. It was also, the headman maintained, the birthplace of the legendary Birbal and, though a Hindu, an important advisor to Akbar The Great. Birbal was a man known for his wit and