Summary
Chapter 5
Mir Nihal gets used to retired life, and picks up some old hobbies, including medicine and alchemy. Friends with the same interests now visit him often to compare notes. His friend Mir Sangi brings Molvi Dulhan, a mystic who has dedicated his life to God, to see Mir Nihal. As it turns out, he also has an interest in alchemy. He tells a story about having encountered a faqir when he was younger. The faqir told him where he could find a flower that would complete a prescription seen on the southern gate of Jama Masjid mosque. With its help, one could supposedly create gold. Though he searched for the flower in the location he was told to look for it, he never found it. Mir Nihal replies with a story about his uncle, who had been an alchemist. He had gone to visit him, and met an ironsmith who had become an apprentice to his uncle. The ironsmith also told him of a flower that would help him create gold. He brought Mir Nihal to a hill, and crawling on their hands and knees like cats stalking prey, they searched for a flower that would occasionally glow in the dark. Seeing one light up, the ironsmith grabbed it, and brought it home in order to prepare gold, but Mir Nihal left before he could see the process completed. His friend Red Beard tells him it was the greatest mistake he made in his life. As they continue to tell stories about alchemy, Kambal Shah comes by to visit. Though he supposedly knows the secrets of alchemy, he will not reveal them, as he feels that it takes man away from God. He listens to their conversation, and then suggests if man were to truly master alchemy, they would become vain and forget God. He says that it is best not to meddle in God’s work, and that it is better to content with things as they are.
Later, Mir Nihal wonders if Kambal Shah is right. He thinks about how his uncle had forbidden the ironsmith from using alchemy unless he was in desperate need of money. When Mir Nihal left the ironsmith, he had doubted that he could really make gold from the flower, but when he returned home before the alchemic process was complete, his friends had berated him. Thus began his interest in alchemy. He had attempted many times to make gold, and many faqirs had advised him in that regard, but never with enough specificity or clarity for him to succeed. He continued to hope one day he will discover the secret. Ahmed Ali reflects on how all men need such hope, however irrational, in order to continue living.
Chapter 6
It is Ramazan, and the city goes about their ritual of getting up early to eat before fasting all day. Beggars often show up after evening prayers in hopes of receiving alms. Two such beggars are Iron Shah, who wears heavy iron chains around his neck and is always accompanied by his goat, and Shah Maqbul, who only begs during the month of Ramazan.
Preparations are being made for Asghar’s marriage, which will be in December. Begam Nihal sends for her daughters-in-law to help her; one has yet to arrive, while another arrives with her mother and son in tow. Just before Eed, the end of Ramazan, Begam Waheed and Asghar come home.
The mood is joyous when Eed arrives. Asghar brings home a thousand rupees which he had saved and offers them to his father. Mir Nihal is contented by this act, and forgives Asghar.
Habibuddin, Mir Nihal’s second son, comes home too. He is the favorite son of the family, and is beloved for his good and happy nature. As all his children and grandchildren gather round him to go to Eed prayers together, Mir Nihal feels especially overjoyed. After prayers, the adults buy all the children toys. Masroor has become interested in kites, and Habibuddin sends for some kites and has Asghar fly it for him. The ice cream vendor comes and both children and adults alike get themselves some dessert.
Soon it is September, and marriage preparations are well on their way. The women sit and talk at night, and beggars can be heard singing in the distance. One beggar, called Bahadur Shah after the Mughal king whose poems he sings, has an especially sad and piercing voice, bringing across the feeling of the verses with great skill. Because the words he sings come from before the time of India’s colonization, they carry with them a sadness over the country’s current enslavement.
Now it is December, and the English plan to hold a Durbar, or king’s court, in honor of the coronation of a new king.
Analysis
Mir Nihal's interest in alchemy shows an attempt to reconcile his regrets and past mistakes with his growing age. The story of his uncle and the ironsmith stresses how his obsession with alchemy is connected with his aging. When he was younger, he had no interest in the claims of the ironsmith; he still had a life ahead of him, one which might involve amassing a great fortune or otherwise doing well for himself through his profession. Now, though he has managed to make him and his family a comfortable life, all that is behind him, and alchemy is his only chance to amass greater wealth.
His desire to make a fortune through alchemy is, on the one hand, a fairly typical desire. But it can also be read within the context of the novel's larger themes of colonialism. Ahmed Ali, and Mir Nihal by extension, repeatedly stress Delhi's glamorous past, as the home of royalty and illustrious poets, in contrast to its current status as a subjugated colony. So, Mir Nihal's interest in making gold connects to a past defined by gold and riches. Like mastering alchemy, however, returning to such a time feels like an impossibility.
The debate around alchemy suggests a conflict of differing ideologies within Delhi culture. The focus on work and professions, and the strict class hierarchy of the society, create an ideology of greed, where even though Mir Nihal has been able to provide for his family, he desires even greater wealth. Though he is no longer laboring, the underlying drive to succeed remains, and he must look for ways to make money without working. However, Delhi society also has a strong religious character, which both discourages greed and discourages attempts to meddle with nature.
In contrast to the alchemy episode's suggestion that Mir Nihal is filled with regret and looking for outlets to deal with his aging, the following chapter, in which the family prepares for and celebrates Ramadan, presents the patriarch and his family in a much happier mood. Habibuddin, Mir Nihal's beloved oldest son, is first introduced, and he represents the joy of family coming together. Among the more notable cultural rituals associated with the holiday is the giving of alms to beggars, interesting both because of how it formalizes charity and for how it creates personal relationships between members of different classes.
Asghar's return to Delhi provides something of an anticlimax to the conflict between him and his father over his marriage; they quickly make up, with very little discussion of the matter. Begam Jamal's earlier prediction, that Mir Nihal would eventually get used to the idea of Bilqeece becoming his son's wife if given enough time, seems to have come true, suggesting how often a person's most strongly held beliefs and values can be shifted as society changes around them.
The Ramadan scenes provide a moment of respite as the novel shifts from one major conflict, Mir Nihal's opposition to his son's desire to marry a lower born girl, to another conflict, the people of Delhi's distaste for their continuing subjugation to the British. However, these two narrative threads interestingly dovetail. As Delhi prepares for the Durbar, the Nihal family prepares for Asghar's wedding. Both represent the increasing influence of British culture on Delhi; the king's mock coronation is a literal reminder of their colonial rule, but Asghar, the most Westernized member of the family, marrying out of his class, and his family coming together to help it happen, is also a sign of Western influence on the city.
