The Book of Life

Summary

Qaisari Begum

[1936]

The pilgrims returned [to India] during the five months I was away [from Hyderabad] in Delhi. Some of them even asked me what it was that he had gained by preventing me from going [on hajj] myself….

Last year he stopped me from going on hajj by calmly informing me that the two of us would go together the following year, but God knows he fears the ocean and quakes at the very mention of going. And then, in the blink of an eye, a year passed and the time for hajj was near once again. My heart was in such a strange place. I wanted to just fly away. I was so unsettled that no matter what task I took up, my heart was never in it. Sleep was impossible. I couldn’t do anything, for what was I to do? The closer the hajj season came, the more the fire of my passion blazed. I lost all control. My goal was to convince him to let me go. His goal was to keep me from going. He said to my brother Ihtisham al-Din sahib, “How can she make such a long journey? Please stop her. Maybe she’ll listen to you.” In fact, I was willing to accept each and every word my brother said, but when he asked me my true feelings, I told him without hesitation. “Brother, I’ll hear out whatever you say, but don’t try and stop me. I can’t be stopped now.” He reported back that I was unstoppable, that he should let me go.

I had already thought about all the preparations that would need to be made. I worried constantly how I would be able to pull this off without anyone else’s help. I enlisted [my nephew] Na‘im al-Haqq to do a few tasks for me and he reluctantly agreed out of fear that I might become cross with him. Tasks like making visits to the hajj guide, Badr al-Din, or gathering logistical information about the trip, like when the caravan would leave, where it would halt, and so on.

And then, lost in a world of confusion and worry, what did I see in a dream but myself traveling with some eminent personage.