To: VR SPENCER
DELIGHTED TO RECEIVE LETTER STOP COSTS FOR LEASE AND DIG TO FOLLOW STOP WILL ARRANGE EXCAVATION PERMISSION
NG
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12 JULY 1929
To: N GUL
RECEIVED FIGURES FROM SOLICITOR STOP ACCEPTABLE HAVE TOLD HIM TO PROCEED WITH DRAWING UP LEASE
VRS
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13 JULY 1929
To: VR SPENCER
HURRAH
NG
1 January 1930
1 January 1930
Lahore
Najeeb
I can’t describe to you what happened here yesterday at the Congress meeting on the banks of the Ravi River. Gandhi has called for complete independence from the English and Nehru hoisted a flag of three colours which will be the flag of a free India. My whole body went hot and cold when I saw it and I thought my heart would burst open. I am so proud to be among Ghaffar Khan’s Pashtuns here to celebrate this occasion — you should have seen us dance in celebration. Congress gatherings have never seen anything like it.
It is not all perfect. Many of the Congress Party believe with a certainty which might exceed that of the English that the Pashtuns are good for nothing except war and quick temper. They continue to express doubts that we will be able to follow the path of non-violent resistance when we are tested. But Ghaffar Khan tells us we must be patient and show through example that they are wrong. We will soon have the opportunity to do so. A resolution has been passed for civil disobedience which will go into effect before long. I am going from here with Ghaffar Khan to spread the word and build support for it through the Peshawar Valley — and in so doing, add to the numbers of the Khudai Khidmatgar. And what is this Khudai Khidmatgar, you will ask, you my brother who knows every coin unearthed in the Peshawar Valley and little else? Already I can imagine your distaste at the name. Yes, the Servants of God, Najeeb, we draw our strength from Him and will challenge any of the maulvis who claim Ghaffar Khan’s actions in allying with Gandhi are not those of a true Muslim.
But to explain: It is an unarmed army — you read that correctly — which will recruit unlettered men and bring them into our struggle. Ghaffar Khan says a conversation I had with him in which I talked of the great spirit of brotherhood and discipline in the Army helped him formulate the idea for the Khudai Khidmatgar, which pleases me more than anything else in life. I have said I will be part of the Khudai Khidmatgar. I would rather stand in formation with the unlettered men than sit in committees with men of learning. Though let me confess to you that our uniform of red-brown is far less appealing to the eye than the drab and green of the 40th. But what are we to do? Ghaffar Khan’s thoughts are of dye that is cheap and easily available, not of the vanity of his Yusufzai general. I am to be a general!
While I’m gone will you go to the orchards a few times to make sure Rahim is looking after everything? I trust him, but he can be lazy if he thinks no one is watching. You don’t have to pretend to understand much of farm life. It will be enough for you to go there and ask him how everything is.
Now to my final and most important point. Once this civil disobedience is launched there is no telling how the English will respond. It could become unpleasant — you have not seen the ways in which they attack those they see as an enemy, but I have and there is nothing in the world more cold and pitiless. So let me order, beg, plead one more time. Tell your Miss Spencer not to come.
I am following your instructions and not trying to convince you of the intentions and motives of the English when it comes to matters of archaeology. My point now is a separate one. This is not a time for an Englishwoman with no sense of today’s world to arrive in India. I know you think you understand the world better than your zealous brother, but I am speaking from my heart. Keep the Englishwoman away.
Your brother
Qayyum
15 JANUARY 1930
15 JANUARY 1930
To: N GUL
PASSAGE BOOKED PLEASE HIRE TEAM TO START DIG APRIL 5TH.
VRS
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16 JANUARY 1930
To: VR SPENCER
CONFIRMED AWAIT YOUR ARRIVAL
NG
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1 APRIL 1930
To: N GUL
SLIPPED AND FELL AT KARACHI DOCKS NOTHING SERIOUS BUT DOCTOR ADVISES AGAINST TRAVEL FOR A FEW WEEKS STOP CAN DIG BE DELAYED
VRS
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1 APRIL 1930
To: VR SPENCER
VERY SORRY TO HEAR UNWELL BUT DELAY IMPOSSIBLE
NG
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2 APRIL 1930
To: N GUL
OH BOTHER START WITHOUT ME WILL JOIN WHEN POSSIBLE
VRS
April 1930
The soil was dense, the work slow. From sunrise until mid-morning Najeeb and his team of men dug through history. A few feet down there was a face of bone, which made the men touch their cheekbones and noses, as if considering for the first time their own skulls. A coin from the early days of the Raj had either been placed in its eye-socket or had tumbled into it from another era. There were other small discoveries — a coin, a copper seal, a fragment of stone with a lion’s flanks carved into it — mixed in with the endless quantities of white powder and white-stone fragments.
Then came the morning when he heard the ringing sound of a spade hitting something solid. The Buddha’s shin, thick as a man’s torso. Najeeb and the foreman used trowels and hands to work around it, revealing the Holy One’s ankle, his bare feet, the slightly flexed toes. By now it was well past mid-morning and the other men departed, but Najeeb continued on, impervious to aches and thirst and the sun searing the back of his neck. He was beyond imagining results, or asking how long he would continue; there was only this motion of his shoulder and arm and the trowel which had become an extension of himself; only soil displaced all around the base of the statue. The metal of the trowel head encountered tiny pieces of rock, a sound felt in his spine. The earth cooled as he dug into it; its composition changed; a worm wound its body sluggishly through the loam. The worm stood on its tail, fleshily pink, swayed in the changed universe of light and heat in which it found itself, and he thought of the adjoining graveyard, shuddered, plucked it out and flung it as far as his arm could throw. Wiped sweating palms on his trousers, continued. The edge of his trowel-head scraped metal. On his knees now; his heart an animal throwing itself repeatedly against the cage of his ribs.
Viv Spencer stood on the roof of the pink palace and watched the rooftop cupolas slide their shadows across the garden towards the statue of Queen-Empress Victoria flanked by lions. A pith-helmeted British soldier, also carved in stone, stood guard at one corner of the property. At least some of the Indian men in the garden must look at the statues and see an enemy; impossible to know which Indians were for Gandhi and which for the King, Viv had been told by Mary’s cousins with whom she was staying in Karachi. Even your Oxbridge man might go either way. There were Indian women on the lawn as well, elegant in their saris; they mainly clustered together but a few threaded their way into the knots of men where they were greeted with great flourishes of delight, which Viv didn’t know whether to regard as appreciative or as a politely coded reprimand.