Fascinating, and sad – A story of partition, loss, of invention and fabulation, of attempted restoration

Ellen Barry, The Jungle Prince of Delhi, The New York Times, November 22, 2019.

Late in the narrative, but early in the story, at its root:

Wilayat followed her husband, Shahid told me, but she never accepted his decision to leave India. She was obsessed with what she had left behind. In her mind, the grudge sprouted and germinated, and her behavior became volatile. Then her husband suddenly died. Now with all restraining influence on her gone, furious over the expropriation of her property, she accosted Pakistan’s prime minister at a public appearance, Shahid said, and slapped him.

This changed things for Wilayat. She was no longer a well-connected widow, but something shadier.

An ordinary grievance, unaddressed, had metastasized to become an epic one.

She was confined to a mental hospital in Lahore for six months after that — the only way, Shahid said, to avoid a long prison sentence. Shahid remembers visiting her there, among the wails and curses of the patients. “It was horrible,” he said. “Women tied up with chains. One poor girl was chained up to a wall. It was four chains. And she was swinging. And spitting at everybody who went past.”

Salma said that Wilayat was given electroshock therapy. “They said she was mental,” she said. “They gave her all these injections.”

When she was free, Wilayat gathered up her youngest children without warning, packed trunks with carpets and jewelry, and smuggled it all back into India, with the goal of reclaiming her property. Shahid set out with them but eventually walked away. He could not put into words why he left. His story flickers out here.