After Salman Rushdie, few writers tell a good story any more. For thosedisappointed with modern writing there is the absorbing tale of two emancipatedMuslim families of the nineteenth century. Maula Baksh who sang Carnatic andHindustani vocal with great skill captivates the Maharaja of Mysore in 1860 andis invited to stay on in his capital. Unknown to him, Princess Casimebi, thedirect descendant of Tipu Sultan's surviving daughter has been given refuge inMysore with her two faithful retainers who 'whisked' her away in time beforeDelhi's fall and plunder by Nicholson's British troops in 1857. Casimebi cannotmarry a commoner and Maula Baksh is clearly no commoner. The Bakshs marry andmigrate to Baroda where they set up the Gyanshala or Music Academy. Enter RahmatKhan a Punjabi sufi musician twenty years later, to teach music at the Gyanshalaand marries Khatijabi, a daughter of the Maula. Their eldest child -- Inayat isthe father of the heroine of the book -- Noor Inayat acquired fame as a Sufiteacher or Mursheed, his publications are on sale today in India and he isburied a stone's throw away in Nizamuddin West. Inayat as we say today, probablyhas Shani in his house, for he is a victim of the great turbulence of earlynineteenth century Europe.
Inayat married Ora Baker an American who assumed the name of Amina Begum.Amina and Inayat wander through England, Paris and Russia where Noor was born in1914, surely a bad time, anywhere in Western Europe, 'where the lights are aboutto go out'. From here onwards, Noor and her parents seem to be living at theedge of impending tragedy, and Noor's life, as described by a reviewer on thebook jacket, is almost 'like watching a butterfly trapped in a net'. Thefamily's escape to London is another ill-timed move, but Amina gives birth tothree more children while in England. The family's unease in England with policeenquiries into their Anjuman-i-Islam connections initiates yet another move,this time to Paris. By now the surprised reader must be aware that Sufis are noordinary people and Inayat not a reliable middle class provider. But Sufisapparently know better than us that God provides. God appears as a wealthy Dutchwidow who finds them a house and settles a monthly maintenance on them. Theirfinal house, named Fazal Manzil, is the site where the author finally catches upwith an ageing Pir Vilayat, Noor's younger brother, in 2003 tending the gardenin his old age. The family escape the German occupation of Paris and flee toLondon in 1940 with precious little. Noor joined the women's Auxiliary Air Forcefrom where a year later, she was recruited to the Special Operations Executive (SOE),a rival to the British Secret Service, the SIS.
By now, it is clear that Noor, a sensitive writer of children's books andfluent in French is either a terrible choice as a secret agent, or anoutstanding one owing to the sheer unlikelihood of her being one. Trained mostlyin radio transmissions and cryptography at the famous village of Beaulieu, theinstructions included a mock interrogation by a British police superintendentwho was unaware which of the subjects were real agents. Noor's interrogatorcompleted the session saying 'if she is an agent, I am Winston Churchill'.Somewhere in this period, Noor apparently fell in love but left no record of herlover's particulars with anyone. Landed in France along with three agents in alow flying Lysander aircraft on 17 June, 1942, she formed part of a group codenamed Prosper. Within ten days of her arrival the Germans had begun to eliminatethe group. Partly by interrogating captured agents and partly by electronicallyintercepting radioed traffic, by 21 July Noor was the only agent in her groupnot in German hands. Her probable identity compromised, Noor relied virtually onher old personal contacts to stay alive between August and October. Sheeventually agreed to meet two British agents, not knowing that they had alreadybeen captured. Her arrest in early October was a certainty.
The horror story begins here - with her captured radio set the Germans fedfalse information back to London for many months without raising suspicion.Twice she escaped and was recaptured. Shifted to Pforzheim prison and classifiedas dangerous and Nacht und Nebel (survival not required) she spent 1943 and partof '44 chained hand and foot to her bunk. In the meanwhile the Germans exploitedthe radio network until Feb 1944 even receiving money they asked for fromLondon. The author's accounts of Noor's subsequent fate is a most tenacious bitof research pieced together from post-war scraps of information. Pforzheimdischarged Noor on 11 Sept, 1944 but thereafter there is more than one version,both equally horrible. Noor's end came either in the Natzweiler camp or atDachau. If it was Natzweiler, a number of female prisoners were given lethalinjections and cremated. If it was Dachau, Noor was beaten and raped beforebeing shot. In November 1949 the man accused of betraying Noor to the Germanswas brought to trial by a French military court, but acquitted. Decoratedposthumously with the British George Cross and the French Croix de Guerre withthe Gold Star, her memorial is a plaque in St. Paul's Church Knightsbridge.
The world wars produced some very nasty stories. This one, of a gentle petiteIndian girl in brutal captivity, who astonished friend and foe with her courageand beauty has been written about earlier, but never researched socomprehensively as in this book.
A slightly shorter, edited version of this appears in print.
Also See: The Tiger Claw by Shauna Singh Baldwin,Penguin Books India, 2004
