Caravans By Night: A Romance of India

In the heat‑blazed lanes of Indore’s great bazaar, a merchant named Muhafiz Ali presides over a fragrant world of silks and jewels. Clad in flowing robes and a gold‑trimmed turban, he greets travelers with stories of distant Peshawar peaks while keeping a wary eye on his Brahmin rival, Venekiah. Beneath his polished exterior lies a restless grief—his only son vanished on a war‑torn sea, buried far from the Indian coast, and a bitter jealousy for his rival’s carefree son fuels his simmering resentment.

When an unseen hand briefly touches Muhafiz, one finger cold as a Punjabi’s eyes, the other as pale as a foreigner’s hair, a ripple of intrigue spreads through his shop. The gesture awakens old dreams of returning north on the iron beasts that hiss through the railway, of a garden where a proud peacock struts beneath an azure sky. As merchants, memsahibs, and curious strangers drift past his treasure‑laden rooms, the promise of adventure begins to stir, hinting that the bazaar’s glitter may conceal a journey far beyond its lantern‑lit streets.