Chaube of Mathura || Part 4 of 8

Not all contacts with Moghul emperors were, however, so peaceful and so profitable. The emperor Aurangzeb, it is said, once summoned two Chaubes, Ali Datt and Kulli Dart, to dig a grave. Rather than dig one grave they started digging grave after grave, and soon they would have reached Delhi. Aurangzeb heard of this and ordered their appearance before him; he asked what they were doing. Ali Dart and Kulli Dart saucily replied that they were preparing graves for the time of the emperor's own death. Frightened by this bad omen, the emperor dismissed them and ordered them to dig no more graves. Chaubes today delight in this version of the story because it so defiantly portrays their witty but courageous impertinence.

When recounting such stories, or better, when recounting their history as they see it, to themselves and others, Chaubes produce and reproduce among themselves masti, a culturally inherited emotional disposition that lends a constituent continuity, mythological depth, and historical anchoring to their behavior and belief about themselves, their emotional character, and their emotional experience. They were too busy to be concerned about Krishna's hunger; they were so saucy as to dig a grave for a living Muslim emperor; and they are so self-assertive, boisterous, and carefree as to be envied, if not feared, by other communities in Mathura. Chaubes epitomize the quintessence of Braj character, themastram; they arc ever outgoing, often boisterous, sometimes pushy, occasionally quarrelsome, and always delighted by an in-suiting joke or a playful tease.