They called it the Great Migration of the Prostitutes. From the 1570s they were pouring into Fatehpur Sikri from all over India and beyond, in their oxen carts, their camel-litters, their hand-rolled carriages. The meticulous Mulla Abdul Qadir Badayuni notes that women of loose morals were in addition to them. There was no hue of human skin which could not be seen in the pleasure houses of Fatehpur Sikri, the resourceful slave merchants of Central Asia supplying forthwith any that was found wanting. There was something in the air of Fatehpur Sikri which was conducive to a life of peaceful dissipation. This sense of peace was not restricted to the humans alone, but was witnessed even in the vermin inhabiting the land.

In all of India, the rats and mice of Fatehpur Sikri were the most well-behaved. Some attributed this to the good management of the courtier Sharif Khan who was given the charge of all animals in the kingdom by the emperor, making him a veritable Lord of Beasts. Others attributed it to the large stone statue of an elephant at the Diwan-i-Aam. Since Ganesha had conquered the rat demon it was natural that in the towering presence of his image the rats and mice were subdued. But the truth was that the rats and mice had infested the quarters of the prostitutes at the beginning, resulting in many complaints from dissatisfied clients. Rats boldly sauntered up to them while they were conducting their business. The mice fell on their naked backs from the roofs' wooden rafters. The prostitutes then made a vow to make an offering to them every Thursday, when they put out sweets for them. And to make sure that the offerings had the desired effect, they began to lace them with opium. With such blessed offerings to savour, the mice and rats never again bothered the prostitutes and their clients.

But fortune and time do not remain the same ever. There was much talk among the religious scholars at the court about Fatehpur Sikri becoming the Sin City. Sheikh Salim Chishti in whose honour the city was founded had seen hard times. He always took a large-minded and undogmatical view of things. But there were others who were less tolerant: the venerable religious scholars who spent their evenings in the dry pleasures of fanning sectarian and factional divisions, and slandering each other with decrees of apostasy and infidelity. Tired of their poisonous conduct, the emperor shunned their company, and preferred those instead who remained lost in their cups or in the arms of their beloveds. This united the religious scholars, and they targeted those nobles who had become their rivals by the emperor preferring their company.

When their complaints became too loud and vociferous, and interfered with the Emperor's peace of mind, he decided to appease them and defuse their criticism. By a royal decree issued in 1582, all the prostitutes were exiled to an enclosed neighbourhood in Fatehpur Sikri to be called Shaitan Pura or 'Devil's Town'.

A whole bureaucracy was established to oversee the conduct in Shaitan Pura. There were guards, overseers, supervisors, and registrars. Anybody entering within the precincts of Shaitan Pura to visit the women had to register his particulars. Similarly anyone leaving the place with women had to give an account of himself. As is often the case, the devil is in the details. Badayuni writes:

"Only the grandees of the royal court could spend the first night with the virgins, and that too, after the overseer had first informed the emperor, and permission had been obtained from the court. Men of ill-repute had set up trade there too and under false identities were busy conducting their affairs without let. Men would get into drunken brawls and kill each other over women. They would be captured and punished but others took their place who would conduct themselves in similar fashion with great boastfulness and pride."

Tired of this constant strife, and looking for an excuse to punish some of his courtiers on other accounts, the emperor sent for some of the most prominent prostitutes and asked them under oath to reveal to him the names of the courtiers who had deflowered them. The religious scholars got wind of the affair and they bribed the prostitutes to name their rivals at the royal court before the emperor. They focused on one man above all.

As a consequence, one of emperor's nauratans, the brilliant Raja Birbar — or Birbal, as he is commonly known — was named by every second prostitute as their first intimate. Some even made up stories of his incestuous conduct with his daughters which Badayuni duly notes in his history, slyly reporting it as one of the findings of these investigations, rather than attributing it to his own authority [p. 497, ibid].

The emperor chose those he wished punished and made examples of them, and sent others into long incarceration. As luck would have it, Birbar was then visiting his estate and was away from the court, and beyond any impetuous punishment that may have descended upon him. To allow a cooling period he sent word that he had become a jogi and had no desire to return himself to the affairs of the material world.

Later the emperor himself relented and sent for him with a note of blanket pardon.

But all these affairs had made Shaitan Pura business suffer and prostitutes afraid for their livelihood. They realised that other cities were still open to them, and slowly began to emigrate.

Others were also on the move. The mice and rats had not taken kindly to the expulsion of the prostitutes and the loss of their opium-laced sweet offerings. And they were in no mood to be dispossessed of their native land. They made sure that those remaining in the city, specially the religious scholars, got the best of their mischief. It is also said that they prayed to the demons who lived underground to dry out the underground water sources. The wells slowly began to run dry.

Life soon became unbearable. The capital moved to Lahore, and within a few years Fatehpur Sikri was a ghost town. Every now and then the place would figure in one incident or another but for the most part it was forgotten.

It was reclaimed by the mice who have guarded the magnificent structures of the walled city since. One can still see them dance on the sandstone parapets on nights of the full moon, celebrating their victory over the foolishness of men.

Musharraf Ali Farooqi is an author, novelist and translator. He can be reached at www.mafarooqi.com and on Twitter @microMAF.