Nurjahan's Daughter (21 page)

Amidst the rejoicing and the dancing of the audacious nautch girls, Nur Jahan watched the blind prince groping his way through the hall to reach his brother’s side.

Moments later she beckoned Laadli and said–‘Offer some wine to the princes. See that they are comfortable.’

Reluctantly, Laadli made her way to the princes.

‘Come Laadli, join us,’ invited Rukhsana, seated by Khusrau’s side. She liked the girl. There was no guile in her.

‘Did your mother ask you to come here?’ asked Khusrau, laughing loudly. ‘The scheming bitch.’ His mouth drooped with bitterness and he shook his head and repeated, ‘The most venomous adder sits on the royal treasury. Does that satisfy her? Of course not; she needs to control each and every breath inhaled in the palace.’

Laadli was shocked. She threw a terrified look at her mother, but Nur Jahan was busy feeding grapes to the inebriated emperor who was lying prone on her lap. If she had heard the comments, she displayed no signs of having done so.

‘Well spoken brother, just don’t let her hear you or you will not go back to your prison. She holds the slender reins of your life. It is up to her to snap the thread at any moment she desires,’ warned Prince Khurram.

‘You won’t miss me, brother. I am sure that would delight you more than anything else in the world,’ retorted Khusrau.

‘Enough, enough, please don’t quarrel,’ Rukhsana intervened. ‘Let us talk of pleasant things. Prince Khurram, when are we to hear the good news?’

Arjumand was in labour.

‘Any moment now. In fact, I should check on her.’ Khurram left the party in haste, glad to find an excuse to leave the depressing company of his brother.

Khusrau turned to Laadli–‘So, your mother wants me to marry you? To save my life, I must succumb to her majesty’s desire?’

He was in a foul mood.

‘I don’t mind marrying you if it will save your life,’ confided Laadli. ‘It must be terrible to remain imprisoned for so long.’

She liked Khusrau and pitied him. Like Khurram, Khusrau had been kind to the friendless girl when she had entered the harem. Laadli remembered the day he had rescued her from the clutches of heartless harem girls who were teasing her mercilessly. He had warned them of dire reprisal if they dared to tease his sister. The girls kept away after his threat.

‘Poor child! I wish your mother were half as kind as you. How could a nice child like you have emerged from her wicked womb?’ Laadli flinched at his words.

Khusrau patted her hand affectionately. ‘No dear Laadli, I couldn’t marry you to save my life. My days on this planet are numbered, thanks to your mother’s plotting. You deserve someone who will take good care of you.’

‘But I really don’t mind marrying you,’ insisted Laadli.

‘I do. Brave princes do not hide behind petticoats of women; they face their punishment with courage. If I have to die, I will die honourably, but I shall not succumb to the tricks of that vile woman who has reduced my father to a mumbling idiot.’

‘I do not want you to die.’

‘Pray for me, Laadli, the odds are stacked too high against me. Not just your mother, but my brother and his father-in-law also wish me dead. If it is written in my destiny that I should die young, I will,’ he ended philosophically.

His dark mood overwhelmed Laadli. ‘How can you bear to listen to all this and remain cheerful?’ she asked Rukhsana. ‘Does it not depress you?’

‘Is there any point in being depressed about it? Should I spoil the few moments that I have with him? No, Laadli, I am trying to enjoy the time that remains for us and then I shall leave the world with him,’ Rukhsana smiled gently at the wretched girl. ‘Tell me what happened to your desire to learn sitar?’ she asked, changing the subject. Everyone in the harem knew about Laadli’s fascination for the instrument. ‘Did you find a tutor?’

‘Not yet, I am still trying to persuade my mother to find me a good teacher. I did find one but lost her soon enough.’

‘And how did that happen?’ asked Khusrau.

‘Jabeen, the daughter of our Meer Samaan, can play the instrument reasonably well. She agreed to teach me the basic lessons. Just after we began the lessons, she fell prey to Prince Shahryar’s attentions. I lost a teacher and he gained a lover. So ended my lessons.’ A wry smile flashed on Laadli’s face as she recollected the incident.

Khusrau guffawed at her words. No one knew his indolent, half-witted younger brother better than he. Prince Shahryar was always surrounded by his cronies, drinking, or spending time with the harem women and slave girls. He had no time for intellectual efforts.

‘Next time, try to find a male tutor. That way, you will not lose your teacher to Shahryar.’

‘Who can be sure?’ commented Rukhsana, meaningfully. Rumours of Shahryar’s sexual preferences abounded in the harem.

The three of them broke into laughter and the clouds of depression seemed to lift momentarily.

‘I want an honest reply to my question,’ Laadli suddenly turned serious. ‘Would you have married me if I were beautiful?’

Her question took them by surprise, and the couple exchanged troubled glances. They knew that Laadli suffered from low self-esteem.

‘Who said you are not beautiful, Laadli? You are very pretty and only a fool will refuse to marry you,’ Rukhsana consoled her.

‘That is not true...’ the girl said tearfully.

Laadli was not conventionally beautiful. With her lanky, long limbs, she stood out among the other women and that made her so self-conscious that she had begun to stoop. Her lack of self-assurance and over-sensitive nature made things worse for her. Besides, she never bothered about her appearance, nor made any attempts to look pretty.

Rukhsana looked the girl over critically and wished Laadli would submit herself to the harem women. They could make anyone look glamorous. A little shaping would have helped the straight brows over her sensitive, deep eyes. She had beautiful grey eyes that could make any man swoon if she learned to use them to advantage. The gentle-hearted woman wished she could take the girl under her wings, but she dreaded the empress.

‘Do you know what is wrong with you, Laadli?’ Khusrau held out his hand to her. ‘You are too critical of yourself. Give yourself a chance. Both Khurram and I are in love with other women. It is not because you are not beautiful. Besides, I am blind and too old for you! Why do you torment yourself with such ideas? Let me assure you that you are a very pretty girl and any man would love to marry you. Anyway, you are too young to be worrying about all this.’

‘I am not too young. Khurram was in love with Arjumand from the time she was my age,’ Laadli was petulant. ‘And how do I convince my mother who believes that I repel men.’

‘Does your mother really believe that?’ Rukhsana was appalled.

From her end, the empress watched them and wondered what they were talking about. She could see the forlorn face of her daughter and thought that Khusrau was not being kind to her. Seething inwardly, she gently pushed her sleeping husband to a side and made her way towards them.

Laadli noticed and quickly escaped before her mother could reach them. Outside in the garden, she sat on a bench amidst the rose bushes and gave vent to her tears, her slender body shaking uncontrollably with sobs. In her misery she remembered her adoring father, Sher Afghan. There were very few moments when Laadli did not miss him, and still fewer moments when she did not hate her stepfather. As for her mother, it was difficult for the lonely and miserable girl to decide whether she loved or hated her.

It was a glorious morning when Arjumand Bano gave birth to a beautiful daughter. They called her Jahanara, Jewel of the World. The delighted prince walked all the way to Salim Chisti’s dargah in thanks and distributed gold and silver coins to beggars.

Ajmer was witness to so many happy events occurring simultaneously, that the palace reverberated with constant celebrations and activity. The victory of the Mughal troops over the Maharana of Mewar, and the birth of Prince Khurram’s first child–it was a glorious period, to be celebrated and enjoyed. Convinced that the town of Ajmer, with the holy dargah situated in it, was lucky for him, the emperor decided to stay there for a longer period.

The emperor loathed Agra for many reasons, one of them was his belief that the city was unhealthy. Jahangir had been having breathing problems and he believed that the climate at Agra aggravated this ailment. ‘Sometimes I feel that I should shift my capital from Agra to Ajmer or Lahore. Agra is definitely not lucky for me.’

‘What about Kashmir? I thought that was the place closest to your heart,’ teased Nur Jahan.

‘Ah! Kashmir! That is a heavenly place. But begum, one can’t rule the country from Kashmir.’

Those were happy times and even the empress took time off to relax from her vigil. There were no rebellions to control, no wars to wage, peace prevailed in the empire.

The emperor spent more time writing his memoirs, noting each event with painstaking zeal. A pair of Sarus cranes that had been captured when they were just a month old, travelled with the emperor wherever he went. He had named them Laila and Majnu. The emperor watched their growth and habits with great interest. Royal artists had been instructed to draw images of the two cranes at every stage and the chronologists had been commanded to record each move of the pair.

The emperor fretted continuously about the cranes because they showed no inclination to mate. When the cranes were about five years old, they finally decided to oblige the emperor. A soldier, who had been commanded to monitor their movements, carried the happy news to the emperor.

Rushing to the birds, the emperor and his artist watched the pair with eager eyes as they performed an elaborate mating dance. Pirouetting gracefully around each other Laila and Majnu romanced, blissfully unaware of the watchful eyes. The birds alternately circled around each other with opened wings, bowed their heads and leapt into the air. Then they mated. The emperor was delighted. He described the mating ritual in great detail in his diary.

When Laila laid her first egg, Jahangir recorded the date, size and the description of the egg. The emperor was passing more and more time in such activities, leaving the task of ruling the empire in the hands of his empress.

One evening, as the emperor sat with Nur Jahan in the garden, under a canopy of stars, he asked her–‘Malika, what is the item that is circulated the most in our empire?’

The empress thought for a moment and then replied–‘The Imperial coins, of course! They travel from hand to hand, from trader to the common man and know no boundaries or religion.’

Jahangir was delighted. ‘As usual, you are right. Indeed, it is the coins that represent the ruler’s power. I have been toying with the idea of redesigning the coins. Right from my grandfather to this day, there has been little change in their appearance. Don’t you think it is time we made some changes?’

‘What does the emperor have in mind?’ asked Nur Jahan, enthused about the idea.

‘I thought that in place of the month, the coins could carry a figure of the constellation which belongs to the month. For instance, the figure of a ram could be engraved in the coins released in the month of Farwardin, and the coins released in the month of Urdbihist could carry the figure of a bull on them.’

‘What a wonderful idea! Let me design the series of coins. They will be so beautiful that people will want to possess and retain them instead of just trading with them.’

The coins were designed and struck in the royal mints. The special coins were released on the emperor’s birthday and found immediate approval amongst people. They were exchanged for twenty times higher than their face value and, as Nur Jahan had predicted, people began hoarding them.

The nobles were not surprised. The emperor’s fixation with coins was well known throughout the court. No one had forgotten the four gigantic gold asharfis weighing 400 tolas, 300 tolas, 200 tolas and 100 tolas presented to the Persian ambassador on Jahangir’s birthday. These were the world’s biggest gold coins and the most expensive ones. The largest coin contained almost twelve kilograms of pure gold!

Inscribed on the huge coin, in Persian, was a couplet eulogising the grace of Nur Jahan.

Ba Hukm Shah Jahangir yaft sad zewer,

Banam Nur Jahan Badshah Begum zar.

(By the order of Jahangir, gold had a hundred splendours added to it by receiving the impression of the name of Nur Jahan, the Queen Begum.)

M
any people wondered what it was about Nur Jahan that made the emperor so besotted with her. Nur Jahan was thirty-four years old when she married Jahangir, middle-aged by all accounts, besides being encumbered with a daughter. She was beautiful, no doubt, but there were more beautiful women in the harem. Nur Jahan’s magic lay in her intelligence, artistic temperament and quick wit. She could compose poetry with the fluency of a bard, design a garden with the skill of an accomplished architect, and hunt with the expertise of a huntsman. She could entertain the emperor with her verses and vast treasure of riddles, while impressing him with her dazzling beauty and political proficiency. She could pit her brains against the best politician and emerge a winner.

‘You have to work hard at being an empress,’ she told Laadli. ‘It is not easy. The harem women are jealous of my position because they only see the glitter and the power. They cannot see the toil and stress that lies behind the sceptre and the crown.’

The royal entourage was back at Agra to celebrate the ninth anniversary of the emperor’s accession to the throne. The public jubilation lasted a full week. The bazaars and public places were decorated with colourful velvet, silk and flowers. Firework displays and various kinds of amusements occupied people throughout the empire. At the royal court, celebrations began with a display of elephants and horses in their finery, and with the emperor inspecting his cavalry and infantry.

In the Diwan-é-aam, nobles, emirs and princes gathered to pay homage to the emperor, who was seated on his magnificent throne that stood within the boundaries of a golden railing. On the right of the throne stood a pedestal with a golden scale, promising justice to every citizen. No one, not even his own sons, were allowed to step inside the golden boundary. A step lower, inside a silver railing, the princes stood, along with the highest-ranking viziers. With them stood an attendant with a gold sceptre. Another step lower, enclosed inside a circle of crimson wooden railing, stood the rest of the nobles and emirs, and with them stood an attendant with a silver sceptre. The commoners were allowed to stand beyond the crimson railing.