Poet Emperor of the last of the Moghuls
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“The hour is late, Zil-e-Subhani. You need rest.” Prince Jawan Bakht coaxed, resting his arm over the edge of the bed.
“My last wish, my Prince, won’t you grant?” Bahadur Shah Zafar pleaded, childlike, his eyes lit up with flames of impatience.
“Yes, Zil-e-Subhani. Just this one last time. I am sleepy, though.” Prince Jawan Bakht was trying to discipline his thoughts. “Ghalib doesn’t write to me anymore, or maybe his letters don’t reach me? And the news which I receive are years old, most probably. Yes, I do remember now, Ghalib did write to me, this was the last letter I guess. Libraries have been looted, its precious manuscripts lost. Colleges demolished, the most famous one Rahimiyya auctioned off to one baniya by the name of Ram Das who is using it as a storage place. Ghalib says he can’t find a single book-binder, bookseller or a calligrapher in the entire city of Delhi. There are no poets left here, he laments. Where is Mammun? Where is Momin Khan? Where is Zauq?”
“Zauq.” Bahadur Shah Zafar’s voice was tender all of a sudden as if he was tasting the sweetness of this name on the lips of his memory. “How well I remember that when someone suggested to Zauq that he would prosper much more if he went to Oudh. His response was a couplet in return.”
“Do you remember that couplet, Zil-e-Subhani?” Zeenat Mahal ventured, watching Bahadur Shah Zafar close his eyes.
“Yes, clearly and gratefully, Beloved.” Bahadur Shah Zafar’s lips were trembling.
“Oh, Zauq, who would wish to forsake
The alleyways of Delhi and go elsewhere”
He opened his eyes. “Now go to your room. I want to sleep, eternally.” His eyes were drooping shut.
No one left the room, Zeenat Mahal cradling her head in her hands again. The princes chose to lie down on the reed mats stacked for royal attendants, in case Bahadur Shah Zafar needed their assistance during the night. Bahadur Shah Zafar was sleeping, breathing laboriously and groaning occasionally. The queen and the princes listened with bated breath, knowing not if he was in pain or the usual victim of his nightmares. The king was in a world of his own, alien to the creatures of this earth rooted solid to the ground of joys and sorrows. He was swathed in ghastly pallor, his features shrunken and cadaverous. And yet there was some sort of peaceful aura, hovering over his bony, listless frame. The same aura of peace was enveloping the royal trio, offering some shade of comfort in their hour of loss and grief yet to be experienced.
Bahadur Shah Zafar was experiencing the bliss of freedom from the dungeon of life. He was standing at the gates of death. Suddenly the doors were flung open. He had come home. Returned to the beauty in living. Rivulets of sunshine from nowhere were flooding the scenic splendor of a sacred garden. White purity of the mountains with the warmth of marble was reaching down to caress the mirror lakes, reflecting rainbow-clouds sailing in islands soft and glittering.
Inhaling deeply the scent of roses and jasmine, Bahadur Shah Zafar was floating down the familiar paths where he was nurtured from childhood to youth, on to the ripe old age. Memory was his guide, shuddering like the white disk of a sun, into which he was sucked like one moth to a flame. And yet he was cradled into the loving arms of peace, the serenity of the garden down below his home. The long-lost paradise of eternity in eternal living.
The fragrance of homecoming was teasing his senses. The serpentine valley under him lifting its arms up to receive him body and soul. He had fallen into the welcoming embrace of the cosmos, singing the song of love, peace and harmony. An indescribable sweetness of a kiss was upon his lips, his heart wafting the fragrance of flowers he had not ever seen or smelled. And yet again he was lowered into the heart of one rose garden with a shower of rose-petals over his crownless head. In the distance he could see the Flower Walk of his heart’s delight. Perfumed breeze was carrying him in its arms on the road to Mehrauli. Qutubddin Kaki himself was welcoming him, wearing a robe of rainbows. Rainbows were draped over his head too and trailing behind him in long braids. Rainbows gliding higher and higher and splashing the sky with rainbows upon rainbows.
“As sure as I am of the rainbows behind the clouds, I see a loving God whose boundless love embraces all!” A cry of agony and ecstasy was wrenched out from the very depths of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s soul, wounded and bleeding. “Yet the ones blinded by the virtue of their vice in cruelty, hatred and tyranny shun this light of love as they would shun the shadow of death.” His eyes were sparkling, holding beacons of anxiety, impatience, anticipation. “Summon the whole family. Friends and attendants. How many?” He closed his eyes.
An eerie curtain of silence was drawn over this room as Bahadur Shah Zafar lay there breathing heavily. This curtain of silence was ripped open by a sudden fit of violent coughing, though his eyes remained closed. Prince Jawan Bakht was trying to pour water down his father’s throat, but it only dribbled down from the sides of his mouth, offering no relief. Prince Shah Abbas had rushed out of the room to awaken the handful of royal household and attendants. Slowly and quietly they were streaming into this sick chamber, which looked crowded.
Prince Jawan Bakht’s wife Kulsum Begum was the first one to come holding the hand of Prince Jamshed Bakht barely six, drowsy and stumbling. Their daughter Princess Raunaq almost four was still sleeping, carried by Raheema. Prince Shah Abbas had returned, followed by her mother Mubarak Nisa. Mulla Majasi looked like he was sleepwalking, dragging along his grandson Muqaddam who was a couple of years younger than Prince Jawan Bakht. Ghulam Abbas had trundled in as if under some spell of daze, posting himself beside the bed of the king dreamily. The attendants were the last one to enter this room, squatting themselves at the foot of the bed humbly and reverently.
Another fit of violent coughing with guttural sounds from within and Mulla Majasi helped Bahadur Shah Zafar sit straight, rubbing his back vigorously. Prince Jawan Bakht was trying to pour water down his father’s throat once again. Bahadur Shah Zafar’s eyes were shot open, his gaze fluttering over the faces with a scorching intensity. Some sort of surreal sparkle was emanating from his eyes, his gaze lingering over Zeenat Mahal, his sons and grandchildren. His coughing had subsided and Prince Jawan Bakht stood wiping his father’s mouth with the corner of the bed sheet.
“Ghalib is mourning the death of all his poet friends. I can hear him.” Bahadur Shah Zafar murmured suddenly, his voice barely audible and his eyes shining with a gleam of madness. “Didn’t Ghalib say, Allah, Allah, I am mourning thousands. When I die, who is left to mourn me? That’s what I say, Allah, Allah, Allah.” His body went limp into the arms of Mulla Majasi. He lowered the king’s head over the pillow gently, tears welling into his eyes on the brink of a storm.
A loud lament broke through the lips of Zeenat Mahal as she sat there screaming and sobbing hysterically. Prince Jawan Bakht and Prince Shah Abbas rushed to her side, trying their best to comfort her, but she remained deliriously loud and inconsolable.
Captain Davis arrived suddenly, obviously awakened by the noise and commotion, hastily dressed, it was obvious. His eyes were polished like the blue marbles and his hair was in disarray. The scene before his eyes was one of woe and tragedy. The imprint of grief was written all over the faces of everyone, grim and tear-streaked. Even the children were weeping, frightened and bewildered. Captain Davis’s presence alone was enough to cure the hysterics of Zeenat Mahal, who now sat there sobbing quietly. He stood there still, studying the faces and then threaded his way toward the bed, his eyes meeting the doleful gaze of Mulla Majasi.
“So the Ex-king has passed away.” Captain Davis murmured, averting his gaze.
“Yes.” Mulla Majasi could barely murmur back, tears streaming down his cheeks and wetting his white beard.
“His body must be interned immediately.” Captain Davis intoned indifferently. “I have ordered lime and bricks and the spot is chosen for internment.” He sauntered out of the room, deep in thought.
The death chamber was plunged in complete silence, with the exception of quiet sobbing, or an opiate cry from th
e lips of a child. No one dared speak. Mulla Majasi bent down to imprint a kiss on the brow of Bahadur Shah Zafar. He seemed not to be looking at this meanly clad figure on a bare bed, but envisioning the emperor as he had seen him so often in purple robes of silk, jewels blazing in his crown. He almost collapsed on the floor, recalling the glorious day of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s marriage to Zeenat Begum, his head resting on the bed close to the listless arm of the dead king.
“Yes, here lies the last of the Moghul emperors ever to rule the gold paved streets of India, in rags and poverty, exiled from the world of grief and devastation.” Mulla Majasi’s voice sliced through the thin fabric of air like a sharp knife. “And there expires the glory of the Moghuls, remembered only by the legacy of their grand poetry and marble monuments. Red sandstone only the dregs of time, not ever to be kneaded into the dough of glorious art and nonpareil architecture. The poets are silent.”
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Table of Contents
Chapter One - Coronation of the Poet Emperor
Chapter Two - Poetry of Love
Chapter Three - A Prince is Born
Chapter Four - Festival of Eid
Chapter Five - Jashni-Holi
Chapter Six - Weighing Ceremony
Chapter Seven - Mourning at Red Fort Palace
Chapter Eight - Fire of Rebellion
Chapter Nine - A Hoary Conflagration
Chapter Ten - Fortress of Despair
Chapter Eleven - Rocked by Shelling
Chapter Twelve - Festival of Flowers
Chapter Thirteen - Shattered Star
Chapter Fourteen - Sacking of Delhi
Chapter Fifteen - Mock Trial of the Emperor
Chapter Sixteen - Exile to Rangoon
Chapter Seventeen - Swan Song of Bahadur Shah Zafar
Bibliography