The Moghul Hedonist

by Farzana Moon

  Man Singh and Abdur Rahim, standing a few paces away from the emperor, had watched the emperor's expression change from one of shock and disbelief to that of a stark naked agony of the spirit tormented and tormenting. Their eyes following the emperor's, had discovered the object of the emperor's torment and longings, both exchanging a quick glance of alarm and caution. Both Man Singh and Abdur Rahim were well acquainted with the lady, and their hearts were sinking in unison at the mere thought of the emperor falling in love. And the emperor was smitten with love, it was obvious. His expression was that of a man struck by a Cupid's arrow, as if he was about to fall at his beloved's feet and profess eternal slavery to his passion wild and terrible.

  "Who is that lady in that stall in possession of fresh poppies from our imperial fields?" Jahangir addressed this query to the winds, without tearing his gaze away from the object of his pain and desire.

  "She is Mihrunnisa Begum, Your Majesty, the daughter of Mirza Ghiyas Beg." Man Singh murmured.

  "Mirza Ghiyas Beg." Jahangir murmured back. "The same one, who was the pillar of government in my father's time? After my accession, didn't I bestow upon him the title of Itmadudaula Khan?" He ruminated aloud.

  "Yes, Your Majesty." Abdur Rahim offered to refresh the emperor's memory. "He is also the father of Asaf Khan, whose daughter Arjumand Banu is betrothed to Prince Khurram."

  "The sister of Asaf Khan, then! Is she married?" Jahangir turned his eyes upon Abdur Rahim. His look wild and commanding.

  "A widow, Your Majesty, the widow of Sher Afghan." Abdur Rahim responded quickly, discomfited by the look of anguish and wildness in the emperor's eyes.

  "Ah, Sher Afghan!" Jahangir's eyes were now gathering memories sad and painful. "You mean, Ali Quli, who won the battle at Mewar. For this act of his courage, the emperor bestowed upon him the title of Sher Afghan, and you know what this title means, The Tiger Slayer! But then this Tiger Slayer turned into a faithless viper. Girding his loins to join in revolt with Prince Khusrau. Was that a couple of years after my accession or more?" He ruminated aloud, a downpour of memories escaping his lips. "Didn't he murder my vizier? Oh, that vile murderer, he slit open the belly of Qutbuddin Khan. Tried to escape, didn't he, but was cut to pieces by the avenging men of Qutbuddin Khan." His very thoughts were breathing rage, his lost beloved exiled into the dark recesses of his soul. "How grieved was I then, for my vizier, for gentle Qutbuddin. My gentle vizier, he was to me like a dear son, a kind brother and a congenial friend. And the same year, Qutbuddin's mother, she died of utter grief. That black-faced scoundrel! The Tiger Slayer!" He paused, fighting the urge to look at the treasure of his newly discovered pain and love. "And his widow, was she not brought to Agra the same year?" His eyes were seeking confirmations.

  "Yes, Your Majesty, she was brought here as a lady-in-waiting for Ruqqaya Begum." Man Singh intoned obediently.

  "Ruqqaya Begum, the beloved widow of my father! Her own palace is next to the palace of Itmadudaula, the emperor has been there several times. Strange, passing strange that the emperor never saw this lady. Mihrunnisa." He murmured, his feet carrying him toward that stall where fates stood mocking his passion and madness.

  This stall was no ordinary stall, but an artistic gallery with homespun silks and exquisite embroideries. More jade bowls with a swath of orange poppies were coming into view as the emperor drifted closer to the stall. Mihrunnisa, assisted by another lady, was becoming aware of the emperor's approach, though displaying no signs of courtesy or recognition. Her eyes were lowered and her heart fluttering. Before wending his way closer to the stall, Jahangir's lips and eyes were shooting another command.

  "Who is that lady standing right next to Mihrunnisa?" Jahangir's eyes were gathering rills of memories. "The emperor has seen her before, when, he can't recall." He was being lured closer to Mihrunnisa like a moth to one burning flame.

  "Asmat Begum, Your Majesty. She is the mother of Mihrunnisa Begum." Abdur Rahim was quick to satisfy the emperor’s curiosity.

  Jahangir was not heeding. His heart and soul were on fire, kindling a volcano of passions so scalding that he could feel his whole being suffering the tortures of the damned. So excruciating was the inner torment of his burning self, that his thoughts had forged dead Anarkali into the living mold of Mihrunnisa. The blue light in her eyes was the color of the sky, enveloping his senses into some bliss supreme, where pain could transform itself into pearls of longings. She was standing there like a wraith of light and purity, and he could neither speak, nor tear his gaze away from her laughing eyes. A white flame, he was thinking, feeling the scent of her body and nearness. His own body was melting, and dissolving into some whirlwind of the noblest of passions in love and self-surrender. Like a man possessed, he was drinking the nectar of life from her eyes and lips. Mihrunnisa's sing-song voice was reaching his dazed awareness with the murmur and sweetness of a distant cataract.

  "Your Majesty, would you care to purchase this gold flagon studded with jewels? The rare treasures from Arabia and Tartary?" Mihrunnisa held out the gleaming treasure, enjoying the emperor's smitten look with implicit pleasure.

  "Dear Lady, the emperor wishes to purchase the most precious of treasures, not this worthless flagon." Jahangir murmured to himself.

  "I have many a priceless treasures, Your Majesty. And the emperor's riches are countless, making him a benevolent patron to purchase all, I hope." Mihrunnisa's eyes were shining with the glow of mockery.

  "Many a priceless treasures, which even the emperors can't afford!" Jahangir murmured, his heart unwilling to escape the spell of this dream-haze.

  "Choose one, Your Majesty, and I would suite the price to match your desire." Mihrunnisa challenged with a radiant smile.

  "Your heart, my dear Lady." Jahangir's gaze was gathering dreams and poetry. But his thoughts were rising in stealthy rebellion, protesting against the mockery of this Venus on earth.

  "Your Majesty! I do not give my heart to strangers, until the course of action is known." A slight tremor escaped Mihrunnisa's bold response.

  Both the emperor and Mihrunnisa were stung to silence, both gazing into each other's eyes mutely and ineffably. To rectify her blunder, Mihrunnisa’s hands were reaching out to caress the pigeons in the emperor's arms. But this act of friendliness on her part had stirred the pigeons to sedition and challenge. Immediately, she had shrunk back as if whipped by the hands of fate.

  "Your beauty and mockery, my Lady, have made the emperor bereft of his own wit!" Jahangir declared. One inception of a ghazal was trembling upon his lips, more of a memorial to his love lost, than his serenade to this idol of perfection.

  "What shall I do, for the arrow of loss of thee has pierced my heart

  So that the evil eye not reaching may again reach another

  Thou movest as if frenzied, and the world is frenzied for thee

  I burn rue lest thy eye should reach me."

  "Your Majesty, Your Majesty." Both Mihrunnisa and her mother exclaimed, more in protest of the emperor's naked torment, than in praise of his dark couplets.

  The emperor had fallen prey to his mute reveries, and to agonies of the spirit suffered and suffering. The unvoiced rills of applause throbbing upon the lips of the viziers were left unuttered against the breezy approach of Princess Bihar Banu. She had bounced upon the scene like a gale of wind, demanding attention from the emperor.

  "Your Majesty, you must come. There, by Malika Jahan Begum's stall are roses and roses, big and heavy. One rose, Your Majesty, I want to show you. It's as big as the moon, she says. Let me show you, Your Majesty, please." Bihar Banu was pleading.

  Jahangir was half listening, his gaze still arrested to the idol of his pain and passion. He flashed a brief glance at his daughter, indicating that she had the emperor's attention, and then returned his gaze to Mihrunnisa.

  "Here, dear Lady, lend them the comfort of your sweet arms until the emperor returns." Jahangir held out the pigeons to Mihrunnisa, who claimed them happily. "The emperor
must comfort his heart with the heart of a rose, before he returns to beg the heart of beauty. And to claim his pigeons, of course." He turned to his daughter.

  The emperor was being led by the young princess toward the bower of roses, beside which Malika Jahan had installed her stall. Man Singh and Abdur Rahim were the silent escorts of the emperor. Their spirits were deflated by this sudden meeting of the emperor with Mihrunnisa. In their estimation, the emperor was becoming a victim to the beauty and witchcraft of Mihrunnisa. The emperor, though talking and laughing with his daughter, was accosting dreams and reveries. His heart was foundering inside the white realms of pain and reality. A wild cry from the bottomless depths of his soul was reaching his awareness. A lament most disconsolate, Anarkali pouring tears of grief? The cry and pain were leaving him and he was transported into the scented abode of the roses where his little princess was leading him. Princess Bihar Banu's ripples of excitement were making him indulge and participate in her joy and elation. He could inhale the scent of love, drinking the wine of beauty, beholding and cherishing only one rose, the white flame of a rose. Anarkali, Mihrunnisa? The entire nature was painted in the color of the sky. In this cosmic revelation was the bluest blue stolen from the eyes of his beloved lost and from the lovely eyes of his beloved yet to be serenaded.

  "Your Majesty, look, that moon-rose." Bihar Banu was drawing his attention to that red rose which had possessed her little heart to possess it.

  That red rose with petals the size of butterflies, was flaming before Jahangir's sight, but his reverie was accosting the white flame within his soul. His heart was yearning for the nearness of that white flame of a face which had shackled him into the chains of slavery and worship.

  "The emperor likes that white one. The one over there, with the color of a diamond in its heart, my sweet. The emperor wants that one." Jahangir’s gaze was turning to Man Singh. "Man Singh, get that white rose for the emperor, the one almost kissing the cheek of the yellow one."

  "I want that red one, Your Majesty, may I?" Princess Bihar Banu was chanting impatiently. "That moon-faced one, Your Majesty, may I?"

  "Yes, my rude Princess, yes." Jahangir smiled. Commanding Abdur Rahim to pluck that disk of a rose for the Princess.

  Princess Bihar Banu was clapping her hands and singing gleefully. She was lifting her small, white face to the emperor, her eyes shining with adoration. Jahangir hugged her daughter wistfully, searching her face as if he had seen her for the first time.

  "The beauty of this rose must never die, my sweet." Jahangir laughed indulgently. "Take it to Bishan Das. He would capture its beauty on a cloth of silk. And the emperor would order a gilded frame for it." His eyes were gathering warmth, as he watched her claim the rose from Abdur Rahim, greedily.

  Bihar Banu was prancing away, leaving behind the pools of glee, as if sailing on the wings of mirth and pride. The emperor had claimed his own rose absently, his gaze following the happy princess as if she carried a world into her little hands. His heart was yawning to the sense of its former pain and agony, and throbbing to lay its wounds at the feet of this new beloved. Dream-haze was upon him again as he drifted back toward the stall to claim his pigeons, if not his heart which was lost to him irretrievably. Man Singh and Abdur Rahim were following the emperor, as was customary, and keeping their silence. Abdur Rahim’s expression was changing from one of despair to sorrow. Man Singh was trying to be cheerful, his gaze seeking some mute confirmation from Abdur Rahim. Their eyes met, and a pact of mutual understanding was exchanged between them. Man Singh, spurred by the silent support from Abdur Rahim, was framing his thoughts to discipline, as if to avert some doom or tragedy.

  "Your Majesty, Mihrunnisa Begum has a daughter almost the age of Princess Bihar Banu." Man Singh ventured forth with a false note of cheerfulness.

  "What's her name?" Jahangir could hear his heart weeping at the altar of Anarkali.

  "Ladli, Your Majesty." Was Man Singh's deflated murmur of a response.

  Jahangir did not hear him. He was wading into the waters of pain and torment. His heart and limbs were heavy, his mind and body drowning into some whirlpool of chaos and confusion. The burden of his thoughts was pulling him back to some realms sacred, but his feet were inching closer toward the magic stall with poppies. He didn't even know that he was standing there, gazing at the miracle of his lost love with intensity profound and worshipful.

  Mihrunnisa was all sunshine and laughter, arranging jewels on a gold tray and holding it out to her mother. Sensing the emperor's presence, she lifted her eyes, the laughing pools in them a dazzling blue. The emperor’s gaze met hers, and their eyes were locked in one eternity of an embrace. The silence itself was singing, the lover and the beloved, Asmat Begum was thinking. The lover and the beloved were trying to glean and arrest the reflections of each other's thoughts, it seemed. Jahangir's senses were awakening to the pain of reality. The dream-oblivion was leaving him. The spell of her beauty's witchcraft was gone too. His thoughts were clearing the haze in memories. Lacerated by the reeds of time, and violating the sanctity of truth and passion.

  Why I am standing here like a besotted lover? Jahangir's thoughts were pleading release from the pit of this confusion. To desecrate the altar of my love? To woo this beauty incarnate? What should I say? Why did I come back? To see Anarkali in her lovely eyes? To make her the empress of my heart? No! To reclaim my pigeons. His thoughts were rising to the heights of absurdity.

  Mihrunnisa was holding only one pigeon, and whispering something to her mother. Asmat Begum was handing her a silk handkerchief, and Mihrunnisa seemed to be admiring the embroidery, ignoring the emperor completely.

  "The emperor wishes to reclaim his pigeons—" Jahangir paused. His thoughts were goading him to add reclaim his heart, but he didn't. "But he sees only one pigeon?" His gaze was commanding her attention.

  "That is true, Your Majesty. Only one pigeon is to be seen, as far as my sight confirms." Mihrunnisa raised her eyes. Light and mirth shining in them with a quicksilver awakening.

  "What happened to the other one?" Jahangir murmured under the spell of her beautiful eyes. The violence in his heart savage and stabbing.

  "It flew away, Your Majesty." Mihrunnisa murmured back. Mirth dancing in her eyes, and spilling down her lips.

  "How?" Jahangir's voice was choking. His heart lurching and somersaulting.

  Mihrunnisa released her hold on the pigeon, letting it escape. Her hand was poised in the air, palm upward and her lips blowing a kiss after the bird, soaring higher and higher.

  "Like this, Your Majesty." Mihrunnisa sang softly, still watching the pigeon in its happy flight.

  "A wit like yours can destroy the emperors as well the empires." Mirth and delirium came flooding through Jahangir's eyes and lips. "But you shall reign like a devi inside the sanctuary of the emperor's heart." The tempest of his mirth was uncontrollable.

  The emperor was leaving the stall, the Mina Bazaar, the world, it seemed! Laughing still! Man Singh and Abdur Rahim his eternal companions.

  "Make preparations for a royal wedding, my viziers. The emperor's, if his fortunes permit." Jahangir commanded over his shoulders.

  No response from behind grazed Jahangir's hysteria and delirium, for the viziers were stricken dumb with shock. The emperor needed no response, for he was gliding inside the oceans of his own joy and torment.

  "And yes, the emperor commands an exquisite mausoleum to be erected over the tomb of Anarkali." Jahangir's mirth was subsiding. "I have found my living goddess after all. She might accompany me to Lahore to pray at the tomb of my beloved—for the peace in my heart." His very thoughts were commanding oblivion and surcease. All of a sudden, fatigue and lonesomeness were draining the bubbles of his delirium into the well of his practiced silence. His only need, right this moment was, to drain flagons of wine into the ocean-thirst of his hope dying, and torment living.

  3

  Wedding of Prince Khurram

  The vast library at Agra palace
was a sane refuge for Jahangir against the din of festivities where the entire palace was garlanded for Prince Khurram's wedding celebrations. But the volleys of laughter slashed with song and music from down the palace halls were still following him into the sanctuary of his solitude and contemplations. Prince Khurram was the happiest of bridegrooms, counting the ribbons of endless ceremonies till he could be alone with his bride, his beloved Arjumand Banu. The nuptial ceremonies had lasted one whole week, and today was the last day to seal the marriage vows. The emperor himself was a seven month old bridegroom, wedded to his idol of wit and beauty, Mihrunnisa. With this dream-vision of a beloved enriching his harem, he was still foundering inside the streams of love and pain. In love with his newly-wedded bride, and suffering the pain of separation from Anarkali! Though, Anarkali was still the queen of his heart, beloved sweet and unforgettable.

  The emperor's longings for Mihrunnisa were violent and insatiate, and he had named her Nur Mahal, meaning, the light of the palace. But his soul was condemned eternally, hungering for the undying mystery within him, his unforgotten and unforgettable Anarkali. For him, Anarkali was merged body and soul with Nur Mahal, yet Nur Mahal's wit and beauty were bent on destroying the mystery of the mysterious within him, his own, very own Anarkali. The emperor's life was assuming the quality of a living charade, breathing the beauty of life and death in living, it seemed. Thinking about Anarkali in the presence of Nur Mahal and holding the portrait of Nur Mahal before his beloved's throne inside him when free from the wit and wisdom of his living bride. Rather drowning his inner torment into the rivers of wine, if not into the flagons of oblivion. Even now, while seated at his rosewood desk and concentrating on the verses of Talib Amuli, the face of Anarkali was surfacing into his thoughts.