The Moghul Hedonist

by Farzana Moon

  The only reality which could divert Nur Jahan's attention from the mists of illusion was the living, throbbing entity of fear inside her. This fear had grown and had multiplied within her from one grain of sand to a desert of sand-dunes. This desert of sand-dunes had begotten many more fears of its own, since the emperor's life was caught inside the grinding-wheel of ailments and recoveries. Her fears were many, but the more potent ones were the numbered few. Prince Shah Jahan's plethora of rebellions was one great fear, and Prince Shahryar’s shaky legacy was the other. Mahabat Khan's rise in power was another billowing fear. And yet the most terrible of them all was the fear to lose Jahangir into the shadows of death where ailments seemed to be hurling him closer to it, each hour of the day and season. She could share the emperor's dead beloved with him, but not the idea of his own death, where he would be no more. His death would be her oblivion, she was thinking. The living, breathing lamp of her own life dying, yet knowing no death, she could think no more.

  Jahangir, unlike Nur Jahan, was not thinking at all. He was basking in the presence of the dead beloved, yet aware of the living beloved beside him. Both these beloveds had become one to him, yet his longings were not ever appeased. Though lately, he had discovered a subtle sense of peace, as if drifting toward his lost beloved on the wings of hope and anticipation. This hope alone had the power to hurl him back to his love for life with the ardor of pain and joy in loving and living. Against this facade of a reality, he had succeeded in erecting his own fortress of defense to ward off all pains, most of all, the pain of betrayals and rebellions. As soon as he had stepped out into his garden, the avalanches in his head were silenced. The gates of his inner fortress were secured, keeping at bay all tides of tragedies, and hopelessness'. Swiftly and vaguely, his senses were getting drunk with the scents from love absent and love present. His very thoughts were seeking oblivion. Cherishing more the scent of death than the odor of living. His sight itself was drinking wine from the goblets of the Himalayan tulips.

  A gazebo of color and fragrance were the red, red roses on the white trellises. The lilacs in their profusion of purple were spraying their own perfume over the fountains and down the terraces. The planes and poplars were tracing their lace patterns on the lawns, borrowed from the glint and sparkle in sunshine. The red gravel paths and the marble terraces were a beautiful maze before the eyes of the royal couple, but their feet were coming to a slow halt by the lakes reflecting the glory of the mighty willows. They stood contemplating the willows, their eyes reaching down the very heart of the valley of Lar, where the cypresses stood lofty and shimmering. The cherry trees donned in the white mists of their early blooms, were attracting the emperor's attention.

  Jahangir's feet, quite will-lessly, were straying toward the white terraces where vestal lilies in brass pots appeared to sing hymns to the very face of peace and serenity in nature. Here, it was all light and tranquility. The hush was so stark that not even a blade of grass could be heard stirring. The air, all perfumed, was holding its breath, as if afraid to taint the purity of this stillness. The entire landscape of silk and velvet, of color and perfume was frozen it seemed, in its own glory of freshness and pulchritude.

  Jahangir had named this garden Nur Afza, meaning, Light Increasing. And now, the light alone was accosting him as he waded toward the marble terraces. This light was shattering his sense of oblivion, and coiling around his awareness. Nur Jahan was his dearest of light-shadow, not lingering far behind him. From where he stood watching from the highest terrace, he could see the unrolling of tapestry in color with a fresh sense of awe and gratitude. Though, his former sense of peace and emptiness were splintering, his heart bubbling forth to embrace nature and beauty into the very arms of his soul. Another sense of peace and emptiness was awakening inside him, with which he was too familiar. Anarkali was with him, his heart longing to reach out and possess her in the body of Nur Jahan. His gaze was alighting on a pair of mainas perched on one branch of the mighty Chenar. These birds were engaged in some squabble of the worst domestic violence, it seemed. They had begun to chirp and lash their anger at one another with sharp beaks, and were breaking the hush of this lovely afternoon. The wind itself was unfurling its wings, caressive and frolicking. Jahangir was turning to Nur Jahan, the heron plume in his red turban swaying gleefully.

  "Look at those mainas, Nur." Jahangir's tone was brimming with the enthusiasm of a naturalist. "Once my father saw the same kind here in Kashmir. The same kind of strident, implacable pair. My father asked one of the viziers what was the reason of their fighting. He answered that the male insisted on pairing, while the female wouldn't accede to his demands. The vizier proposed further that if their nest was to be searched, blood stains would be found to confirm his assertion. The nest was searched and his assertion was found true. Isn't it strange, Nur, how even the voices of the birds change in conformity with their moods?" His gaze was seeking answers.

  "Not so strange, Your Majesty, if one is acquainted with the Hindu philosophy from their holy scriptures." Nur Jahan smiled.

  "So, you assume that the emperor is not acquainted with the Hindu scriptures or their philosophy, my Pearl!" Jahangir exclaimed. "A besotted knight in the wilderness of ignorance, that's how the emperor appears to you against the seat of your own wisdom?"

  "You yourself enlightened me on this subject, Your Majesty, remember." Nur Jahan's own light-hearted gaiety was returning. "The doctrine of the vital airs! How the abdomen is considered to be the seat of fire, and how it keeps the heat of the body intact? And how the same internal heat plays an important part in the production of voice."

  "And how the emperor forgets, my Nur, blissfully forgets!" Jahangir waved his arms in mock despair. "How you possess and retain the knowledge of the worlds, created or uncreated? Pray, refresh the emperor's memory, what did I say?"

  "I retain only fragments here and there, Your Majesty, that's all." Nur Jahan laughed. "You wouldn't like to feel those fragments, would you, Your Majesty?"

  "I must, my Nur, if those fragments can patch my memory into some semblance of a pattern, which I seem to erase and reconstruct at times." Jahangir murmured.

  "Well, Your Majesty, I will try to reconstruct it myself." Nur Jahan's eyes were gathering sadness', if not profundities. "What did you say, yes—when the animal soul wishes to speak, the man acts directly through the tongues of abdominal fire. This fire mixes quickly with the vital air pervading the ligament known as Brahma Granthi, below the navel. This mixture then journeys through chest into the head, and escapes through the mouth. I can't recall the rest? With the exception that there are twenty-two srutis or particles of sound, discernible to the ear." Her attention was drifted down the fretwork of ponds and canals where the gold fish floated freely.

  "These fragments graze not even the hem of my recollections, my Nur." Jahangir watched her wistfully. "And yet my mind is unfolding a story about one Raja with all the intensity of a rude intrusion." He sighed to himself. "Come, love, let us make our pilgrimage to our favorite lake. We must visit our children, our gold fish with gold rings in their noses. Isn't it blissful not to have a care in the world?" He went past her and began dismounting the terrace steps.

  "The bliss in life comes to those, Your Majesty, who mourn not for losses in the past or present, and who cease to fear misfortunes in the future." Nur Jahan murmured to herself. The path flanked by irises was absorbing her attention.

  "Yes, such a brand of reality is engraved in the emperor's soul. And the emperor sees nothing, but lies and illusions." Jahangir intoned rather cheerfully.

  "Since vital airs have escaped my memory, Your Majesty, why don't you too practice their rhythm? Liberate your thoughts from the burden of that intrusive Raja, and delight this whole garden with your voice? The memories, the recollections?" Nur Jahan chanted effusively.

  "He would be lost to the emperor forever then, and you alone would preserve him in the everlasting font of your memory-book." Jahangir laughed. "And yet, I might as wel
l pour it into the treasure-chest of your world, for you are my world." He continued with the urgency of a scholar who could not lay his hands on anything substantial. "In the country of Dravida, there was a Raja named Manu. Being ten hundred thousand years old, he had withdrawn himself from the worldly concerns. Living simply and practicing great austerities. One day he was performing his ablutions on the banks of the river Kritamala when a fish came into his hand and said preserve me. He kept it in his hand day and night. When it grew in size, he put it in a cup. It grew larger, and he transferred it into a pitcher. When the pitcher couldn't contain it, he preserved it in a well, then a lake, and finally into the Ganges. When it grew too large for the Ganges, he took it to the ocean. When the ocean was filled with its ever-increasing bulk, a revelation dawned upon him. He heard a loud, commanding voice. I am the Supreme Being. I have assumed the form of this creature for thy salvation and that of a few of the elect. After seven days, the world will be destroyed and a flood shall cover the earth. Get thou into a certain ark with a few of the righteous together, and with the divine books and choice medicinal herbs. And fasten the ark to this horn which cometh out of me. The deluge continued for one million, seven hundred and twenty-eight thousand years, after which it subsided—" He was seeking the comfort of the marble bench, while trying to quell the sudden tempest of mirth.

  "All the fables and the mysteries, Your Majesty, which confound our senses." Nur Jahan joined the emperor in his mirth, claiming her seat next to him. "Another such apocalyptic vision sane or saintly comes to my mind." Her eyes were teasing the fish in the lake, their gold rings glittering in the waters. "In Kalkyavatara, it is written that a time will come when not even one just prince will be left upon this earth. Iniquity will abound, and the grain will become excessively dear. The age of men will be shortened, so they won't be able to live beyond the age of thirty. Death and devastation will reign supreme. To remedy this disorder, a prince will appear on a white horse, flashing a sword for the final destruction of the ones who love iniquity. And that that prince would re-establish righteousness." She was watching the cypress' sigh and tremble.

  "And I am the Adam, and you my lovely Eve." Jahangir slipped his arm around her waist tenderly and possessively.

  "Not true, Your Majesty, not true. Wrong place, wrong time." Nur Jahan quipped merrily. “The story which I read, says? Adam after his fall from the Paradise was thrown on the island of Ceylon. His consort, in Jiddah on the Red Sea. Azrail, the angel of death, in Sistan. The serpent in Ispahan and the peacock in Hindustan."

  "And our fish-children tossed into Dal Lake in this Eden-valley of Kashmir." Was Jahangir's hilarious response. He folded her into his arms, kissing.

  "Your Majesty." Nur Jahan gasped for breath. "The fish with the pearl rings are my children, Your Majesty, and the ones with the gold rings, yours." She muttered.

  "Not ours, my love, you mean, not ours, the whole lot of them?" Jahangir murmured profoundly. "Virgin conceptions, they are, and vestal heathens perhaps, the entire brood of them." He released her, abandoning his senses to the beauty of this Eden. "This sort of joy and peace comes once in a lifetime, Nur. Once." He murmured.

  "Didn't I tell you, Your Majesty, we would always return to this Paradise." Nur Jahan murmured back.

  "Yes, this joy and peace, once in a lifetime." Jahangir repeated to himself, his gaze piercing the depth of this lake where the beauty of Kashmir lay slumbering. "This joy and peace, returning in dreams only. Hauntingly sweet! Murmuring and teasing that this dream will never be repeated. The dream itself murmuring and mocking that such joy and peace will not ever return. That this dream itself shall fade, not ever returning, not even in the promise of dreams." His gaze had discovered the ghost of Anarkali down yonder. She was wading toward him with the lamps of love shining in her eyes.

  "Why this sudden sadness, Your Majesty?" Nur Jahan watched his taut profile with a sudden alarm.

  "Not sadness, my Nur! The emperor is talking about joy and peace. One almost wishes to die, to arrest this essence of—" Jahangir intoned sadly. "Yet, sadness is not far behind. Soon, the news of fresh rebellions, Baidaulat. The emperor has to return once again—" His gaze was returning to her slowly. "My love, my sweetest, profoundest of loves." His arms were tightening around her once again. "To consecrate our love, we must be one, in body and soul, right here."

  "Your Majesty!" Protested Nur Jahan. "What if someone—" She was swept into the currents of pain and joy. The wild, hungry kisses of the emperor scalding her lips.

  Suddenly, the nature's own fury of lust and desire were whirling around Nur Jahan's senses like the mindless hurricanes. She was yielding and groaning. Ashamed and delirious. The rape of Anarkali in this Eden of Kashmir was some searing violence in her own body and soul. The ripping of silks, exposing her breasts, was some liquid corruption down the very rivers of her misery and helplessness. She could feel the weight of male urgency stabbing at her lotus of awareness, and piercing it with a razor sharp violence. The body of the emperor was crushing her under its burden of urgency and violence, but then it was caught into convulsions of fresh agony. Not of the passionate spirit, but of the crumbling body. He was gasping for breath, trying to ward off the familiar assault of asthma. With a cry choked inside her, Nur Jahan was rocking the emperor into her arms. Her own senses were gathering mists dark and tormenting, and succumbing to prayers mute and lacerating.

  The beauty of spring had lost its violence of youth, but the ailing emperor was reluctant to part with the memory of this eternal spring in its faded glory. More than two weeks had slipped past since his illness in the garden, and he was still lingering at the altar of bliss with Anarkali who had become one in body and soul, with Nur Jahan. This particular bright morning with the scent of spring filtering inside the parlor, Jahangir was feeling better and thinking of venturing out into the garden. Tenderly ministered by Nur Jahan during the assaults of his fever, asthma and delirium, he had regained enough strength to sit up and enjoy the luxury of a royal parlance. More than that, he had the energy and awareness to command his royal physicians, forbidding them to enter his chamber, and choosing Nur Jahan as his sole physician. Still drugged, rather deluded by the bliss of an accolade with Anarkali, he was courting the idle pleasure of staying in bed and dreaming. Besides, he was discovering his newly-found sense of bliss-solitude and luxuriating in the sense of oneness with Nur Jahan. His thoughts were mired in some sort of spiritual swamp, daring not to accost the realm of the subconscious, lest he meet Anarkali once again and immolate his life at the ruins of desires terrible and unprofaned. A surreal sense of peace had become his companion, swaddling him into the sheets of bliss and comfort. He could lie in bed for hours without getting impatient, and would drift into dreams while talking with Nur Jahan. Rarely touching the hem of unreality, and seeking the company of Anarkali only in his sleep.

  Nur Jahan had no such luxury of pagan dreams, but irreverent nightmares. Right after the Rape of Anarkali as she called that passionate interlude, a messenger from Agra burdened with ill imports had arrived in Kashmir. Such news could not be unburdened before the ailing emperor, so Nur Jahan alone had withstood the first impact, without flinching or revealing the flood of her inner tribulations. She had succeeded in numbing her senses against fear and shock, heeding only the deepest of her fears concerning the emperor's health.

  Prince Shah Jahan had assumed the guise of the Roman Antony in Bengal. Though he had lost his power, and had succumbed to self-exile. But Mahabat Khan was attaining the power of Brutus, and coveting the Hind of the Moghul Caesars with the ambition as stealthy as the daggers of revolt concealed inside the robe of any corrupted rebel, Roman or Moghul. Nur Jahan, softening the import of such news in her mind, was waiting for a chance to release them when the emperor was fit to receive such a medley of evil reports.

  The devoted messenger Fadai Khan was instructed by Nur Jahan herself what to say and when to reveal, only when commanded by her. Besides tending the emperor's needs, she
had ordered preparations for their journey to Agra. Hoping and praying for the emperor's health, and longing to be back in Agra to preserve the throne for Prince Shahryar. Since Prince Shah Jahan had rendered himself impotent by his own acts of greed and rebellion, depriving himself of any claim to the throne, Nur Jahan was ready to subjugate his pride and ambition to any legacy of the Moghuls. The ambition of Mahabat Khan alone was cutting her wits to shreds, but she was equipped with enough ammunition against him to deflate his ego along with his treacherous designs. This bright morning, she too was feeling serene and optimistic. Her thoughts were shuffling the ill imports in a manner appropriate for the emperor's ears, where they could trickle down his awareness slowly and gently. Fadai Khan was to be summoned at the opportune moment, acting as a prudent messenger, obeying only the sole commands and the instructions of the empress. Prince Perwiz was another contender for the throne, Nur Jahan was thinking, while softening the blows of ill imports within her mind. This was another fresh obstacle on the battlefield of her gentle schemes, her thoughts were wandering as she sat at her chiffonier, attended by her lady-in-waiting, Mehr Harwi. Mehr Harwi was parading jewels and dresses before the empress for her approval and selection. Nur Jahan was not paying much attention, her thoughts murmuring that she would not confront that obstacle until it dared challenge her royal patience.