The Moghul Hedonist

by Farzana Moon

  No such ocean-thirst was claiming Jahangir's attention at the moment, as he kept pacing. His slow, steady steps were barely making any sound on the Bokhara carpet, and the silence within him was dissolving into tides of memories, gentle and nostalgic. Anarkali was a heartbeat away from him, edging closer and closer with the rhythm in time. He could feel her presence. His senses were calm and slumbering. She was guiding his thoughts into realms tranquil and peace-loving. Her presence was one rose of a memory, each petal soothing the tides of time and timelessness.

  Prince Shah Jahan had sent his sons, Prince Aurangzeb and Prince Dara Shikoh to the palace at Lahore, along with the gifts of jewels, armor and elephants. He had obeyed the commands of the emperor, retiring to Nasik, repentant and remorseful. In obedience to the emperor's commands, he had written a letter to Muzaffar Khan, surrendering the fort of Rhotas to him and to the imperialists. He had dispatched a similar letter to Hayat Khan, relinquishing his claims on the fort of Asir. Mahabat Khan had also acted most prudently in obeying the emperor's commands without protests or entreaties. He had repaired to Bengal after depositing a large chunk of his embezzled cash into the royal treasury. Recently, another Farman by the emperor was sent to Mahabat Khan through Arab Dost. This Farman was stating explicitly that Mahabat Khan was to dispatch all the war elephants to Lahore. The war elephants, which he had accumulated in overwhelming numbers during his campaigns to quell the rebellions of Prince Shah Jahan. Prince Perwiz too was ruling wisely in Burhanpur after accepting Jahan Lodi as his advisor with utmost obedience. Prince Shahryar was in Kashmir, devoted and sweet-tempered, Jahangir was thinking, while pacing and breathing the scent of peace and silence.

  These were the rose-petal thoughts on the silken trails of Jahangir's memories, as he plunged deeper and deeper into the rhythm of his contemplations. He could see these thoughts strewn like flowers in the lovely eyes of Anarkali, as she stood offering garlands upon garlands of peace to the silent altars inside his soul. This kind of worship and offering was alien to his senses, yet he was at peace within himself and with the world. His decision to visit Kabul—his whim or caprice, were surfacing in his mind as the products of not of his own thinking, but as the outcomes of some strange mixture of fate and destiny. Dream and nostalgia were his gifts of repose, bestowed upon him through the lips of his beloved. Nothing was a part of his thinking or existence!

  His bliss, his health, his illness, nothing? Jahangir was thinking. All were strangers in his body. Visiting and leaving at the discretion of their wills and moods. Even the hungers and thirsts of his body and soul were not his own, but coming to him from some emptiness from within and without. And yet again, he was at peace with himself. Comforted by this presence within him. Trying to explore some strange void inside him which appeared light and abysmal. This void, this emptiness within him were one gleaming ocean of strength and vitality, he had not ever experienced before. He had become more observant, and more passionate. Loving Nur Jahan more than ever, and humbled by her wit and beauty.

  Jahangir could catch the drift of his thoughts, parading in rhythm with his pacing, but even his thoughts were not his own, something inside him was repeating this litany of a revelation. All thoughts were entering his mind like some nameless birds, and escaping into nothingness. Those bird-thoughts were constricting and expanding inside their own empty cages where no thoughts or memories could ever enter or escape. He could sense something inviolate and astonishing inside the very kernel of his being. A dark tunnel of life with only a chink of light escaping through the eye of a needle!

  Yes, Anarkali is with me! Granting me this respite of peace before I die? One chink of light was expanding in Jahangir's thoughts, his feet coming to a slow halt by the canopied bed. She is summoning me to the bridal chamber of death. I will not live long. She is the one who has sealed my soul with the waters of surface-calm. It will not ever again feel its turbulent depths locked by the hands of time. His very thoughts were suspended there in some void of timelessness. So deeply immersed he was in this sea of the imponderables that he did not notice the appearance of Nur Jahan.

  Paradoxically, Nur Jahan was caught in abeyance by the statue-like immobility of the emperor's form and demeanor. She had stopped right in the middle of the room, her heart lurching, and then somersaulting in great violence. She was watching him with utter fascination as if he was some stranger imprisoned in this room by the sheer caprice of her own imagination. Appareled in silks, the color of gold, she herself was a wraith of light and magic, where reality could not penetrate into the essence of dreams, fading and drifting. She was bathed in the nimbus of fire and light, her eyes shining with such brilliance that the emperor was not long in discovering her presence.

  Jahangir was rather jolted out of his profound emptiness, unable to contain this vision of light and beauty in his awe-stricken gaze. He almost staggered in his act of reaching her, his feet coming to one stumbling halt. Their eyes were locked, his smoldering with bewilderment, while hers twinkling wonder and innocence.

  "To be struck by the bolt of beauty and to suffer a slow, lingering death is not the emperor's idea of a pleasant journey on the road to nonexistence." Jahangir murmured. “I would rather be hit by lightning than by the shafts of your beauty?”

  "Our cherished garden would be struck by the serpents of lightning through the very lips of the Begums, if we don't join them soon, Your Majesty." A fountain of mirth escaped Nur Jahan's lips, as she sailed toward the emperor.

  "And you don't care, Nur, if the emperor dies." Jahangir claimed her hands, grazing his lips against them reverently.

  "Why talk of death, Your Majesty, when life is young and beautiful?" Nur Jahan protested cheerfully. "Peace reigns in your empire, Your Majesty. And your health is improving! And the beauty of Kashmir is forever painted in your eyes."

  "Yes, beautiful and heavenly, this garden, my Pearl." Jahangir drifted back to the window overlooking his gardens and terraces.

  Jahangir's gaze was lost into the heart of nature's own handiwork. In the distance, Dorogha Bagh sat cradled like a jewel above the shimmering waters of Mansabal Lake. This jewel of a garden was hosting the living, throbbing colors in silks and brocades this evening. The tunes from lutes and flutes were sailing on the wind and reaching his awareness. His gaze was peering into the ocean of festivity without seeing.

  "I wish to stay in Kashmir, Nur." Jahangir was murmuring to himself. "Are we really leaving? I fear we would never return to this Eden again."

  "We would return to our Eden again and again, Your Majesty, as I said before." Nur Jahan murmured, not heeding the sting of foreboding inside her. "Kabul is not far, Your Majesty. We would return soon after your pilgrimage to the tomb of your grandfather. Babur, he loved life, I have heard, pouring laughter into the hearts of everyone wherever he went. Now is the time, Your Majesty, when peace reigns in Hind, to link with the past and to hold future into the sparkling cup of hope."

  "Past is not now, and future is not yet." Jahangir turned, smiling to himself.

  "And yet you would be happy to visit the gardens and palaces of your great ancestors, Your Majesty." Nur Jahan was puzzled by the enigmatic gleam in the emperor's eyes. "You are happy in Kashmir, Your Majesty, I know, but a cloud of sadness never leaves you?" She demurred. "You have been talking about Kabul for a whole week now. And a week before that—just before your illness, didn't you confess that what would please you the most would be to explore the heart of Kabul?"

  "If the soul of Kashmir could let the emperor leave." Jahangir held her into his arms. "Light of my heart, you know what will please emperor the most?" He was gazing into her eyes most tenderly. "To unrobe you and to make love to you, till the eternity itself is left with no power to sunder us apart." He kissed her eyes. His own were closing in some holy ritual of bliss to feel the presence within.

  "Even that, Your Majesty, will it ever dissolve your sadness?" Nur Jahan slipped away with the gentleness of a dove taking its accustomed flight. "We must join
the Begums, Your Majesty, or an eternity of rift in this royal household would follow us to the end of the world." Mirth and mockery were shining in her eyes.

  "Yet, stay, beloved, stay. Stay with the emperor for a while. Our last evening in Kashmir. A moment of bliss. The emperor has no need for festivities." Jahangir lowered himself on the gilt chair, indicating the other to her. "Come, my Pearl, the feasting would last till dawn. You are the empress, remember, and the emperor's other wives can't rise in sedition against you. And the emperor himself will obey you after he has drunk his fill with your beauty. Or, should I command you to supply me with a flagon of wine?" He challenged as he noticed her reluctance to seat herself.

  "The emperor knows only to command, Your Majesty, not to obey." Nur Jahan flashed a sweet reproof, sinking into her chair with a look of absolute surrender.

  "Subservient to the commands of my heart, how can I not obey—you , my love?" Jahangir smiled. God is witness that there is no repose for the crowned heads. There is no pain or anxiety equal to that which attends the possession of sovereign power, for the possessor there is not in this world a moment's rest. That's what my father used to say." He contemplated aloud, his look profound and reminiscent.

  "He said much more than what you or I could ever remember, Your Majesty." Nur Jahan's own eyes were gathering profundities. "If I recall correctly, you yourself told me what he said about care and anxiety. Care and anxiety must ever be the lot of kings. For, of an instant's inattention to the duties of their trust a thousand evils may be the result. Even sleep itself furnishes no repose for the monarchs, the adversary being ever at work for the accomplishment of his designs." Her heart was pounding with a sudden violence, as if some calamity lay in ambush on their way to Kabul.

  "Do you suspect any treachery on the part of Mahabat Khan, my sibyl Empress?" Jahangir asked abruptly.

  "I suspect him, yes, Your Majesty. His profusion of loyalty and devotion toward you doesn't sound sincere?" Nur Jahan smiled, trying to appease the violence in her heart. "The men who claim absolute surrender to the will of the emperor, are not to be trusted. The buds of insurrection could be simmering deep under his mask of humility and subservience. His plotting, scheming mind needs only one whiff of an opportunity to don the mantle of sedition. Disgrace—I fear, doesn't sit well on his pride."

  "Guilt, not surrender, is his ageless foe." Jahangir laughed. "Now that he has admitted his guilt of fraud and embezzlement, he is powerless to cultivate more deceits. Besides, the fate of Prince Shah Jahan is a lesson enough to keep him away from his own malefic designs, if he has any. He is wise, my Nur, knowing, that the same fate will be his lot if he dares disobey the emperor’s commands."

  "In his wisdom, I truly hope, Your Majesty, that he abstains from the perils of intrigues." Nur Jahan commented cheerfully.

  "And yet, it has indeed been said, that the kings will find enemies in the very hair of their own bodies." One prophecy of a thought escaped Jahangir's lips.

  "And that, Your Majesty, is true." Nur Jahan quipped, her eyes flashing mischief. "You indeed have been enemy to your own self. Fighting not the foes of your dream and courting illnesses with wine as your inveterate foes." She laughed. "Let us not talk about enemies in this paradise, Your Majesty. Our paradise of a garden is calling us. Its delights should neither be shunned, nor postponed."

  "Those delights can wait, my Nur, till the emperor can drive away the demons of his indulgences with memories fresh and delicious. And can fill his cup of hungers and thirsts with the goblets of wine in your eyes brimming with wit and beauty." Jahangir's gaze was wistful as if he was willing time to cease its march.

  "What wit and beauty, Your Majesty, when Kashmir alone is the object of your desire." Nur Jahan teased.

  "Without you, my Pearl, the lamps of this desire could never be kindled." Jahangir murmured effusively.

  "And gallivanting without me, Your Majesty, into the very heart of the pine-valleys? While I was left with the Begums." Nur Jahan smiled to herself. "And what about those hunting trips, without me?"

  "Foolish pride of the emperor, my love." Jahangir murmured beamishly. "If your hunting skills were not superior to the emperor's, he would have been delighted to have you as his charming companion without being slighted by the fact that his own hunting skills are inferior to yours. And as to my gallivanting, you yourself deserted the emperor. Were you not looking forward to an excursion planned by the Begums? Regardless of this fact, the emperor wishes to take you to those treasure spots on our next visit. And the next, if you can divine such pleasures."

  "You may share those treasures with me now, Your Majesty, so that I can look forward to possessing them completely on our next visit, and the next, and the next ever after." Nur Jahan requested, her eyes shining with a dreamy anticipation.

  "Our first trip will be to the spring known as Kuthar, before it dries up." Jahangir began fervently. "It has remained dry for eleven years, I am told. The legend, now bordering on the verge of truth, is, that when the planet Jupiter enters the sign of Leo, this spring starts to flow on the following Thursday. During the seven succeeding days, it dries again. Filling once more on the next following Thursday, and continuing to flow for one whole year."

  "And if it dries up by the time we return to Kashmir, Your Majesty, will you not take me to see this marvel of nature?" Nur Jahan asked eagerly.

  "Probably not, my Nur, if you manage not to return within a year." Jahangir teased. "There are many more wondrous sights than this one rude spring! It is much too proud and regimental, asserting its right to stay dry for eleven years?"

  "Then I will succumb to the poverty of my thoughts in exploring those wonders which my eyes have not seen." Nur Jahan elicited one mock sigh.

  "They are arrested in my eyes, love, if you can but see." Jahangir's eyes were shooting a subtle challenge.

  "The eyes have no lips, Your Majesty! If you can but lend life to those wonders through the tongues of words?" Nur Jahan retorted brightly.

  "Then you must catch this bubbling wonder first, Nur!" Jahangir declared intensely. "It is a fountain close to the valley of Shukroh. Under this fountain is a low hill, looking like an exquisite dot of scenic splendor above the pine-valleys. On the summit of this hill sits this fountain, bubbling in eternal peace throughout the year. It has become a place of pilgrimage for the devout, who ascribe sanctity to this fountain as the very spring of life. Incredible as it may seem, the snow never falls on this spur."

  "Like a large spring in the village of Biruwa, where the lepers bathe early on the first day of each week." Nur Jahan's fascination with Kashmir was running wild in her memories. "That too is the site of pilgrimage for the devout and the faithful who believe that by simply bathing in its waters, health could be restored—" She paused, catching the glint of amusement in the emperor's eyes, and holding it into her own dreamy ones. "You were there, Your Majesty. So enchanted were you by the peculiar shade of velvet in the grass and by the open pastures and sloping plateaus, that you didn't pay any attention to that spring. That incredible spring with pure, crystal waters! The hope of the afflicted!"

  "Not as incredible as that quivering tree which you have not seen, my Nur!" Jahangir declared amusedly. "That tree stands tall and mighty in the village of Haltbal. Even if the smallest of its branches are shaken, the whole tree becomes tremulous."

  "You have yet to take me to the valley of Lar, Your Majesty, which borders on the mountains of Great Tibet. The most incredible of sites as you professed." Nur Jahan began wistfully. "The breathtaking vistas and the lofty mountains! At the foot of which two springs run parallel, as you told me. Can't believe that the waters of one are extremely cold, of the other exceedingly hot? Will only believe, when I touch them?"

  "Your sweet fingers would get numb in the one, and scorched in the other, my sweet. The emperor would not allow it." Jahangir laughed. "Instead, he will take you to Kargon where a defile called Soyam gets so hot at the time of the conjunction of Leo and Jupiter that the
trees catch fire. And if a vessel of water is left on the ground, it will boil. A great site, both of us would be melted together! Sated with life, united in Love!"

  "I would rather choose to be frozen on the snowy peaks of the Himalayas, Your Majesty." Was Nur Jahan’s sprightful response.

  "If you don't want to be melted together with the emperor, my Pearl, then I would rather perish in the golden wastes of Sahara, myself." Jahangir laughed.

  "Let's not tempt the fates, Your Majesty, with the talk perishing." Nur Jahan's eyes were straying toward the portraits on the wall. "It's time we joined the feasting. The Begums are waiting, and they will be disappointed if we delay any further."

  "I would rather we stayed here and made love all evening." Jahangir murmured. He got to his feet as if stung by the novelty of his desire.

  "Your Majesty!" Nur Jahan exclaimed. Her eyes warm and pleading.

  "Let us go, my love." Jahangir held out his hands. "Why is my heart so heavy, Nur? All this love and warmth in our paradise? Our Kashmir, our Kashmir." He grazed his lips against her cheek most tenderly.

  "Would it be light, Your Majesty, if we were to stay in Kashmir? Not leave tomorrow?" Nur Jahan asked softly.

  "Who knows, my Nur? My heart, this temple of the imponderables?" Jahangir declared cheerfully.

  "Much like the temple of Bhutesar in Satpur, Your Majesty. The one dedicated to Mahadeva, where one hears the sounds of a ceremonial worship, and no one can tell where those sounds come from?" Nur Jahan reflected aloud.