Shadow Princess

by Indu Sundaresan

  And now even the memory of her face had faded. He could remember it in the absolute in certain situations, but his everyday recall had grown fainter. The part of his heart where love for her had resided had come to rest upon Jahanara.

  He said because they had been silent, “Did I shock you?”

  “We know what you mean, Bapa,” Jahanara said.

  “But she lives on, Bapa,” Roshanara said, “in this Luminous Tomb you are building for her.”

  Shah Jahan grunted softly. “I think that it is the thought of her that will live; if this tomb survives through the ages, as I intend it will, it will be my name that will flourish.”

  “And wasn’t that your intention in constructing this monument to Mama?” Roshanara asked. “I mean,” she hurried on, realizing what she had said, “that it is your tribute to Mama, so you . . .”

  Jahanara clicked her tongue and put a restraining hand on her sister’s arm, and Shah Jahan felt a sliver of disgust at his child’s candor, if it could be called that. She spoke quickly, without thought, as she acted sometimes. He wearied too often of her talk, because she talked only thus, and he found himself not wishing to reply to this blatant statement. Why could she not be more like her sister?

  “Should we go up, Jahan?”

  “It is too early,” Jahanara said, rising to go to the verandah arches, “but it does not matter. Let’s go.”

  They ascended the inner stairs of the terrace from the Tahkhana to the top, and then onward still up a flight of marble stairs to the platform which would hold the tomb. In the liquid heat under cover of the white tents, the golden screen surrounding the Empress’s cenotaph glowed. They stood there, gazing at it in awe. Bibadal Khan, the superintendent of the imperial workshops, had been responsible for its construction. It was four feet high, built in linked panels to form an octagon. The screen was made of solid gold, finely wrought with flowers and enamel work, and weighed a little over a thousand pounds. As part of the interior decoration for this central chamber, Shah Jahan had also ordered gold latticework oil lamps in the shape of a crescent moon, the sun, and stars. The screen had been bolted to the marble floor two months ago, and for this ‘urs, workers had set up poles to hang the lamps over the grave. The imperial party knelt on the cotton mattresses and said their prayers until the sun set in the west, painting the vast canvas of the skies above Agra in daubs of gold and bronze. In the gardens below, Emperor Shah Jahan had arranged for alms and enormous platters of sweets and savories to be given to the gathered men. When they left, some six hours had passed since their arrival—the sum of two pahrs, two watches of the day.

  Emperor Shah Jahan returned later that night and prayed at the site of his wife’s grave for another pahr, alone on his knees, facing west, toward Mecca. He had grieved for Arjumand for two long years. No one would, or could, take her place in his heart and his affections, but he was lonely, craving a woman’s gentle touch, the scent of a woman’s body, her arms around his waist, an oblivion that had nothing special to do with love.

  He left, dragging his feet, only forty-one years old this year, but sorrow had grayed the hair on his head and in his beard and weakened his eyesight. When he stumbled while descending the steps from the Tahkhana to the pier, his eunuch, Itimad Khan, steadied him and said, “You have forgotten to wear your glasses, your Majesty.”

  And so he had. Shah Jahan fumbled in an inner pocket of his qaba and put on his glasses to see better where he was going. As the vessel departed for the ride up the river to the fort, he looked back at the place where the tomb for Arjumand would stand to remind him, and future generations, that here was a woman so beloved that her husband had built for her—soon to be silhouetted forever against the night sky—a Luminous Tomb.

  Twelve

  Aureng-Zebe, the third brother, was devoid of that urbanity and engaging presence, so much admired in Dara. . . . He was reserved, subtle, and a complete master of the art of dissimulation.

  —ARCHIBALD CONSTABLE (ed.) AND IRVING BROCK (trans.), Travels in the Mogul Empire, by François Bernier A.D. 1656–1668

  Agra

  Saturday, May 28, 1633

  19 Zi’l-Qa’da A.H. 1042

  Two days after the second ‘urs, Emperor Shah Jahan ordered an elephant fight. It was to take place in the main maidan, a field of beaten mud, smooth and freed from weeds by the hundreds of men who trod upon it daily during the evening jharoka, at the base of the battlements of Agra fort, some thirty feet below the balcony of the jutting Shah Burj.

  When news had spread through Agra of the elephant fight, bookmakers had swarmed in, laying odds on which elephant would win, how soon after the fight began, whether the mahout of the winning elephant or the losing elephant would die; even whether the reserve mahout was likely to die. It was as though a pall had lifted from the Empire. The Mughal Emperors were all keen warriors and avid sportsmen, at home in the saddle, in a tent, on a battlefield, at a blood sport—and of the last, the elephant fight was the ultimate sport. But Empress Mumtaz Mahal’s death had ended all amusements; the imperial orchestra had not played until Prince Dara’s wedding, the maidans had lain empty of entertainment, nautch girls had been dismissed from the doors to the imperial zenana—life had been dismal.

  An elephant fight was the supreme diversion in Mughal India, because it was the exclusive prerogative of the Emperor—not even his sons could order one. Of all the animals Emperor Shah Jahan owned in quantities large enough to stable—the horses, the camels, the oxen, the mules—the elephants were the most revered. They were initially captured from the forests around India, and, from Emperor Jahangir’s time, their keepers had begun to breed them in the imperial stables, leading to strain after strain of fine animals used in war, in peace, as beasts of burden, as mounts for the imperial ladies of the zenana, on construction sites, and, last, for the pleasure of the Emperor in the fighting field. Each royal elephant had appointed for its care nine men and a boy, noted in the imperial registers as “nine and a half men”—five to tend to its education, to teach it to bow and obey orders; a mahout, who was its caretaker and the man who rode the elephant; three men to feed, bathe, and dress the elephant in its finery when presented at court; and finally a boy, who would sit at the back of the elephant with the mahout and assist him in managing the beast and take his place if needed.

  The two elephants chosen for the fight in Agra were the imperial stables’ best mast elephants, categorized as full-blooded. They were both young males, feisty and fiery, given to trumpeting at all hours and eager to pick a fight whenever they could, and their names were Sukhdar and Surat Sundar.

  By the time the sun was centered in the sky over Agra, the maidan was teeming with people who had been waiting for a place at the proceedings since dawn. A thrum of excitement swept over them as the imperial orchestra, housed in its own balcony in the ramparts of the fort above, played its music, rousing the frenzy of the crowd. Money moved from hand to hand surreptitiously, as bets were made under the keen gaze of the imperial guards, who pretended not to notice. Everyone knew that the Emperor did not approve of gambling for too-high stakes during elephant fights. Colored flags strung on ropes swung down from the fort into the crowd, tethered to poles around the field. At the periphery of the ground, vendors did a brisk business in chicken kababs rolled in flat and fragrant circles of naan; vegetables dipped in a chickpea-flour batter and deep-fried, served with a tangy tamarind chutney; jaggery-sweetened drinks of lime, khus, and orange. There was a women’s enclosure on the side of the Yamuna River, toward the very end of the field, and here the wives, daughters, cousins, and sisters of the more common men sat in a motley of color—splashes of bright yellows, greens, blues, pinks, magenta.

  The princes came first to the maidan, and their appearance was heralded by the imperial orchestra, which played a song of welcome. The crowd parted to let them through, and in many an eye there was awe and an admiration that Emperor Shah Jahan, their lord and their master, was possessed of such magnificent sons. A
nd they were splendid, mounted on perfectly matched white steeds from the imperial stables, the bridles of silver and gold, velvet woven around the reins in their hands, diamonds embedded into the leather of their saddles. Dara rode first, solemn and upright, raising his hand to acknowledge the love directed toward him, the press of fervent gazes taking in the sight of their future Emperor. He was newly married, this young man, and his responsibilities sat well upon his shoulders. Shuja received his share of adulation also, but it was more muted, although he smiled and nodded to the men. A ripple of laughter went through the people when they saw the youngest, Prince Murad, who was only nine this year, a child next to his brothers but with a stern expression that slipped when he smiled with delight at a juggler’s monkey that sprang up from its master’s arms and waved at the prince. After this his face lightened and he did not stop grinning.

  Behind them was Prince Aurangzeb. In the two years since their mother’s death, he had retreated into himself and his studies, and this was the character he adopted most of the time. The reading of the Quran gave him something to do as he waited to grow older, and he knew most of the verses by heart. He glanced at Dara’s back, listened to the murmur of adulation from the people, and looked away again, his eyes smarting with tears. What was the matter with him? He had always known Dara to be so beloved among the masses; it was only at court, among the amirs, that this reverence was tempered with disapproval of his easy manners. And Dara was a fool, spending too much time with the Jesuit priest Father Busée, giving him far too much money for his churches and his missions, interested in every religion in a dabbling, casual way, and neglecting his own true faith of Islam.

  Aurangzeb shifted in his saddle as they reined in their horses by the side of the maidan. The sun blighted the sky, turning its blue so pale that it was almost white, and the colors of the clothing, the glint of jewels from the turbans of the amirs gathered around the field, the sheen of metal in the horses’ bridles, all gave him a headache. In this heat, without even the relief of a cool draft of air from the Yamuna—for it was a still, airless day—the smells were intensified, and Aurangzeb held his breath from time to time, trying not to inhale the odor of the perspiration that flowed freely on brows and dampened underarms and backs, the hot smell of frying, rancid oil, the stench of old perfume. His hands shook as he held the reins of his horse and relaxed only when a series of parasols, held aloft by servants on horses, came to shade him and his brothers. The imperial orchestra announced the coming of the Emperor, and they all turned toward the Shah Burj, waiting for that first sight of his person. And when he appeared, the crowd roared, “Padshah Salamat!” Once. Twice. Three times.

  They all bent their heads and performed the taslim, raising their hands to their foreheads thrice and letting them fall. Even Aurangzeb drew in a breath when he saw his father and felt his heart tug in a way it had not since Mama’s death with an overflowing gratitude that this man, so glorious, so patently a king, was his father.

  Emperor Shah Jahan had finally divested himself of his mourning white, two years after his wife’s death and two days after the celebration of the second anniversary. He wore a qaba of raw silk in the color Emperor Jahangir had so favored as appropriate for royalty, and it was the deep red of a brilliant sunset captured faithfully by the dyers in the imperial karkhanas. On his head was a turban of white silk, an aigrette pinned to the center which was a three-hundred-carat diamond, an immaculate heron’s feather springing from it. There were pearl necklaces, fifteen in all, strung in different sizes and varieties around his neck. His hands were jeweled with rubies, emeralds, pearls, and diamonds. His qaba was studded with a thousand tiny diamonds so that, as he moved, his entire person seemed to be on fire. With all this magnificence, the crowds below did not notice the graying of his hair or the dimmed brilliance of his eyes. Here, finally, was the Emperor they adored. In his splendor was their security. And so many a heart soared with pride and affection.

  Aurangzeb felt the same, and it was an emotion that surprised him. If he had been asked whether he loved his father, he would have replied, and correctly, that there was no other option available to a dutiful son, but he had never thought of love as being anything but an obligation, and, for the first time in his fifteen years, he was proved wrong. Though only momentarily. Then the heat came to plague him again, his headache returned, the scene before him whitened to a haze. He rubbed the constricting collar of his qaba and wished for the coolness of the courtyard outside his apartments, where he could read for a while or listen to the petitions for charity that found their way to him. And then the trumpets from the Naubat Khana announced the arrival of Sukhdar and Surat Sundar, the two imperial elephants, the stars of the afternoon’s show. Their mahouts sat balanced and proud upon their irritable charges, goaded them with their ankhs to kneel before the Emperor, to raise their trunks to their foreheads in an imitation of the taslim.

  The cool tang of fresh buffalo milk came to Aurangzeb’s nose—the elephants had recently been bathed in this in preparation for their fight. Their hides were a thick, rubbery gray and cleaned meticulously. Their feet were already dusty, though; even the short trip from the stables to the maidan had muddied them to their knees. They both wore a minimum of finery, thick chains of gold with large rings crisscrossed over their backs and around their stomachs and necks; the chains had large, hooplike rings to make it easier to string in a tether if one was needed during the fight. The ankhs that the mahouts held were also of solid gold, gleaming in the sunlight. The men themselves wore a somber white, clad only in dhotis that covered their waists and were tucked between their legs; their chests were bare. A flutter of white at the edge of the field caught Prince Aurangzeb’s eye, and he saw there the mahouts’ wives, in a place reserved specially for them among all of these men. The sport was so deadly that the women had shed their colors, broken the bangles on their wrists, and wiped the partings in their hair of the vermilion powder that signified marriage. If the mahouts survived, a feast would be waiting to celebrate their resurrection from the dead. If they died, Bapa would pay their families a hundred times their monthly salaries and continue to pay the widows pensions for the rest of their lives. This was why the mahouts did what they did—for the love of money, for the love of the animals themselves, and for the excitement.

  Aurangzeb’s headache disappeared as quickly as it had come, and he felt his heart pound madly. He noticed Dara pulling his horse back as Sukhdar roared. A low mud wall had been built along the diameter of the maidan, and the fight would begin when the elephants were given the signal and crashed through the mud wall to confront each other. Shuja, Aurangzeb could not see, for by now his gaze was focused on the two mammoth beasts, snorting and pawing at the ground. How superb they were, though so ungainly, so without line or structure. He edged closer into the field, and one of the imperial guards put his spear across his path. “Please stand back, your Highness.”

  Aurangzeb heard Murad’s childish voice shout, in an abrupt and deep lull in the racket, “Let the fight begin!” for it was the youngest prince’s privilege to do so. The elephants seemed to have heard the signal also; they shook their massive heads, and, without the provocation of the ankhs, Sukhdar and Surat Sundar rumbled through the mud wall as though it had been a mere chiffon curtain and smashed their heads into each other. The wall disintegrated in a fine mist of dirt, which billowed outward and then dissipated, and Aurangzeb saw the elephants tilt their heads this way and that and charge at each other again, their mahouts clinging on. They were well matched, he thought, raising his voice to join the clamor of the crowd, as the elephants returned to each other again and again. Surat Sundar’s mahout fell off the elephant and disappeared in the dust with an awkward flailing of limbs. From the white-clad women, a thin, keening wail rose and swept across to Aurangzeb’s ear.

  Frightened, shaken, and without a guide now, Surat Sundar turned to flee, plowing his way through the tightly packed hordes, but paths widened to admit him and closed behind him
as the men watched what Sukhdar would do. He looked around, howled his anger, and charged toward the four glittering princes on horseback.

  As the infantrymen of the imperial army, clad in full armor, their shields held aloft, struggled to maintain their places, the crowd of men pushed them away. Everyone flew out of the elephant’s way, and all of a sudden, one lone man found himself confronting Sukhdar.

  Prince Aurangzeb felt his heart stop and his hands grow cold around his reins. Dara had fled along with the crowd. Sadullah Khan, the Grand Vizier of the Empire, had yanked at Prince Murad’s reins and pulled him to the side, and where Shuja was, Aurangzeb did not know. He was alone in all that din, voices wailing and crying, and he clearly heard Jahanara and his father shout out his name, telling him to flee. He looked up and saw them both leaning over the balcony of the Shah Burj. Aurangzeb bent down to snatch a spear from a passing soldier and flung it with all of his strength at Sukhdar. It hit the elephant between the eyes, and three inches of the spear’s pointed tip pierced the animal’s tough hide. Sukhdar bawled in pain, and with his mighty trunk he whacked at Aurangzeb, thudded into his horse instead, and sent the animal flying a few feet. Aurangzeb was flung off the horse. He rose shakily to his feet and stood in the field, his fingers scrambling for the dagger in his cummerbund, but he knew even then that it was little defense against the mammoth animal.

  Sukhdar rushed in again, and Aurangzeb saw Shuja ride toward the animal, yelling all the while until it stopped in distraction. That brief moment was enough. The elephant keepers, who had come armed with their chakris for just such a possibility, lit the two ends of their bamboo canes, which were filled with gunpowder. The canes swung around on their central axes, held up on poles, spitting fire and light, the gunpowder booming as it caught flame. Raja Jai Singh came to Shuja’s aid now, peeling away from the crowd, his spear ready. He flung the spear to wound Sukhdar and jabbed at the enraged beast with his sword. The elephant tossed him to the ground and lifted a massive foot to crush him where he lay. Just then, Surat Sundar returned, butting Sukhdar from the back with a tremendous force, and his crushing foot came down a few inches from Jai Singh’s head. The two elephants turned on each other, and Aurangzeb pushed his way through to haul the Raja out of the field and into the crowd.