The Moghul Hedonist

by Farzana Moon

  "This diamond hides a ruby in its pulse, the color of blood, Your Majesty." Nur Mahal demurred.

  "Turn not thy cheek, without thee I cannot live a moment

  For thee to break one heart is equal to a hundred murders."

  Jahangir laughed. "The couplets of the dead poets are still simmering in my head. But this one is my own creation, from the deepest deep within my soul."

  "Your Majesty! An already broken heart—your heart, that is, needs mending, not breaking." Nur Mahal joined the emperor in his mirth. "Pour me a goblet of wine, Your Majesty, and I would drink to your health." Her voice was one ripple of a cataract.

  "May the emperor share this toast of health with you, for he has only one goblet?" Jahangir reached out for the flagon eagerly, and filled the goblet to the brim. "The emperor would drink to your wit and beauty—and wisdom." He drained half the goblet before holding it out to her. "And what wise council did you lend to the ambassadors from Surat, Turan and Deccan?"

  "The first embassy, Your Majesty, was from some T. Smith from London. The governor of East India Company." Nur Mahal began avidly. "He requested a trade agreement between us and England. To this request, I granted their ships full sanction to land at the Moghul ports in compliance with the Moghul laws. Our dyes, spices, opium, ginger, pepper and textiles would fetch high prices if we trade with England. Very lucrative in exchange for the worthless commodities which could be purchased from them at a low price. Of course, I had to use your royal seal, Your Majesty, to cement this agreement." She added cheerfully.

  "You would have your own seal, pretty soon, my Beauty." Jahangir smiled, adoration shining in his eyes. "And coins would be struck in your name. You would be the empress of the world, Love!" One ripple of a prophecy escaped his lips. "Feed me with the import of the other embassies as briefly as possible, my love. I can't fight the commands of my heart much longer. It is aching to hold you into its arms."

  "I have a heart too, Your Majesty, remember? A diamond with a ruby in the middle." Nur Mahal sang. "And if it keeps throbbing with the violence of love, you would never learn about the embassies."

  "Your wit is greater than your passion, my love." Jahangir reclaimed his goblet, draining it quickly. "Proceed, my sweet, before the emperor carries you to his own royal bed. You might have to design another gown before the wedding ceremonies are over.”

  "Your Majesty!" Nur Mahal protested. "The embassy from Surat was folded shut by my unwillingness to listen to their strings of apologies." She began sweetly. "The rest you know, Your Majesty. The Portuguese lamenting their folly after burning the Moghul vessels at Goa, all hundred and twenty of them. The burning of ship Rahimi was an accident, they still claim, and maintain the same story. Their offer of three lakhs of rupees as compensation for the losses of Moghul ships is not accepted by me. The Portuguese ambassador had the audacity to request that the English be expelled from the Moghul ports. That is when I dismissed him with an explicit order to return to Goa till further orders from the emperor."

  "And what are the emperor's orders, my Nur?" Jahangir asked amusedly.

  "None, Your Majesty, so far." Nur Mahal quipped. "If I may suggest, Your Majesty, let the English and the Portuguese fight their own battles at the sea. Since you have banned the Portuguese from trade, they dare not attack the Moghul ships anymore."

  "What fate befell, if I may ask, the Turani ambassador from the wand of your charming judgment, my love?" Jahangir's eyes were gathering warmth and wistfulness.

  "All love and goodwill, Your Majesty." Nur Mahal's enthusiasm was ebbing and splintering. "Turan has Imam Quli Khan as its kind and generous monarch. He has sent us rare and precious gifts. Also, a letter from her mother, who is longing to meet me."

  "And the emperor is longing to taste the wine of your beauty, my Nur." Jahangir eased himself up slowly and thoughtfully. His very gaze unrobing her.

  "Your Majesty!" Pleaded Nur Mahal. "Don't you wish to know about the Deccani embassy?"

  "Deccan—" Jahangir's thoughts were left unuttered as his eunuch at the door sought his attention. "What storms are brewing in your eyes, Itibar Khan? The emperor is not needed at the wedding festivities till late in the afternoon?"

  "No, Your Majesty." Itibar Khan fell into a hasty curtsy. "The Jain Monk, Siddhichandra, is craving your audience, Your Majesty."

  "Siddhichandra." An impatient murmur escaped Jahangir's lips, but then he smiled. "Send him in." His smile was whimsical and reminiscent.

  Itibar Khan retraced his steps in a flurry of curtsies, and Jahangir rewarded him with a gracious smile. The emperor's hands were folding behind his back in a tight knot once again, as if he was restraining his passion to crush Nur Mahal into his arms. Nur Mahal's eyes and her cheeks, with a blush of rose, were making him giddy with desire. But since his thoughts had quickly arrested the young and handsome face of Siddhichandra, they were in mutiny against his heart, commanding him to test the chastity of this monk. His caprice was more overpowering than his passion, and he was tempted to indulge in a few moments of capricious interlude.

  Siddhichandra was announced by the eunuch, and he stumbled into the library under some spell of shock and disbelief. His curtsy was impeccable though, after which he stood facing the emperor, his look still dazed.

  "Sit at the feet of the empress, Siddhichandra. On this wedding day of our royal son, she is in a mood to receive embassies." Jahangir laughed, stealing a meaningful look at Nur Mahal.

  Siddhichandra was startled to awareness. He had not noticed the empress right under his nose, and she was watching him with interest and kindness. Her eyes had sealed a pact of mischief with the emperor, and now she was smiling to herself. Siddhichandra's former disbelief in being admitted to the library was further heightened with astonishment in gaining this privilege to be with the empress. His curtsy was awkward, as he slumped at her feet as if kneeling before a goddess.

  "Before you present your embassy to the empress, Siddhichandra, let the emperor persuade you to renounce your vow of asceticism." Jahangir was trying not to laugh. "You are handsome, Siddhichandra. Your youth is meant for the pleasure of contact with the bodies of young girls. Why, then, you waste it upon the desert of severe austerities?"

  "Your Majesty!" Siddhichandra's cheeks were flushed with blotches of pink. "Your Majesty, the strength of a religious commitment counts not the years. In fact, young have more energy to discipline their minds, and to seek the treasures in their souls. As far as my handsomeness is concerned, it is insignificant. I have trained my mind, not to be affected by vanity and to remain unattached. It stays unaffected by the worldly pleasures." He lowered his eyes.

  "You are well versed in the doctrines of Hindu ashrama, I am sure, Siddhichandra." Nur Mahal began softly. "Initial renunciation, then indulgence, and final renunciation." She watched Siddhichandra lift his eyes, and continued. "Asceticism is meant for those who have sated their desires with pleasure and incontinence, not for those who have yet to experience them. You are young, almost twenty-five, you told me yourself. Don't you wish to have a wife, and children of your own?" She coaxed gently.

  "I am wedded to my religion, Great Empress." Siddhichandra confessed.

  "You are drunk by the wine of your austerities, my young monk." Jahangir teased happily. "The emperor is going to banish you to the forest, where the celibate trees woo not the vestal lilies. But tell me, what made you seek the emperor's audience on this great day of his son's wedding?" Edicts of dismissal were shining in his eyes.

  "My guru, Your Majesty, he is ill. Feverish and delirious." Siddhichandra began all flustered. "So far, none of the remedies prescribed by the physicians have helped him. I pleaded for an audience, Your Majesty, hoping, that your generosity—that you may send your physician from Persia to attend my guru?" His very eyes were pleading.

  "And you have trained your mind not to be affected by anything?" Jahangir smiled sadly. "You have my permission to talk with Mahabat Khan. Inform him that by the emperor's orders he is to se
nd Hakim Sadra to your guru." He waved dismissal.

  Siddhichandra rose to his feet in some daze of joy and gratitude. Bowing low before the emperor and the empress, and then fleeing as if pressed by the very hands of fates to save the life of his guru!

  "He has a noble and virtuous heart, Your Majesty, endowed with strength and discipline." Nur Mahal sang mirthfully. "It is wrong of us to goad him to renounce his vow of chastity."

  "Celibacy is not a virtue, but a curse from the very gods, my love. Rather a temptation for the fools to renounce all joys in life in hope of gaining bliss in the life Hereafter." Jahangir assisted Nur Mahal to her feet, catching her into one eager embrace, and kissing passionately.

  "Your Majesty." Nur Mahal could barely murmur, as if swooning. "Such impropriety! Eunuchs have eyes on the back of their heads—" Her words as well as her thoughts were a tremor of appeals. "Feasting and celebrations await us downstairs.”

  "The emperor is accustomed to feasting before the feasting, Love." Jahangir released her laughingly. "Your most obedient slave, my Nur." He spirited her out of the library most gallantly.

  The hall of mirrors spruced with garlands was the abode of the wedding ceremonies, where Jahangir and Nur Mahal landed without ceremony. The Khattak dance was at its culmination, the bhutans tapping and twirling, while the dancers swirled on their feet in rhythm with the music. Further down the hall was a stage furnished with ferns in brass pots and tall floral arrangements. The musicians on this stage were testing their instruments to evoke bhangra tunes for the next dance. But the Khattak dance was the frenzy of the moment, the ladies in velvet and brocade gowns with their partners in silken robes and jeweled turbans were creating a tapestry of colors while twirling and pirouetting. Amidst this ocean of music and festivity, the royal servants in white robes and crimson turbans were scurrying back and forth, serving sweets and fruits. The wine-bearers too, with gold flagons in their arms, were eager to replenish the jeweled cups. The aunts, the mothers, the daughters, and all the emperor's wives were there too, their coiffeurs blazing with jewels and flowers.

  The low stage smothered in velvets with a gold canopy overhead, was offering a pleasant refuge to the bride and the bridegroom. Arjumand Banu was wearing a gown of white silk, clustered with rubies in the pattern of roses. A tiara of rubies and diamonds was glowing over her black, pleated hair with its own blaze of glory and radiance. Her delicate eyebrows were penciled, and her long, raven eyelashes were lending her the appearance of a sleeping beauty, much younger than her nineteen springs of youth and girlhood. Prince Khurram seated beside her, was no less an object of admiration in youth and handsomeness. In contrast to his bride, he was looking older than his twenty years of princely bearing, stumbling on the verge of manhood. His white turban with a red plume was studded with rubies and diamonds.

  Jahangir and Nur Mahal were lost into the melee of music and festivity. Fluttering from one end of the hall to the other with a thousand interruptions on the way. Greeting and laughing like the two young lovers, caught in the serenade of royal amenities. All hearts could be felt throbbing in envy at Nur Mahal's rare gown and jewels, for no one in this royal household had the skill or the courage in designing or flaunting such exquisite designs. The other wives of the emperor were too proud to acknowledge her talents, though complimenting her, only to please the emperor.

  Amidst a whirlwind of greetings, Jahangir had lost sight of Nur Mahal. He had barely dismissed a beau of princes, when he found himself standing close to a circle of dancers, alone and unattended. The young dancers were caught into a frenzy of rhythm as he stood watching, fascinated by the tilaks on their foreheads and studs in their noses, which seemed to follow their own tunes in blaze and intensity. All of a sudden, he felt cold and abandoned. Slowly and gradually, he was being sucked into a world, where there was nothing, but loneliness and desolation. The stark naked vacuum of silence utter and absolute. A shuddering canvas on the very waves of sand-dunes was etching a face, Anarkali. The emperor with his cup of wine poised before him was defacing that vision. His gaze was searching Nur Mahal, and his mind bent on destroying the portrait of Anarkali. A strip of reality was emerging before his sight against some haze of memory and nostalgia. Inside him were silence and darkness, but the face of Nur Mahal's cousin, Jafar Beg, was bobbing up and down before his eyes like a rude intrusion. Jafar Beg was wending his way toward the emperor, his face wreathed in smiles.

  "Your Majesty, I regret I didn't get the honor of greeting you at the wedding celebrations in the palace of Asaf Khan." Jafar Beg declared. "Please accept my deepest gratitude for raising my standard to three hundred horse and men." He bowed his head.

  "One of these days, you might be trooping down the jungles of Bengal on lengthy campaigns, Jafar. Then, you won't feel so grateful?" Jahangir laughed. "Any news of importance, Jafar, great or small, that you might wish to share with the emperor?"

  "Muqqarab Khan is converted to Christianity, Your Majesty." Jafar Beg was quick to release this bit of information. "By Father Corsi or by Father Xavier, I am not sure?"

  "Muqqarab Khan, the greatest of surgeons, and my own personal vizier!" Jahangir's eyes were kindling a blaze of mirth. "How the Great Providence works, is beyond our mortal understanding. Maybe he would be more skilled in healing the emperor, now, that he is under the shadow of the Healer, Jesus Christ." He laughed.

  Asaf Khan, standing not too far, was quick to join the emperor. He was endowed with a nature quite bold and vivacious. But had grown bold than ever now that his daughter was being wedded to the emperor's son.

  "May I join the emperor and share his happiness, Your Majesty?" Asaf Khan's eyes were changing colors like the opals in his mauve turban.

  "With great pleasure, the emperor welcomes you, Asaf. Especially, now that your jewel of a daughter has become a precious ornament in the crown of my beloved son." Jahangir smiled affably. "My son, he is so much in love with your daughter that he seems drowned inside the ocean of his longings sweet and ineffable!"

  More royalty were gathering around the emperor. Asmat Begum and Itmadudaula Khan were not far behind, lured toward this royal circle by the mirth and gaiety of the emperor. Jahangir's gaze was welcoming the parents of Nur Mahal, and his thoughts were bursting forth into tides of raillery.

  "I hear, you are practicing the arts of necromancy, Asmat Begum?" Jahangir's gaze was teasing Asmat Begum.

  "Who dared make such a vile accusation against me, Your Majesty?" Asmat Begum beamed with much pleasure.

  "The emperor himself!" Jahangir laughed. "The emperor's heart could not be slain by the beauty of your daughter alone, unless it was bewitched by the charms and amulets crafted by her mother." His thoughts were effacing the vision of Anarkali.

  "I am testing my skills in making perfumes, Your Majesty, if this talent falls under the category of necromancy?" Asmat Begum quipped brightly.

  "No one knows my plight!" Itaqid Khan protested from behind, flashing a warm look at his mother. "I am the one commanded to gather roses from the gardens.”

  "And who is assigned the job of watching the rose-petals bubble and simmer all night? Who else, but me." Itmadudaula Khan sought his wife’s attention.

  "Besides roses, Itaqid, didn't you gather precious gifts from all over the empire?" Jahangir asked. "When are you going to parade them before the emperor?"

  "Whenever you command, Your Majesty." Itaqid Khan smiled broadly. "The rarities which I have chosen to present to you as gifts, I have brought with me. Only awaiting your permission to be paraded before you, Your Majesty."

  "What are those rarities, my gallant vizier, if the emperor may ask?" Jahangir's eyes were shining with interest.

  "The birds of prey, such as Yaks, hawks and falcons, Your Majesty. And the ponies of the most exquisite breed." Itaqid Khan began with the pride of an adventurer. "The jade inkpots and alabaster vases. The chests of ebony with koftgari designs. The sandalwood tables with the inlay of lapis lazuli. Musk bags, navels of musk, and the skins of
musk antelopes. Daggers of gold and jeweled swords. Many, many more rarities, Your Majesty, just to name a few." He was getting flustered.

  "And no zebras, whom the painter of fate has colored with a strange brush?" Jahangir teased. "Don't forget to summon the court painters when those birds of prey are presented to the emperor. Especially, Mansard, he has a great skill in painting the colorful plumage. These birds must be preserved, for posterity." His aesthetic senses were soaring, but getting caught midway at the appearance of Sahiba Jamali.

  Sahiba Jamali's high coiffure decked with pearls and rosebuds could not be missed by the emperor, as she sailed closer in her gown of pink silks. Her hazel eyes were glinting accusations, though she chirped happily.

  "Since the emperor is not requesting his wives to dance with him, they have decided to honor him with their own requests." Sahiba Jamali offered her arm.

  "To dance with you, my mistress of beauty is the emperor's honor, entirely, if he can get away from his royal brood." Jahangir’s attention was diverted to his son, Prince Perwiz. "Come here, my besotted Prince, and seek guidance from the emperor."

  Prince Perwiz stumbled forward. He was quick to notice his mother beside the emperor, and steadied his step, his eyes pleading some sort of favors. Sahiba Jamali stood smoothing her gown, her own gaze tender and comforting.

  "You are espoused to your gold cup, my heedless Prince, while your wife languishes in utter neglect." Jahangir chided. No rebuke shining in his eyes.

  "Your Majesty!" Prince Perwiz laughed. "This is the occasion for drinking and feasting, Your Majesty."

  "Every blithering day is a holy feast for you, my drunken lout of a Prince. An orgy of oblivion and drunkenness!" Jahangir declared with the mingling of rage and sympathy. "You are to be dispatched on a Deccani campaign since Prince Khurram must stay with his newly wedded bride, for a few months at least."

  "I would exchange my cup for a sword, Your Majesty." Prince Perwiz murmured contritely.