Mistress of the Throne (The Mughal intrigues) (19 page)

“All what?”

“This… the structure, the mausoleum for your mother. He says it is un-Islamic because it shows vanity.”

“Then what does he want?”

“He said the mud and wood covering we have on her grave is sufficient. We should be building mosques or conquering territories with the money we’re spending on this.”

I just sighed. No matter how much I tried to help my brother, his actions and words always made it very difficult for me to convey my message and win him any allies.

Just staring straight at the road, not even looking me in the eye, Aba continued: “No mausoleum, no music, no poetry, nothing that makes life worth living is acceptable with that son of mine. That’s why I sent him to the Deccan. Live there however you please. Just stop bothering me.”

We, father and daughter, stayed quiet for the rest of the journey. I noticed my father was just staring out into the sky sadly, as if he felt
devastated to see how Aurangzeb had turned out and felt helpless and frustrated at his own inability to mold his son into a better man. As if just giving up on him altogether, he’d merely banished him from the kingdom, but done so in a politically appropriate manner by calling him the Governor of the Deccan and giving him some limited power in a region that wasn’t very important to us. Aba concentrated almost entirely now on Dara and Dara’s newborn son, Sulaiman Shikoh. It was as if they alone were important to him. I didn’t even bother re-approaching the topic of the elephant incident. For every one incident in which Aurangzeb was wronged, there appeared to be ten in which he was committing offences. Any discussion seemed futile.

12

THE ACCIDENT

5
^th
April, 1644

I
could barely breathe, my nostrils were so clogged with soot and ointments filled to treat my burns. My mouth was so dry, I was perpetually thirsty but never received any water because of my inability to communicate. My head ached as if someone was poking it with sharp needles all day and night. Every part of my body ached, except those parts I could no longer feel. Every time I tried to move, I felt as though my body was covered with layers of bandages, but perhaps it was just scars from the accident that had swollen and developed into atrocious blisters of fat and skin.

I slept most of the time from the opium they seem to have been giving me for the pain. Though I’m told I was never alone, I have barely any recollection of those months of my life.

Ami would visit me in my dreams on some nights, but whenever she did she looked like she did when we were in Nizamshahi, not in Agra. It was as if my memory chose to recall her not as the grand Queen of India, but as a simple princess back when power and status meant very little to our family.

In her sweet yet stern voice she would say to me, “Jahanara, stay close by; don’t run into the forest after any rabbit or deer!” I felt as though I was looking through a window transported in time, for in my dreams, I saw myself as a ten-year-old girl, running carefree, wanting nothing more than a beautiful deer to admire and
a beautiful baby sister or brother to give way to my perpetually pregnant mother who through her days with a swollen belly, would run after me and pick me up in her arms.

She was with me during those days when I lay in bed on the verge of death, my body badly disfigured from the flames that had consumed it.

I don’t know how my family members were coping with this, especially Aba, whose voice would occasionally echo in my ears when I went in and out of consciousness, barely aware of my surroundings. But honestly, as much as I cared about them, I was in too much agony to think of their needs at this time.

After we arrived in our palace from Mumtazabad that fateful day, I was walking back to my apartments, newly remodelled in the past several years, after I’d finished checking up on my father. Four female servants accompanied me as I walked through the marble and red sandstone corridors. On this night, I wore muslin I’d purchased from Mumtazabad. It was a beautiful turquoise colour, but was a little bit big on me. As I walked, the bottom portion of the rear of the muslin swung in the wind behind me like the train of a bride.

I was enjoying the wind gusts created by the corridor of the palace and I began to walk faster, hoping the wind would hit my face harder as I enjoyed it on this hot summer day. I closed my eyes so they wouldn’t dry out from the cool, brisk air that was embracing my face. Suddenly, the bottom portion of the muslin already gliding in the air must have hit the flame of a candle and caught fire. At first, I didn’t even notice what had happened, but then the fire crept up my back and the flame touched my soft, olive skin. I turned around and saw that my muslin had caught fire and began to scream.
“Help! Fire! Ahh! Someone help!”

A number of female servants threw themselves on me, hoping to extinguish the flame, but it reached up my neck and then set my hair on fire.

“Someone help us!” cried one of the female attendants. I then saw one of my attendants, Sharda, who’d rushed to me first, herself now on fire. Her hair, longer than mine, had caught fire as soon as she ran towards me.

The other female attendants were now trying to extinguish flames burning us both. Then one of the other girls, much younger than Sharda, moved away as her scarf caught fire. She threw it off, but it was too late; she was already on fire. The last of the attendants smothered me, trying to choke off the flames, but to no avail. Each one by one was catching fire while trying to extinguish it. The flame engulfing all four of us was destined to permanently scar our bodies for life, or whatever would be left of our lives after this.

“Get some water, help!” I yelled.

My arms were now on fire, too; only my front side, from where my tears had wet my entire face, was left unharmed. “Wake up!! Someone help!”

All I could see were four flame-embroiled shadows surrounding me.

“Help us!” somebody yelled.

I cried: “Where is everybody?”

Every moment seemed like an eternity, and my body seared with pain I’d never known was possible.

Finally two guards came running. I began to lose consciousness and everything turned into a blur. The guards were shouting that there was no water tank nearby to fill buckets with. I knew this area of the palace. The only deposit of water was in the fountains – beautiful, glistening fountains that looked like floating crystals in the sunlight. Though aesthetically pleasing, they would take time to fill water buckets. By then, we would all be dead.

“Aba! Help me!!” I cried, my back completely covered in flames.

I heard one of the guards shout, “We must do something besides just pour water, or they’ll die!”

My attendants’ cries began to die out, and I feared they might have succumbed to the flames. Were they dead or was I? I wondered. Then suddenly two women covered me with a heavy shawl.

I murmured half awake: “Save Sharda. Save my girls…”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” replied one woman anxiously.

After several more minutes, they completely extinguished the flames. I then lost consciousness.

During my recovery, some of my dreams involved visions of heaven. As pictured in the Koran, there were lush gardens with fountains and many rose bushes, and on the paved walkways people didn’t stand, they glided by. No one had feet, souls simply floated in air, with faces implanted with smiles that never eroded and happiness that never faded. I tried to run across this garden, searching for my mother, but realised soon that I myself wasn’t running, but gliding. Was I dead too? Was this dream in actuality my new reality? I continued to float, my skin tone no longer olive, but now a glistening golden, like a ray of the sun; my fingertips were pointed like the edges of a sword; my eyes were pointy and thin, like simple slits. Would I even be able to recognise my Ami if everyone looked as different?

The weather was very warm, but we didn’t sweat, instead just absorbed the light as if we were a part of it. Wherever I went in this never-ending paradise, everyone greeted me like a long-lost friend. Was I drunk or simply enlightened? Was this paradise or simply an opium hallucination? I kept searching for my mother, crossing wondrous landscapes in my quest, floating and gliding past waterfalls and fountains – and then I saw a tall woman at a distance, wearing the same clothes my mother wore. She didn’t glide, nor was her colour gold. Instead, she simply stood as though she were still human.

I glided towards her, crying, “Ami! It’s me, Jahanara! I’m here. Turn around!”

Slowly the figure turned, and it indeed was my beautiful mother, her belly no longer swollen, smiling, and she stretched her arms out to hug me.

I ran into her arms like a child bruised on the playground would run to her mother. She wrapped her arms around me, and I was able to smell her aroma – an aroma that had long since faded from her belongings. “Oh, how I’ve missed you, Ami” I cried, with no tears to run down my golden-hued face. I was now convinced I had died and
was in paradise, for here you couldn’t cry. The only emotion you were capable of was happiness.

I asked my mother why she didn’t look like everyone else. Why was her colour not golden, why were her eyes not thin as lines, why were her legs still present?

“I will be like this until my family is safe, Jahanara.”

“Safe? We’re all fine, Ami. The King is building a mausoleum, Dara is married, and the brothers are all governors. Raushanara and Gauhara are doing well too!”

“Until my family is safe,” she said, a fixed smile still across her face. “Not until they are safe.”

What is my mother saying?
I wondered. Was she telling me something I didn’t know? Was there some impending danger I needed to save my family from? Was she telling me that she would never find salvation in heaven until we were all safe, and that I was the one who needed to protect us from some impending danger?

Then my dream ended, and I could again hear voices as I came in and out of consciousness. I was unable to question my mother further.

I heard:

“You cannot look at the Empress!” The voice sounded like that of the court physician, Wazir Khan. “It is absolutely forbidden for an outsider to look at her.”

“How can I treat someone I can’t even see?” said the firangi in irritated, broken Persian.

“You will stick your hands out through a curtain, and someone will guide your hands to where they need to go. If you wish to see something, tell the eunuchs and they will tell you what they see and describe it in detail.”

“Are you serious!?” yelled the firangi. “What rubbish is this? The Empress is dying, and you speak of vanity?”

I was ‘dying’? But I wasn’t dead yet? So that whole experience had been just a hallucination?
It couldn’t have been
, I said to myself.
That odour, that energy, they had to be my mother’s…

“These are our rules!”

“Well, they’re bloody stupid rules!”

“Doctor, watch your language!”

“If His Majesty wishes to play these games, he must find someone else to take care of the Empress; I can’t.” There was a pause.

The first voice finally said, “All right, fine, do as you wish. But don’t tell anyone I allowed this!”