Book Review - The feast of roses by Indu Sundaresan

In The feast of roses, Indu Sundaresan paints a deeply romantic epic on the canvas of early 17^th century moghul era. Her story telling style is just as captivating as her poetic description of every scene. Quite uncharacteristically, I found myself reading the descriptive parts more than once, just to savor her creative portrayal. Indu has stayed true to history for the most part, while weaving an intricate story of empress Mehrunnisa, Jahangir’s twentieth wife. Mehrunnisa defied social doctrines of the moghuls, which held women essentially as objects of pleasure, to become the most powerful woman in moghul history. Indu takes us on this amazing journey through space and time and makes us feel like we are watching the drama unfold, much like Dritirashtra’s charioteer Sanjay was able to watch the war of kurukshetra with his special boon.

Mehrunnisa was the only woman Jahangir married for love, and the only person in the world whom he trusted. This boundless love between them endures through their lifetime, despite an uproarious squabble that Indu describes with flair. When they made up after this fist fight, Jahangir staged a fairy tale-like public show of reconciliation. On the pathway in the central courtyard of the zenana, he arranged for a beautiful carpet of scented pink satin rose petals to be laid. With all nobles watching, Mehrunnisa and Jahangir walked from opposite ends of the pathway towards each other, on this carpet of roses, for a tender, amorous union at the center. This demonstration of love made a lasting impression on every woman present, and left her dreaming of the day their husbands would set such a feast of roses for them. This imagery was symbolic of the undying love between Mehrunnisa and Jahangir and it is from here that the book gets its name.

So smitten was Jahangir with Mehrunnisa, on whom he had bestowed the title Nur Jahan (light of the world), that when she boldly sought more power, he willingly made her a true partner, by sharing with her all the major powers of sovereignty. She struggled against other powerful men around her, who did all in their might to stop her from having a say in running the empire. The story describes how she cleverly maneuvers the empire with her schemes, punishing those who went against her, and rewarding those who showed her allegiance. She used her power to raise the status and income of her family members, while curbing favoritism shown by other nobles.

Though Nur Jahan managed state affairs valiantly, the motive behind her every step was to ensure that her power in the empire remained in tact. She had got her niece Arjumand (Mumtaz Mahal) married to Shah Jahan, Jahangir’s son, to keep the power base within her family. Later, when her own daughter Ladli came of age, Nur Jahan wanted to get her also married to Shah Jahan, to become the future emperor’s wife. Arjumand was able to discern that this was Nur Jahan’s ploy to stay in power even after Shah Jahan became the emperor. She discreetly stood in the way of that union, though Shah Jahan was quite taken with Ladli’s beauty. (It was common for moghul emperors to take multiple wives and Shah Jahan indeed married other women later.)

Nur Jahan battled bravely and held her supreme power for over sixteen years. But, in the end, she lived in exile, with only her daughter and her aide by her side. On her deathbed, Nur Jahan intensely regretted her failure in getting Ladli married to the one person she loved, Shah Jahan. As she introspected her life, she figured that for her to have been successful in her struggle against the bigoted men, she should have consolidated her power with support of the women around her, instead of alienating them by neither consulting nor taking advice from  of them. This sentiment comes through piquantly in her dying statement “I wish I could live my life again.”

After Shah Jahan became emperor, Arjumand did not participate in ruling the empire. She was mostly busy bearing children for Shah Jahan, about one a year, and passed away during the birth of her fourteenth child. Shah Jahan himself was quite power crazy through his adulthood, so much so that before taking the crown, he killed four people, including two of his brothers, who could potentially lay claim to the throne. It is ironic that because Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal for Mumtaz Mahal, it is only her that the world remembers among moghul empresses and it is the love story between Shah Jahan and her that much has been written about.