The Twentieth Wife (52 page)

They all invariably hinted at the drama surrounding her birth, a love affair with Salim before he came to the throne, and the suspicion on him regarding her husband’s death. Contemporary historians usually do not agree. Yet, all the authors agree on some points: Jahangir never married again; Mehrunnisa was his twentieth—and last—wife. Although he alluded to her only briefly in his memoirs, she was the most important person in his life until 1627, when he died. Theirs was a love that formed the basis of poems, songs, and ballads in India. (Thomas Moore’s
Lalla Rookh
is also based on their story.)

My interest was piqued. Who was this woman hidden behind the veil, around whom legend swirled wraithlike? Why was she so firmly placed in the Emperor’s affections? Why did he give her so much power? In an age when women were said to have been rarely
seen and heard, Mehrunnisa minted coins in her name, issued royal orders (
farmans
), traded with foreign countries, owned ships that plied the Arabian Sea routes, patronized the arts, and authorized the building of many imperial gardens and tombs that still exist today. In other words, she stepped beyond the bounds of convention. All this came through the man who adored her to the point of obsession.

The accounts of her were conflicting. She was generous. She was cruel and mean-spirited. She loved Jahangir passionately. She so enamored him that he could no longer think for himself. She dulled his senses with wine and opium. Yet she was the one he turned to in illness, not trusting even the royal physicians. From all these reports of Mehrunnisa, written mostly after her death and during her reign as Empress, came
The Twentieth Wife.

It is a fictional account of her life before her marriage to Jahangir, but it is rooted in history. Salim’s rebellion against Akbar, Khusrau’s against him, the punishment inflicted on Khusrau’s men after his flight to Lahore, the threats on the northwestern frontier of the empire by the Uzbeg king and the Shah of Persia, the Deccan wars—even Mehrunnisa’s niece’s betrothal to Prince Khurram—all are based on historical fact. Also true are the accounts of Ali Quli’s desertion of Prince Salim at Agra after the storming of the treasury, his support for Khusrau, his slaying of Qutubuddin Khan Koka, and his death at the hands of the imperial army. As for the rest, I relied on bazaar gossip, the narratives of seventeenth-century travelers to India, the legend of Mehrunnisa, and my own imagination.

When one thinks of the six main Mughal Emperors, it is usually in these terms: Babur founded the empire; Humayun lost it, was driven out of India, and returned to reclaim it; Akbar, inheriting the throne at the age of thirteen, consolidated the empire; Jahangir added few kingdoms to the legacy his father left him, but his romantic
exploits are legendary; Shah Jahan built the Taj Mahal, fixing him firmly in history; Aurangzeb, steeped in religious intolerance, was instrumental in the breakup of the empire.

There are few mentions of the women these kings married or of the power they exercised.
The Twentieth Wife
seeks to fill that gap.

One fact is indisputable. The women of Ghias Beg’s family had a potent hold on their men and on Indian history. Mehrunnisa, known to posterity as Empress Nur Jahan, became powerful from the time of her marriage to Jahangir until his death in 1627. To help her rule, she formed a
junta
composed of three men: her father, Ghias Beg; her brother, Abul Hasan; and Jahangir’s third son, Prince Khurram. This story is told in
The Feast of Roses
(to be published in May 2003), the sequel to
The Twentieth Wife.
A year after Mehrunnisa came to the imperial harem as Empress, Khurram married her niece (Abul’s daughter and Ghias’s granddaughter), Arjumand Banu Begam. She died a few years after Khurram became Emperor Shah Jahan while giving birth to his fourteenth child. In her memory, during Mehrunnisa’s lifetime, he built the Taj Mahal.

Although the world in general knows of Khurram’s devotion to Arjumand because of the Taj Mahal, there is no doubt that Jahangir’s devotion to Mehrunnisa equaled, if not surpassed, his son’s to Arjumand. He may not have left a monument for posterity, but he gave her—the love of his later years—free rein to do as she pleased. Mehrunnisa did so, and she loved him enough to respect his wishes. She is known to have ruled the empire. But she was powerful because of him, not despite him.

Indu Sundaresan

May 2001

June 1817

T
he midday sun leaned over to place its fiery kiss upon the Shalimar Gardens in Lahore, four and a half miles east of the fort and walled city. The blazing light wavered into a haze around the almond, guava, and mango trees, and except under the trees where it could not penetrate, all shadows leached into the blistering ground.

The Shalimar Gardens—the Abode of Pleasure—was a name taken by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan from the gardens his father had built in the valley of Kashmir. In the late 1630s, the Ravi River in Lahore flooded its banks. Angry waters swamped and carved out new geographical features, shifting vast quantities of mud from one place to another, leaving acclivities and declivities where none had existed before. One such slope in the land was born after this flood. So it was here Emperor Shah Jahan ordered the garden to be built in three terraces that descended from the south to the north.