Mistress of the Throne (The Mughal intrigues) Read Online Free PDF Page B

was appalled. How traumatic it must have been for a child, especially a boy, to be called a member of the opposite sex by an adult!
    “Aurangzeb’s depression and agony went on for several months, as all of Nur Jahan’s servants, especially the female ones, continued taunting Aurangzeb. As you yourself noticed, he also wasn’t growing at the same rate as me because he would hardly eat anything – the grief he was enduring stole his appetite. Having received full licence from Nur Jahan to taunt Aurangzeb, the female servants grew ever more cruel to him. One day they sneaked into his room, pinned him down, put makeup on his face and told him he was small because he was really a girl, and he should accept that he was only a princess, not a prince.”
    As I continued to listen I was filled with both rage and sadness. I couldn’t help but suspect that this mistreatment had been suffused with Nur Jahan’s virulence.
    Many years ago, when my father returned from his campaign in the Deccan with Arjun Singh, the leader of a rebel group that had played an instrumental role in the agitation there Aba assumed Arjun Singh would be imprisoned or executed like most rebels. Instead, Nur Jahan had Arjun Singh imprisoned and given a large cup filled with an elixir of opium seeds. Arjun Singh was allowed no food until he finished the full elixir. Over the course of several weeks, Arjun Singh, who’d been known for his physical strength and masculine leadership skills, drifted more and more into opiate senselessness. Several months later he was completely emaciated and had the wits of an imbecile. Nur Jahan then had his legs severely broken and threw him into the streets of Agra to live the rest of his days as a disabled beggar, unable to even clean himself.
    I asked, “Did they also torture you, Dara?”
    “They tried to, mainly by cursing Aba in my presence; but soon they realised that they couldn’t upset me, so they directed all their energies at Aurangzeb. I tried to protect him, but they usually kept us apart.”
    “But this still doesn’t explain his religious zeal?”
    “I’m about to arrive at that point. With no one there to ease his torment, and me being forcibly separated from him, he began reading the Koran for comfort and wisdom. The more Nur Jahan tortured him, the more he would read. He began to sew caps for prayer services and donate them to the mosque. Whenever the servants would come to taunt him, he would recite the Koran, and the Muslim servants would walk away out of fear that they were doing something unjust while the Koran was being read aloud in their ears.”
    “Did that stop the torturing?”
    “Yes, it did. When Grandfather Jahangir fell sick, Nur Jahan even asked Aurangzeb to lead her in prayer for the Emperor’s life.”
    “Was he happy then?”
    “He was. He would wake up at any time of the night to recite the Koran if requested to do so. He would speak out against any injustice, such as a drunken man beating his wife or a mullah accepting a bribe. His religion, oddly enough, was rooted in a pure desire to further himself spiritually through the Koran.”
    “And you, how did you become spiritually enhanced?”
    “I didn’t,” smiled Dara, “at least not according to Aurangzeb. I read the Koran once, but since he and the mullah always stuck to just their own interpretation of it, I began to learn some other religious literature.”
    “Such as..?”
    “Such as the Gita, the Hindu scripture. One of the zenana girls was a Hindu whose daughter’s name was Gita, and one day I asked what her name meant. She told me it’s the name of a sermon delivered by God to a soldier just before the soldier was about to go to war against his family for the Kingdom of India.”
    “Like Aba!” I said.
    “Yes, but not exactly…” Dara continued telling me the whole story of the Gita, mesmerising me with this tale of chivalry, duty and sacrifice. It wasn’t as if I’d never heard these principles before,