light of the setting sun, his back bent with grief, his right hand over his eyes.
“How will we go on, Jahan?”
“By stepping firmly through life, Bapa.” She tried to keep the quaver out of her voice.
She knew of this Luminous Tomb her father meant to build for her mother. No other Emperor before, and none after, would ever think of honoring a mere woman with such radiance in marble. As her mother lay dead, Jahanara would take her place in almost everything, but she did not think her own life, or Roshan’s, or even that of poor little Goharara, whose coming had killed their mother, would amount to much in the centuries to come. They would remain Mumtaz Mahal’s daughters—always in the dark when held up to her light. They would be the princesses in the perpetual shadow of the queen who had died.
When she stepped into the darkened and cool antechamber, Jahanara tarried awhile. Her heart slowed with an effort and she realized that a crisis had been averted. And it was of her doing. On the other side of the door, her father moved around his room with a faltering step. Beyond, in the corridor, she heard the scrabbling of the flock of retainers who awaited her commands on matters trivial and important. Jahanara took a deep breath and went out to meet the servants. Young as she was, in the coming years, she would be asked to arrange marriages for her brothers or consulted on court affairs or act as a crutch upon which her sorrowing father leaned. This she would not mind. But she did not know that performing these varied duties would eventually cast a lingering shadow upon her life most of all. That posterity would only know her as a beloved daughter and an adored sister. Nothing more. Perhaps.
• • •
Emperor Shah Jahan had said, entirely in jest, that Princess Jahanara should tell anyone who would be willing to listen that he would, finally, a week after his wife’s death, give an audience at the jharoka early the next morning. It was a little joke. Everyone in and around Burhanpur paid heed—which meant any man of even the smallest standing in the Empire, for the Emperor had moved his court to Burhanpur and with him came the imperial army and the entire administration. The Mughal Emperor was the court, the country, the Empire, and in his august person, in his crown—even if won by some very mortal and immoral means—lay the fate of the one hundred and thirty million people in Mughal India.
Word flew as if on wings of fireflies, flickering first here and then there, until the whole of Burhanpur knew that they would get a glimpse of their Emperor’s face at sunrise. The jharoka appearance itself was one of the many Hindu customs the Mughal Emperors had adopted as their own, even as they had been gathered into the lap of the country that made them immeasurably rich and made them and their heirs into one of the most powerful dynasties on Indian soil. It was properly called a jharoka-i-darshan —a privileged viewing of, a glimpse of the hallowed monarch. Emperor Akbar, Shah Jahan’s grandfather, gave the jharoka its sunrise timing, thinking that the first face his subjects should catch sight of upon waking and commencing their day’s work should be his own—who else’s?
Emperor Jahangir had tripled the jharoka appearances during his rule, emerging three times into special and ornate balconies built into the bulwarks of his forts and palaces: at sunrise on the eastern side, at noon on the southern side, and at sunset on the western side. The citizens never tired of these jharokas, for each day they satisfied themselves that their Emperor was alive, interested, and engaged in his responsibilities. The jharoka came to signify the well-being of the Emperor and the Empire. Emperor Shah Jahan’s presence at the jharoka was that important to his position as Emperor—and not since Emperor Humayun began the tradition of the jharoka, a century ago, had a Mughal Emperor missed seeing his subjects for more
“How will we go on, Jahan?”
“By stepping firmly through life, Bapa.” She tried to keep the quaver out of her voice.
She knew of this Luminous Tomb her father meant to build for her mother. No other Emperor before, and none after, would ever think of honoring a mere woman with such radiance in marble. As her mother lay dead, Jahanara would take her place in almost everything, but she did not think her own life, or Roshan’s, or even that of poor little Goharara, whose coming had killed their mother, would amount to much in the centuries to come. They would remain Mumtaz Mahal’s daughters—always in the dark when held up to her light. They would be the princesses in the perpetual shadow of the queen who had died.
When she stepped into the darkened and cool antechamber, Jahanara tarried awhile. Her heart slowed with an effort and she realized that a crisis had been averted. And it was of her doing. On the other side of the door, her father moved around his room with a faltering step. Beyond, in the corridor, she heard the scrabbling of the flock of retainers who awaited her commands on matters trivial and important. Jahanara took a deep breath and went out to meet the servants. Young as she was, in the coming years, she would be asked to arrange marriages for her brothers or consulted on court affairs or act as a crutch upon which her sorrowing father leaned. This she would not mind. But she did not know that performing these varied duties would eventually cast a lingering shadow upon her life most of all. That posterity would only know her as a beloved daughter and an adored sister. Nothing more. Perhaps.
• • •
Emperor Shah Jahan had said, entirely in jest, that Princess Jahanara should tell anyone who would be willing to listen that he would, finally, a week after his wife’s death, give an audience at the jharoka early the next morning. It was a little joke. Everyone in and around Burhanpur paid heed—which meant any man of even the smallest standing in the Empire, for the Emperor had moved his court to Burhanpur and with him came the imperial army and the entire administration. The Mughal Emperor was the court, the country, the Empire, and in his august person, in his crown—even if won by some very mortal and immoral means—lay the fate of the one hundred and thirty million people in Mughal India.
Word flew as if on wings of fireflies, flickering first here and then there, until the whole of Burhanpur knew that they would get a glimpse of their Emperor’s face at sunrise. The jharoka appearance itself was one of the many Hindu customs the Mughal Emperors had adopted as their own, even as they had been gathered into the lap of the country that made them immeasurably rich and made them and their heirs into one of the most powerful dynasties on Indian soil. It was properly called a jharoka-i-darshan —a privileged viewing of, a glimpse of the hallowed monarch. Emperor Akbar, Shah Jahan’s grandfather, gave the jharoka its sunrise timing, thinking that the first face his subjects should catch sight of upon waking and commencing their day’s work should be his own—who else’s?
Emperor Jahangir had tripled the jharoka appearances during his rule, emerging three times into special and ornate balconies built into the bulwarks of his forts and palaces: at sunrise on the eastern side, at noon on the southern side, and at sunset on the western side. The citizens never tired of these jharokas, for each day they satisfied themselves that their Emperor was alive, interested, and engaged in his responsibilities. The jharoka came to signify the well-being of the Emperor and the Empire. Emperor Shah Jahan’s presence at the jharoka was that important to his position as Emperor—and not since Emperor Humayun began the tradition of the jharoka, a century ago, had a Mughal Emperor missed seeing his subjects for more
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