Book review: Jahangir by Parvati Sharma
Jahangir by Parvati Sharma. Juggernaut Books.
The king known to history students and history buffs more for being indolent, over-fond of his drink, an emperor who avoided military campaigns, a vicious, even capricious man, becomes a very interesting figure in this book.
Nuruddin Muhammad Jahangir. The fourth of the six Great Mughals. An inveterate chronicler of anything and everything he spotted, a lifelong adherent to what he deemed to be justice, a man who appreciated beauty in a visceral manner, whether it be found in Nurjahan, in a garden in Kashmir, in the stately structures of Mandu.
A man who had a certain kind of disingenuousness about him. A man who heard a gardener had chopped down some champa trees in a particularly beautiful garden in Ahmedabad, and incensed, had the gardener`s index fingers chopped off. A man who could tell a female quail from the male. Actually, a most engaging Mughal.
Sharma adopts an almost chatty tone, like she has just stumbled upon some fascinating facts about the Mughal ruler and wishes to relay those facts without any delay to us. And so we get to know so much about Jahangir in the most fluid manner ever.
He converted three of his nephews to Christianity. The three Mughal princes, Tahmuras, Baisanghar and Hoshang, duly became Don Phillippo, Don Carlos and Don Henrico.
Why, asks the bemused reader. And Parvati Sharma provides the answer:
The princes were converted because Jahangir had flirted with the idea of converting himself, and he enjoyed Jesuit company and loved Christian art, and he had a hankering for a bit of pageantry, and he thought, having just survived a double rebellion, that conversion would disqualify the princes from the throne…and that they might like Portuguese wives as consolation?
It is precisely passages like this, and there are quite a few in the book, that makes Jahangir such a good read.
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Sheila Kumar • January 15, 2019