RAABTA

  “She who once dreamt of heaven had to live in hell, and find peace in God.” Such can be a description if we look at Jahanara Begum’s life.  Born in 1614, at Ajmeri Fort, and living there till the birth of Dara Shikoh, when she was just one and a half, she travelled with her parents through the Empire, living in tents while her father Shehzada Khurram fought wars. Jahanara, the Queen of the universe , named by Jahangir, was her mother's strength and father's pride. She took care of her siblings while her mother gave birth to fourteen children, some stillborn, some dying, in her nineteen years of marriage. While the sons stayed at Jehangir’s court, from a very tender age, she became her parents’ favourite child. She was back in Ajmer at the age of seven. That was the first time the Ajmer Sharif, Saint Salim Chisti and Emperor Akbar’s tales enchanted her. The fair young and innocent princess, spend her days reading, her hair as dark as the night sky, and her eyes blackis...

Jahanara Bangla, Agra Fort Note to the readers: Women behind men in history fascinate me. I had been reading about the mothers and wives who changed men’s fortunes. But, what about daughters and sisters? A few months back, I was looking for books on Mughal Ladies, mainly Noor Jahan and her work. In the bibliography credits, I had chanced upon “The Life of A Mogul Princess” By Jahanara Begum, the daughter of Shah Jahan. I had no idea about the book and thought it was another autobiography. Previously, I had read only about how she was imprisoned along with her father at Agra, and her involvement with Dara Shikoh, her younger brother, in connecting the two realms of Hinduism and Islamism and the establishment of Sufism. All of these and the chronological events of history you can find in various books. As I read each page of her diary, cross-checking each point with Jagunath Sircar’s “History of Aurangzib” and R.C. Majumder’s “Mughal Empire” as well as numerous other sources on...