This Short Story is a collaboration of Kathaavali and Raabta, on the occasion of the Birth Anniversary of our favourite princess, our beloved Janni, better known to you as Shehzaadi Jahanara Begum Sahiba, daughter of Shah Jahan. This story is historical fiction and our own imagination of the royal princess and Padshah Begum and her great vision in building what is famously called Chandni Chowk, which defines Delhi even today.
On one fine morning, when the Diwan-e-Khas was sprawling with courtiers, an astonishing Firman echoed across the fort of Akbarabad. The Emperor of the World had decided to move his capital city from the roots of his grandfather and establish a new place, which would become the beacon of his grandeur- Shahjahanabad. It would be a marble city that would glitter in art, in music, and would bask in his glory. While a section of the incessant murmur sounded displeased at the Emperor’s vanity to name the capital after himself, like his grandfather did, others were elated at the decision, defending that he deserved it. After all, he was the most powerful emperor of his time. Amid all the voices of elation, there she sat, behind the magnificent silk purdah, staring, not at the humans but beyond, where a distant, stray cloud was meandering over the plains of Hind.
Then, there was a sudden thunderstorm, and a drizzle moistened the plains and the eyes of Janni. The petrichor seemed to speak to her and remind her of the now-distant words of her mother.
It’s not the land that makes a home, my dearest; it’s the memories that you carry and the memories that you bury.
This place, where the first capital of her great-grandfather stood in its glory, had buried many of her ancestors and made her greatest memories; where the fondest memories of her childhood still rested somewhere between the sandstones and the orchards, and her mother rested nearby - Janni was conflicted to leave them behind.
The day had passed, and the evening descended from the heavens. The words of her mother and her sweetest memories battled inside her heart. She stood at the royal balustrade, watching the moon play hide and seek with the darkest of clouds. Her thoughts were interrupted by the footsteps of a sturdy, neatly-dressed man, who bowed and stood by her in silence as if he seemed to understand the tempest of her heart. Under the breath of his gentleness, the man spoke thus,
I know you remember our Ammijaan better than any of us, Begum Sahiba. I stay afar, at the most distant lands where the salty sea and the swampy lands greet the hooves of my horses. I had a similar feeling when Jahanpanah assigned me the governorship of Bengal Subah. And then, you came to visit me and we spoke at length, at the exact place where we stand now, and you reminded me of what Ammijaan had uttered. I am not here as Subhedaar Shah Shuja but as your brother, and I say this with certainty. If there’s someone who can carry the fond memoirs of our ancestors, nurture and preserve them in foreign, distant lands, it’s you. I travelled afar as a soldier, and all I could carry were my memories, which weren’t the fondest, so I built a world of mine in the Subah. That’s not who you are. I know that the new lands of Shahjahanabad will be the new fostering ground of our majesty and grandeur.
Janni shuddered as a swift gust of cold breeze embraced her frame. As Shuja started walking away with a smile, she understood what her mother meant all those years back. The moonbeam illuminated her doe eyes that sparkled with tears. She could almost hear her mother smile under the moonlight, the same moonlight that charmed her face, and the same moonlight she would carry to grace Shahjahanabad with the memories of her ancestors- she had to find a way to make it home.
In the darkest hours of the night, Janni lit a lamp and raised it to the plans of the new palace. Her new Bangla didn't look over the waters of the Yamuna, which sparkled in the moonlight. Instead, she would view the endless, vast city that emperors since time immemorial in the land of Hind had made their capital. A sprawling city at a distance, a new one emerging right where the fort walls ended. Janni remembered some words she had heard growing up. Was it her grandfather who mouthed those? She couldn't recollect. To make a place home, one needs to add a part of themselves to it.
What could she add to the already marvellous work of art? One more palace? A Sarai? Perhaps a Mosque? But all that would bear her name, what about her essence? What made her yearn for her lonely nights? She looked up at the moon. How the beam sparkled on the water of the Yamuna. It reminded her of her childhood. Janni sat down with a piece of paper and scribbled on it. A canal? What purpose could it serve her people? No. She scratched it out, perhaps a road with trees to shade them from the heat. The Begum Sahib was known for her generosity. Her eyes sparkled. What about both? Janni didn't sleep that night. She scribbled down an amateurish drawing of her vision on paper, ready to meet the architect the very next day. She was going to make a mark in the new capital. Something she could relate to. Where the moon would descend upon the earth. Where she could once again feel her mother. Something that would help her call the new place home.
The deepest fringes of her memory were bejewelled by the hues of sandstone, and her father wanted a glittering new capital to bear his hegemony. As the morning woke up to her curiosity, Jahanara met her father, who sat in the royal garden, melancholy even with the fresh breeze of the sunrise. As she explained at great length what her plans are for Shahjahanabad, she saw her father conjure up a smile with tears incessantly flowing down his cheeks. The flash of his departed and beloved wife embraced his mind, and he blessed his daughter with every Dua he could muster. He ordered the royal treasury to be at her disposal, but Begum Sahiba rejected it. The Moonlight Chowk will be her tribute to her mother, her father, and all the fond memories of her dynasty, for the future to witness the beauty and glory of their legacy. He insisted her own treasury be solely used for the construction, and when an overwhelmed Shah Jahan caressed her cheeks in pride and asked, What will my dearest daughter like to name this place? She quietly looked up with a smile, witnessing the faint moon against the sapphire stretch of skies, muttering under her breath: Chandni Chowk.
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