Gauls and Romans in Agra

Piety and prurience, medicine and court intrigue crowd Kakar’s richly-felt tapestry set in Shah Jahan’s India

The Crimson Throne
Sudhir Kakar
Penguin; Rs 450; Pp 253

High up on my must-read list of a handful of Indian authors is Sudhir Kakar. He is India’s best-known psychoanalyst. His prose is lucid and his range of topics very wide. He makes one think. His latest novel, The Crimson Throne, though ostensibly about the battles for succession between Emperor Shah Jahan’s four sons, tells you about India in the 17th century as portrayed by two European adventurers, an Italian, Niccolai Manucci, in his Storia Do Mogor, and a Frenchman, Francois Bernier, in his Travels in the Mughal Empire AD 1656-1665. Manucci worked his way as a deck-hand and made his way to Goa. He was hospitably accomodated by Jesuit priests and found lodgings on top of a hill with a Hindu vaidraj practicing ayurveda. He found a mistress to cater to his other needs. Soon after, Bernier landed in Surat; he also enjoyed the hospitality of the Jesuits. Both men travelled in bullock cart caravans to Delhi, staying in serais and noting conditions prevailing in the countryside. They arrived in the capital about the same time and took an instant dislike to each other.

Shah Jahan had already named his eldest son Dara Shikoh as heir apparent, and posted his other sons as viceroys in distant provinces. But his decisions carried little weight, as it was widely known that he was a very sick man. He was also known to be grossly oversexed. His favourite queen was Mumtaz Mahal, who bore 12 children in as many years. Unani hakeems believed that a man could not have sex with a pregnant woman as the hard knocks of the penis would damage the foetus. So, the emperor had to get other women to cater to his needs. The ulema condoned his liaisons with his own daughters as a man’s right to taste the fruit of his own labours.

Full report here Outlook