Feminist Muslim story on poetic template of Islam & Hinduism

Chennai: Imagine if one was to play the protagonist of this historical novel, Laale, with a valorous Afghani background to be proud of. She is abducted by a company sepoy who violates her dignity and eventually lands up in the court of the last of the great Mughal kings, Bahadur Shah Zafar in old Delhi, in the backdrop of 1857 Sepoys Mutiny as ‘shadows fall on the Mughal empire’.

Courageous Laale in a sense stoops to conquer. Deftly wading through the palace intrigues in the Red Fort, she rises from a ‘courtesan’ to eventually being Zafar’s Begum, a relationship that begins on an aesthetic, spiritual companionship note as the King in his eighties then was more concerned to “protect” her honour and save her from the wolves. The relationship blossoms, capping in Laale taking on the British Army bigwigs with her charm and diplomacy, to redeem the King’s honour “in defence of Hindustan”, as Hindus and Muslims together fight the British, even as Bahadur Shah Zafar loses his throne and is deported to Burma.

Laale gets slowly groomed in the Mughal court, thanks to some of her new benefactors in the famous ‘Lal Qila’, including the King’s elder wife, Taj Mahal Begum; her initial tutorship is under one of the finest court poets, Mirza Ghalib, and then takes dancing lessons in Kathak, before she presents her first dance before the king. This narrative seamlessly conjoins the tussle between nature and culture and how Bahadur Shah Zafar was a multifaceted monarch.

“Live it, Enact the poetry,” extols Ghalib to Laale at one such session. And when she recites the poem, “If you wear the Guise of a warrior, yet cannot protect yourself, you will surely die; Make Your Soul, a weapon, Surrender to the Will of God, whoever becomes invisible………is saved; one who has surrendered is unconquerable; This war, is your greedy game, a tactic, that destroys, only you,” a philosophical profundity flows with it. These lines could have come from the lips of any of the devout Vaishnavite Azhwars, say even from the great Teacher Sri Ramanuja, at the fountainhead of the deep faith in Saranagathi, total surrender to the will of God. Great souls like Ghalib and Ramanuja think alike and at that spiritual level, all evolved religions are but different paths to the same Truth.

In writing this feminist Muslim’s story, the Canada-based poetess and writer, Sikeena Karmali in her novel, “The Mulberry Courtesan”, a delectable narrative in deeply enjoyable prose, with a good mix of Persian and Urdu poetry (most of it translated into English by the author herself as she says towards the end), also mirrors the cultivated mannerisms and cuisines of the bygone era. The epic tale nonetheless, skims on a thin template of mystical unity of all religions.

Every historical epoch has a rich and luxuriant side to it, for all the sufferings of its people, which simultaneously brings to the fore the decadent shades in a certain lifestyle. So much so, an unabashed apologia or a total condemnation would be out of place, and lacking the historical sense of the glorious uncertainties of life.

At the same time, all epochs have defended some basic human values through its heroes and heroines, despite shifting loyalties when instincts of life ride roughshod over intuitions of beauty and consistency. And Karmali has brought out all these dimensions, as her novel unfolds gently in keeping with the tempo of the last days of the Mughal era, in the backdrop of a rising heroic theatre of India’s first war of Independence. Bahadur Shah Zafar quietly leads the banner of revolt in Delhi, but it ends with British storming Cashmere Gate. The irony of it is the King well knew those from his inner circle who were also helping the British. 

Yet, Karmali’s protagonist lives to fight on, enters dark alleys of brutality and takes on Captain Hodson in her own way, to vindicate the honour of the King who was kind and respectful to her. It was not just that, Laale simultaneously sought to avenge the horrors of a Captain Hodson who saw to it that all but one of the princes of Zafar were done to death, alongside the British conquest of Delhi. Bahadur Shah Zafar’s true resting place should have been Humayun’s tomb in Delhi, but the twists and turns of Imperial history found him grave in Burma!

A compelling read, laced with wisdom of comparative religions and philosophical insights.  When the Begum speaks of the “dance form” Laale should learn, she says, “You must learn Kathak. It is a Mughal dance form, marrying the ecstasies of Sufi whirling with the seductive devotion of a Hindu Devadasi. It shall not be difficult for you; you are still young. Yes the sooner you start, the better.” This perhaps was how all great cultures engaged in the past, when cultivated minds married the best of all possible worlds, in search of that elusive ideal of Truth.

The Begum in another moment recalls to Lalee how the Mughals have adopted the Hindu practice of women wearing bangles. A few pages more, a homily of sorts flows from the Huzoor himself when he asks before Lalee, “Who we are?” “We are not just conquerors or warriors or worse still, Muslim invaders. We are….we are custodians. The holy Quran names humankind as custodians of all that is on the earth……..We seek to raise humanity to its place in the cosmos above the angels…..Our Prophet …told us that the best form of worship is the pursuit of knowledge. And so we, my ancestors, and I, have sought knowledge.”

Much later, sitting at Humayun’s tomb in a deeply reflective mood with her five-year-old son, Amir Ali by her side, Lalee pens a letter to her son: “For as long as there is a light, there will be a darkness that tries to obliterate it. You must carry forward the torch of light. Whatever name you give it, Allah, Krishna, Devi, God, always follow the light.” These words could well resonate from an Upanishadic dialogue on the unity of all life, or reaffirm a ‘Bhagawad Gita’ insight. But politics and warfare always draw rigid lines. No wonder ‘Truth’ may sing and dance with a ‘Mulberry Courtesan’ than with the political high-priests.  Karmali seems to ask, “If Truth was a woman”, posed by Nietzsche’s ‘Zarathustra’.