Tuesday, December 27, 2011

The Twentieth Wife

By Indu Sundaresan 
Chanced upon this author recommendation a few months back in one of the blogs I read. Glad I remembered when I visited the library after a long while a few days back. The novel is about the eponymous twentieth wife, Mehrunissa (or Nur Jahan which was her imperial name when she married Jahangir), the happenings in the Mughal empire during her life up to the time of her becoming an Empress. Quite like the intelligent, industrious and the very strong woman that she is portrayed to be. Of course, this is part fact, part imagination, part accounts from the past - but it's a great way to be taken back to those times. The royalty, splendour, the riches, the patriarchy.. historic fiction is a good way of reading about the culture, politics of the past. To pick a tiny snip of the past and live through it for a little while. 




The author decided to fill the gap that existed in literature by writing about this famous queen Mehrunissa who is said to have really ruled the empire for 15 years though Jahangir was the Emperor. This the book does, and there is atleast one sequel to it. 
But even in general, very little (nothing, if I remember my history lessons) is mentioned about the women in royal families. There is only mention of heirs to the empire - (in this book-) of only the sons of Akbar, or Jahangir. What about Akbar's daughters, were there any, where were they? What did they train in? Were their tutors any different from those of the common-man's daughters' tutors? Could they marry (rather, were they married off) into Hindu families like the male heirs were in the Mughal empire for political reasons? Do you know of books that would answer these? Definitely a genre to read more of.
And I'm back!