Aurangzeb dripping blood, but also me crying while holding him, she yelled: “Are you kids already continuing your ancestors’ tradition of killing each other?”
All us children looked away in shame at our otherwise pacifist mother’s scream: “At least they waited till the King was dead to commit such a sin. If you can’t wait that long, can you at least wait till after I die?”
We reeled in shock at our mother’s words. Still heavily pregnant, Ami’s health was deteriorating with every successive pregnancy, yet this was the first time she’d ever brought the inauspicious word ‘dead’ to her mouth. “Jahanara,” she ordered, “take Aurangzeb to my room and tell the servant to prepare a warm bath for him with some sponges for his wounds!”
She turned then to Dara and commanded, “Go to your room! Now!”
As we stood there in stunned silence for a moment before moving, I felt as if she’d foretold a prophecy, predicting a calamity that awaited the Mughal Empire in the years to come.
I took Aurangzeb to Ami’s palace and asked him to take his shirt off so I could see his bare skin’s wounds. As per Ami’s wishes, I sent the servant to fetch some warm water. Raushanara hurried in after me and we soon began using warm, wet cloths to wipe our brother’s dried blood off his back.
Ami came in after we, his sisters, finished washing his back clean. She was aware of and understood everything that had happened the past few days – the censure by the mullah and the rift now widening between Dara and Aurangzeb. Did she feel herself guilty of failing Aurangzeb as a parent? Could she now play a greater role in his upbringing, and would this be the moment from which she began that new journey? Time would tell.
“You are a prince, Aurangzeb; don’t let these wounds destroy you,” she said as she applied more warm water to his blistered andscarred back. Aurangzeb moaned at each touch. “You have a gift. You understand morality probably better than anyone your age.”
Aurangzeb seemed stunned to hear Ami compliment him.
She went on: “But as you pray, you must remember what it is you’re praying for. Your actions from now on must be such that if someone writes about them, he’ll think he’s reading a verse of the Koran!” Aurangzeb’s eyebrows lifted inquisitively and he moved his head closer to Ami’s.
“Imagine if someone wrote about your actions: What would they say? ‘Aurangzeb, messenger of Allah, sneakily poisoned his idol-loving stepmother to prevent the infidel culture from prospering in the land of Allah?’”
Aurangzeb listened silently.
Ami continued: “We Mughals were a small tribe of nomads who came to this country. ‘Hindustan’ means ‘Land of the Hindus.’ We are in
their
country. We face not east toward the rest of the country, but west towards Mecca when we pray. We are outsiders. Nothing about this country is to our liking… not the food, nor the religion, nor even the customs. Yet we are here, and we’re slowly bringing more Indians to the grace of Allah. How?
By convincing these people, Aurangzeb
. Bring Allah into your heart, and the voice that emanates from your mouth will convince all the non-believers to convert!”
Aurangzeb seemed stunned by what Ami had just uttered to him. Till now, no one had ever truly explained the complexity of India’s culture to him. The heterogeneous, multicultural heritage of India was never discussed in the Mughal household, and teachers often glanced over it as if it was insignificant. Ami, I think, understood this relationship and knew that we children must appreciate it also if we were to maintain the empire after her.
“We Mughals,” she said, “are to Hindustan what a veil is to a face. We can cover it with our mosques, but we can’t change what lies beneath it.” She then turned him around, cupped his cheeks in her hands and kissed his forehead. “I want to give you something now, which only you deserve to have.”
She
All us children looked away in shame at our otherwise pacifist mother’s scream: “At least they waited till the King was dead to commit such a sin. If you can’t wait that long, can you at least wait till after I die?”
We reeled in shock at our mother’s words. Still heavily pregnant, Ami’s health was deteriorating with every successive pregnancy, yet this was the first time she’d ever brought the inauspicious word ‘dead’ to her mouth. “Jahanara,” she ordered, “take Aurangzeb to my room and tell the servant to prepare a warm bath for him with some sponges for his wounds!”
She turned then to Dara and commanded, “Go to your room! Now!”
As we stood there in stunned silence for a moment before moving, I felt as if she’d foretold a prophecy, predicting a calamity that awaited the Mughal Empire in the years to come.
I took Aurangzeb to Ami’s palace and asked him to take his shirt off so I could see his bare skin’s wounds. As per Ami’s wishes, I sent the servant to fetch some warm water. Raushanara hurried in after me and we soon began using warm, wet cloths to wipe our brother’s dried blood off his back.
Ami came in after we, his sisters, finished washing his back clean. She was aware of and understood everything that had happened the past few days – the censure by the mullah and the rift now widening between Dara and Aurangzeb. Did she feel herself guilty of failing Aurangzeb as a parent? Could she now play a greater role in his upbringing, and would this be the moment from which she began that new journey? Time would tell.
“You are a prince, Aurangzeb; don’t let these wounds destroy you,” she said as she applied more warm water to his blistered andscarred back. Aurangzeb moaned at each touch. “You have a gift. You understand morality probably better than anyone your age.”
Aurangzeb seemed stunned to hear Ami compliment him.
She went on: “But as you pray, you must remember what it is you’re praying for. Your actions from now on must be such that if someone writes about them, he’ll think he’s reading a verse of the Koran!” Aurangzeb’s eyebrows lifted inquisitively and he moved his head closer to Ami’s.
“Imagine if someone wrote about your actions: What would they say? ‘Aurangzeb, messenger of Allah, sneakily poisoned his idol-loving stepmother to prevent the infidel culture from prospering in the land of Allah?’”
Aurangzeb listened silently.
Ami continued: “We Mughals were a small tribe of nomads who came to this country. ‘Hindustan’ means ‘Land of the Hindus.’ We are in
their
country. We face not east toward the rest of the country, but west towards Mecca when we pray. We are outsiders. Nothing about this country is to our liking… not the food, nor the religion, nor even the customs. Yet we are here, and we’re slowly bringing more Indians to the grace of Allah. How?
By convincing these people, Aurangzeb
. Bring Allah into your heart, and the voice that emanates from your mouth will convince all the non-believers to convert!”
Aurangzeb seemed stunned by what Ami had just uttered to him. Till now, no one had ever truly explained the complexity of India’s culture to him. The heterogeneous, multicultural heritage of India was never discussed in the Mughal household, and teachers often glanced over it as if it was insignificant. Ami, I think, understood this relationship and knew that we children must appreciate it also if we were to maintain the empire after her.
“We Mughals,” she said, “are to Hindustan what a veil is to a face. We can cover it with our mosques, but we can’t change what lies beneath it.” She then turned him around, cupped his cheeks in her hands and kissed his forehead. “I want to give you something now, which only you deserve to have.”
She
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