Two days had passed since his meeting with the clairvoyant dancer but Shayista could not shake the idea of undoing his regrets. He donned his cloak, slipped past Dhand and galloped out on his stallion in search of Champa to see if she could alter history.
Shayista dismounted his warhorse, Bageshri, tousled his mane and offered him a handful of amloke. The horse nuzzled his muzzle into Shayista’s shoulder. Shayista handed the reins to a stable urchin at the Imperial post by the gates and entered the Chowk.
Children dressed in colourful weaves loitered on the streets. A beggar girl with two braids sat on a withered stump, tattered clothes, something precious cupped in her hand.
‘What’s that?’ Shayista asked her.
She held it up, chest swollen with pride: a dead butterfly with delicate iridescent wings. Her eyes shimmered with awe.
Shayista longed for child-eyes and youth unencumbered by ego. He wanted to experience life afresh, without the burden of regrets. The sky was awash in weeping blues and watery greys. He handed the butterfly girl a gold coin, grateful for the fresh perspective.
Misunderstanding his intentions, she shouted, ‘Not for sale!’ She clutched the dead butterfly to her heart and ran off.
An essential wretchedness spread over Shayista. No matter how hard he worked, there were always more enemies conspiring, more hungry children to feed. He felt responsible for the little girl and guilty.
A flitting memory of his sister materialized. Fifty five years ago when he was still Talib, he had led a troop of fifty thousand men into a stormy battle. It was 1630¸the monarch’s third Deccan campaign, and he was a young but hardened man of 29. Their mandate was simple: abolish the rebel Khan-Jahan who threatened to usher in an age of darkness if he took over.
Shayista’s army grossly outnumbered the rebels but they were fighting for their homeland with a ferocious disregard for their own lives. What followed was an epic clash.
Granite clouds blitzed a furious deluge of torrential rain. His soldiers slogged through slippery mud and charged as best they could. Heads flew off necks, bodies slipped off mountains, lives were blown asunder. The air trembled in grief. The river was stained crimson.
Talib obliterated the enemy and confiscated their treasury of spectacular jewels but lost half his men in the battle. It was grief he felt, not pride. Harrowed by months of fighting, the conquering hero travelled to Agra to recover in the comfort of kin, reading poetry with Dara, playing with his sister’s children. He presented to his sister one of the jewels he had acquired, a dark diamond of extraordinary brilliance.
Arjumand had thirteen children, all of whom he doted on. A demanding and opinionated lot, they forced him to endure endless rounds of questions and games, and called upon him to whistle. Arjumand herself had grown into the role of mother and knew how to shower affection like healing rain. She was heavily pregnant and happy to hand off children and chores to Talib who savoured every minute of it but these domestic joys did not last long.
Three days after Shayista arrived, Arjumand was in bed giving birth to her fourteenth child when something went terribly wrong. Physicians, scholarly doctors, nurses and maids stood terrified on one side of her bed. Charm-writers and holy men with sacred books stood on the other, calling upon spirits for help. Emperor Shah Jahan sat gripped in misery by her side.
‘Talib,’ said Arjumand, gazing at the dark diamond. ‘Give this gift to a woman who loves you as much as I do. And whenever you see it, remember my love for you. Love is everything.’ She had scarcely finished saying this when they heard the wail of the baby in her womb, a sign they recognised all too well.
‘Promise me, bhaiya,’ she said, her face tense with pain. ‘Promise you will nurture peace in our family. Promise?’ Behind her words loomed the gruesome shadow of their fratricidal history. ‘So we do part.’ With her last breath, she bid farewell to Talib and died in the Emperor’s arms.
The hurt of losing his sister was eclipsed by dark political clouds and the question of succession. Talib tried to remain neutral to prolong peace but Sa’di was right:
‘Ten dervishes can sleep on one rug,
but two princes cannot rest in one climate’.
As Emperor Shah Jahan fell ill with grief and dedicated his time to building a mausoleum worthy of his beloved wife, his sons each eyed the throne. To Talib, the writing was clear: it would come down to a tussle between Dara, the heir apparent, and Aurangzeb, the ambitious. No two contestants could have been more different. Aurangzeb was a disciplined soldier and cunning statesman. Dara was a poet and philosopher who loved knowledge.
When the dreaded infighting began, it was a polarization of liberal and conservative forces. It fell upon Talib to choose between the princes just as it had fallen upon his father to choose between Talib’s cousins, Khurram and Khosru, when Emperor Jahangir died. It was his father chosen to protect Arjumand’s interest and promoted her husband, Khurram.
For Khosru, the decision was fatal. Talib was infuriated but his father simply said, ‘Kill or be killed.’ The irony of Fate weighed upon Talib as the Empire waited for his decision.
Then one day Dara called upon him. ‘Uncle, Aurangzeb is ambitious and cunning. He will not stop at anything. You have always given good counsel. Tell me, should I step aside, join a monastery, let Aurangzeb rule Hindustan?’
Talib was touched by Dara’s genuine love for his family and Empire. ‘Stay on and rule with Truth in your heart, with the help of trusted advisors and our Huzur. Let the Empire be expansive with light, not narrow with dogma.’
Dara said wistfully. ‘I fear for Murad and Shah Shuja. These are dark times.’ He handed his uncle a gift wrapped in muslin.
Talib immediately recognized it as the jewel he had presented to Arjumand on her deathbed. He had not expected Dara to return it. Something so valuable could easily have assured him political success. It was enough to make a pauper a king, and it certainly would have secured an eldest son an Empire.
‘It was on Ma when she died,’ Dara explained. ‘Such a gift could only come from someone who loved her so purely.’
But these words were exchanged in private and Talib did not act.
Within months, through a series of treacherous manoeuvres, Aurangzeb seized the throne. He used the Deccan campaign as evidence of Talib’s loyalty to him and tricked the key counsel into believing that he had his uncle’s blessings to slaughter his father’s advisors and their revered Huzur.
He convinced Murad to help him capture and kill Dara and served his severed head upon a silver platter to their father. He prodded the head with his sword and demanded, ‘What choice did you leave me? Kill or be killed.’ He imprisoned his father in Agra Fort where the once celebrated Emperor spent the rest of his days shuffling through corridors alone.
Aurangzeb then went for Murad. He bribed a courtesan to inebriate him and relieved him of his sword during their love making, then incarcerated him and had him executed. He would have killed Shah Shuja too but the latter escaped to Bengal, where he met a bloody end a few months later at the hands of the Maghs of Arakan.
For his victory, Shah Jahan bitterly presented him a sword called ‘World-Seizer’ Alamgir.
Aurangzeb in turn awarded Talib with the honoured title, Amir ul-Umra, Chief of the Nobles, Shayista Khan. He showered him with gifts: a khilat of four brocaded cloaks, a Damascan sword and gold katara that belonged to Akbar, two Andulisian horses with jewelled saddles, a Mansabdar of 10,000 horsemen and huge portions of land. He even requested Talib to beat the drums at his coronation ceremony, as his father and grandfather had done for the emperors preceding him.
Talib saw that ruling with emotions led to disaster. Love did not conquer all. Decisive brutality did. If he did not act with tyranny, the people he cared about died. From that day on, Talib swore he would never make another decision with his heart. Only with totalitarian authority could loved ones be protected. He had to rule with cruelty to protect the innocent.
The advisors and Huzur were dead and Shah Jahan removed. There was no one else left to guide his nephew. Talib put aside his personal convictions and swore to assist Aurangzeb for the sake of the Empire. With a cold appreciation for violence, he would rule for the rest of his days. So Talib became the ruthless warrior Aurangzeb wanted, Amir-ul-Umra Shayista Khan.
Being an Emperor’s warlord comes with certain burdens. Aurangzeb could not afford to wear the shame of Dara’s dirty murder. His subjects would hate him and revolt. Instead, the crime was pinned on Shayista. He became the Beast, the object of fear and hatred among enemies and citizens alike. With Aurangzeb’s ascent began Shayista’s descent.
Shayista hid Kalinoor for thirty five years, never once suspecting it had played a role in his downward spiral which began with Arjumand’s death. Now he wondered if her death was the dark diamond’s doing, the first of its three strikes? Was he its improbable champion, its vehicle of destruction, its means to an end? With doubt creeping in, Shayista found himself standing in front of a ghastly banyan tree at the doorsteps of the dancer’s house.