Princess Ladli Begam's

CHAPTER I: CONSCIOUS

    “Where did you go, Your Majesty?”

    I blinked, realizing my consciousness. My heart jumped, beating wrath in a rhythmic tone. My eyes turned, and I felt dizzy from it. For a while, I was completely unaware of any presence because none of today's events and events were absorbed into my soul

frail. My little legs overlapped each other, as if grinding away the itchy part. Though I know none of my back is itchy. My breath is running flat. Not too fast, but not too slow. I felt the painful air gush through my nostrils, and then create a wound there, so that it seeped through my eyes. My hand rests on my chin. I saw an indigo-colored sapphire ring filling my tiny finger, as well as clinking

the rings of the gold bracelet that slump down the elbow. When the sun sweeps over its surface, whitish light infiltrates the eye.

    I looked around, briefly to the right, then turned to the left, just as I realized someone was standing there. My mother's eunuch, Nazeer Khan, bowed as deeply as he could, doing konish perfectly. His right hand was bent to the forehead, while his back was bent like a tree about to fall.

    “I'm not going anywhere, Nazeer,” I said to her, gesturing for her to leave.

    “Your soul wasn't with you just now. Could you go?”

    “Maybe, maybe. If I could.” I turned my head back, towards the thin, grating veil, where so many people were roaring in a raspy, melodious cry. “Even my own soul is imprisoned and I feel always watched when I fantasize. Did my mom ask you to do that, Nazeer?”

    “No, Princess.”

    I put my chin back on the back of my hand. Throwing a look away. From the morning of asking for his time in the world, or when my eyes were drawn to consciousness and my ears caught the pace of the running slaves, he said, or when I witnessed the first warm sweep of the sun onto the rock backs of our home that day, I was just being suffocated by the sound of crying. All my family members are crying. Aunts, uncles, cousins, distant relatives, servants, news carriers, gardeners. Everyone dropped down in place and cupped their hands to their faces. Sobbing like crazy. An

miserable cries. Sounds like a musical orchestra or a farewell song. And I forced myself to grieve anyway. The messenger has left us. His Arabian horse limb moved away and disappeared. Thirty minutes later, the entire sultanate was in mourning.

    Ghias Beg, my grandfather, has passed away. He is the most precious man in our family. Who had pitted his fate as a young fugitive from Persian lands towards Hindustant. Travel, experience, suffering and dreams have thrown the reality all the way. For many years, my grandfather was a loyal servant of the sultanate. His head bowed obediently and he never said no to the farman that came down to him. Men are the most grateful and do not forget themselves. He never takes what is not his share. Never said he could have more than he should have. In the reign of Sultan Akbar, my grandfather was only a krani. Later, when Sultan Jahangir ruled, my grandfather was the diwan of the sultanate, the State Treasurer. Don't think about the wealth he has. Because other than Diwan, my grandfather was the Sultan's in-law.

    My grandfather left in the early hours of the morning, when the darkness took hold of him. But he left peacefully. As if

he was asleep and would wake up at dawn wanting to. There wasn't much he said before he left, as he didn't say much when he was alive. The children came to her, asked her how she was doing, asked her if her bed was uncomfortable or if her soup was tasteless. But he kept saying that he was okay. And, that's. Night fell and death kissed him. Gave him wings. He led him through the sky and the clouds. No one knows. When my grandmother came to inspect her clothes, her body had cooled down.

    So, in honor of the Itimauddaulah—Pilar Government, Sultan Jahangir ordered a week of mourning. The palace was distributed. Our people were shut down for three days. The poor and papa marched by the side of the road, waiting for the silver to be thrown by the sultanate. The verses of the Qur’an His Majesty are recited in every mosque, fixed in the court of the palace. The verse reads “O quiet soul, return to your Lord with His riddho and diridhoi. Enter into My servants, and enter into shuga.” The muezzins get paid a bag of gold rupees enough to live for years. And I watched from the balcony, clinging to the arched pillars, that the voices were stirring them up and laden in the air.

    “We will prepare for the funeral procession, Your Majesty,” said Nazeer, thrusting his hand to lead me away.

    “I know, Nazeer,” I replied indifferently, looking back. “Do you think Arjumand will come?”

    Nazeer shook his head, lifted my elbow and pulled my arm for me to move following his clumsy steps. “He and Prince Khurram are too far away in Burhanpur, Your Majesty. Too hot to move north.” He paused for a moment before continuing. “Again, Miss Arjumand contains again.”

    “Ah!” I don't know what the right words are to convey my bitterness to the news. Any more? How many times has it been since she first conceived? And now, after years of grueling marriages, a madman-like escape to the rebel rat-rat territory in the south, suffocated in the hot air, she is pregnant? How many kids did he have? How many children have died in vain? Maybe, when I think

about Arjumand's body, he wasn't as good as before. Because according to my observations over the years in the zenana of the sultanate, women will look fat and ugly when giving birth to many children. But I was wrong.

For before the departure of Arjumand with Khurram to Burhanpur, I had seen with my eyes that her charm was like that of a seventeen-year-old virgin.

    How creepy I was because of it, and how envious I was made, because until now I have aged

as a virgin in zenana sultanate. But now, it's a pity that he can't come to kiss our dead grandfather's body. She had been taken by her husband to the ground

kerontang in the south, which is inhabited by thousands of anchovy-class rebels who always act whenever the opportunity arises. Burhanpur was the farthest region of the sultanate. Located below, far south. The air was shaky and unfriendly. The ground is steep and hard. The dust is soaring like a storm. The little kings and bandit chiefs ruled a two-plate plot of land and rebelled against the sultanate. Arjumand simply observes Prince Khurram fighting and returns to their fortress. There was no concern other than whether her husband could return home to her with or without a head.

    Grandfather's funeral was held at high noon, when the sun spectacularly floated right in

over the head and Agra turned into a boiling hot city. Everyone in white mourned clothes, jostling to see grandfather's body on the roadside to the cemetery. Agra was the capital of the sultanate, the heart of government, where the heart of the sultanate itself was located in the Sultan Jahangir.

All commodities are gathered here. And I can say that you can see the whole world in Agra. Muslim sheikhs, Jesuit priests, Hindu and Buddhist priests, painters, precious stone sellers, condiment sellers, cloth sellers, knick knacks, street shamans, magicians, and so on, and there are thousands of beggars scattered in the streets. Whole objects, caftan, cotton, dye, silk, brocade, ivory, spices like pepper, candlenut, clove, nutmeg, porcelain, tea, agate, jade, lapizlazuli, mirah, onyx, pearl, and there's a lot I can't say.

    Children, men with tunics, veiled women, elderly people, take positions in the procession

mourns. During the funeral procession, women from our family were forbidden from attending. I watched from behind the veil on the balcony as the party moved away and shrunk, which looked like a bunch of white candy flour clumping on the edge of a barren and boiling street. The older women were still crying in the

flip back. The smell of camphor has not disappeared. The eunuchs had sprinkled rose water throughout the room. But I still smell it in there and it's incongruous because I can't stand it.

    All of his grandfather's possessions, his vast wealth, which he had accumulated and, unfortunate enough, was eventually abandoned, were to be returned to the sultanate, where he had come from. It is the Sultan's right of privacy to return the entire estate to the grandfather's heirs. And he did, but not for all the children, for he was sympathetic to one man among all the children of my grandfather. So all the treasure was dropped on my mother. It overtook Abul Hasan, my uncle, Arjumand's father. Abul Hasan's uncle was a boy. And boys are far more entitled to the property left by their parents than girls. Uncle Abul Hasan will not be happy. Arjumand won't be happy. Khurram won't be happy. He won't stand by and watch his father-in-law impoverished by his own father. The male part is twice the female part. And Sultan Jahangir took the rights of Abul Hasan's uncle by giving it to my mother alone.

    This is wrong, I thought later. Of course it's wrong. Sultan Jahangir cannot disenfranchise my uncle and my mother must know. I doubt he doesn't know. But I also knew that the sound I had was too small to count. Who me? And I suppose that this poor me has no place in the heart of Sultan Jahangir, for I am not his son.

    So, this is where all the bad things start. All of this is due to the abundance of money, the depth of jealousy, and the power of the contested. There is a lot going on in the years to come, but the rest is nothing but emptiness. The story is empty like the desert of Thar, but it sinks like the river Yamuna. Prince Khurram won't come to Agra for this. It was because my mother wanted it. He had sent Khurram for military operations far away in Burhanpur, where his brother, Prince Parviz, ruled as subadar. And Khurram brought with him another brother, Prince Khusraw. Half blind, half mad, and lost most of his thoughts of survival after Sultan Jahangir blinded his eyes from a rebellion for the throne when Sultan Akbar died. What can Khusraw do there? What's the point of him being taken far away? In Burhanpur? While he had to stumble in order to be able to pull the curtain on his own residence.

    Grandfather's tomb was located on the banks of the river Yamuna, near his winding back. The tomb will be made of white marble, which is decorated with mosaics and flickering jewelry of sapphires, rubies, lapizlazuli, agate, and jade. It was my mother who ordered the construction, boldly outlining the ink and drawing

smoothed, formed in the same field, printed into the form of taste, uncle Abul Hasan sent the mother a letter. It contained simple, only two lines, not long-winded but spread wrath. Uncle Abul Hasan asked for his share, he said, who was the eldest son of the grandfather. He has said, in the past days, that he

never be a noble. All of them, the children of my grandfather, would be the sons of a Persian fugitive forever, regardless of how rich and highly ranked they were in the sultanate. Those words have underlined mother. That even though she was Queen Nur Jahan Begam, she was still the son of a runaway. And

he only asked for his part, firmly speechless. Whatever you want to do with the rest.

    But mother refused. With anger and undignified words said that the desire of Uncle Abul Hasan would not be granted because the Sultan had given all the property of his grandfather to him. He sent her a reply letter. Confidently commemorating his own brother's place to talk. So the angry man went away with a broken heart. He has no other way, which would be a ruin for us, other than siding with Prince Khurram. While the entire sultanate had known, it was no secret, that Prince Khurram hated my mother.

                                                                           ***

    Since his success in overcoming the rebellion in the Deccan by Malik Ambar, Sultan Jahangir has given Khurram the title Shah Jahan, meaning King of the World. And so now, he has proven that the title is not merely a silly symbolism that is useless. Which he only wore because his father gave him his blessing. Khurram had sent a number of letters to Sultan Jahangir at Agra Red Fort weeks after the military operation to Burhanpur. It was written in dramatic form. Merely to just spread his glorious victory in the south there. But everyone knows, and I wouldn't have expected anything about this, his victory was ignored in the palace. He goes, Khurram goes, Shah Jahan goes. It was merely to keep him away from the heart of the sultanate. Everyone knows that. We all know that. Since the initial scuffle between Khurram and my mother exploded inside Red Fort— Khurram's suspicions on her mother's sudden death to my mother, the imposition of a will that she did not want at all, as well as the power of my mother whom he valued had far surpassed his own as an heir to the sultanate—had widened the abyss of envy between us. So, it is undeniable, that Khurram also knew, that his departure was expected, but his return was not at all desirable.

    As long as they were gone in that drab military operation, I lost a few things in my life. Some innocent and innocent pieces of my soul. Some of it was personal, and some of it I couldn't reveal myself. I'm a half-dead goose, feeling the emptiness of the deep pleasures

my soul. I feel like two elephants are tearing my chest. And I feel cramped and angry. I paced out of the room, sat by the pool, hugged my knees on the balcony, felt the chill shiver through my skin, smeared my hands with henna paste, or ate mangoes and sweets, but I wonder if my soul wants it all. I'm like a fool exposed to magic. Of all, I knew that the missing had been carried far south, in Burhanpur, in a luxurious red tent with a Kashmiri rug, firmly in the chest of a man. The rate of his breath is passionate, which looks more charming than the beautiful dream of a fastened virgin, whose laughter melts my confidence. The missing part of me is in Khurram.

    I warned my soul about this. By the love of God, I have condemned that feeling long before this emptiness existed. That Khurram belonged to Arjumand, Khurram was Arjumand's husband, Khurram was Arjumand's lover. In the end, Khurram was the father of the children of Arjumand. But I myself am on

finally had to give up because I found nothing but forbidden words that I had to say in solitude. I love him, and that is a secret. A sin. Because Arjumand won't like it, and because he won't want to be rivaled. No one knows more about waiting than him. Five years of puzzles and question marks have made him greedy for Khurram. And he had convinced himself that Khurram belonged to only one.

    Even so, I still miss Prince Khurram as I lay empty on the empty couch. I had imagined that if he was beside me, hugging my small body, whispering one or two poems about young love in my ear, immersing my face in his chest that field—may Allah forgive me over

this fantasy. But I got nothing more than jealousy. My heart was always torn as I watched her peck at Arjumand's forehead, the half-dead fisherman as she hugged him gently from behind. Then I remembered myself again where I was and ran away to cry sedu sedan in a place covered in darkness.

    But, I often think this way: Arjumand is indeed worthy of Khurram. My cousin had been struggling desperately not to love another man besides her husband for the five years of waiting in a colossal and slow engagement. The zenana women had spoiled the Prince for five years, not knowing what he could get behind the day. Their love was strong and firm, not as shallow as a wet horseshoe and sweet words in advance— as men do to their young wives. But this is more than just ordinary devotion. For Khurram never went to his first and second wife after he married Arjumand. They have had many children. Now she's pregnant again for the wrong time. I can't remember how many, maybe a dozen, because their living children have grown admirably flawless. Jahanara, Dara Shikoh, Shah Shuja, Roshanara, and Aurangzeb. Two women, Jahanara and Roshanara, as well as three men, Dara Shikoh, Shah Shuja, and Aurangzeb. It was more than enough to retain the title of beloved wife in Prince Khurram's own zenana.

    During the days of Khurram's return from Burhanpur, I set myself in silly dreams and hopes, often flying and watching in my own room. Darkness came to me at night, carrying a dream like a message of death, reminding me that Khurram might not return because his head was rolling from the saddle of his horse inlaid with jewels. But I didn't stop hoping. I pray to the sky, facing west, towards holy Mecca. From my lips, I prayed to God that my only hope was to see Khurram back in the Red Fort of Agra. But I don't know if Allah is angry with him or me, because the news from Burhanpur has been blocked somewhere lately. Always late. And if it comes, just say victory or rest, without the slightest word alluding that they will return home soon.

    I sighed, immersing a book of poetry into my chest that was layered in a tight blouse, like all women wear. In zenana, women's clothing is differentiated in its own class. Padshah Begam will

having clothes that no other woman would have, the sprinkling of gems and diamonds were like fallen walnuts. The other queens, the wives of Sultan Jahangir, dressed in the most expensive colorful clothes, were brought from Kashmir or Surat, which was often clad in pasmina, veils, and so on, or thick saris and veils on their heads. The concubines, most of the slaves who were only fished one night, used a tight tunic or blouse with a simpler skirt, but simply declared their own status with a sapphire ring or a jingling gold bracelet. And in the end, at the bottom of the hierarchy, eunuchs and zenana servants used an unadorned tunic at all.

    My legs are adorned with brownish red henna. It had started to fade, but I said that it had only been two days since the slaves carved it with a soft groove on top of my skin. The shape is in the form of jasmine tendrils, ending in the toenails. I hid my fingers behind the white silk skirt I was wearing. How long, I thought, but Khurram's return was not there. Even if the news was only going to get to the mother's residence, a small slip would be delivered by Nazeer Khan to me later. But this time I was alone. The void has taken me. My mind has been seized. My life's worth has been captured. And every time my eyes closed, these tired eyes, oh my God, I saw Khurram's face there. I hugged myself, trying to resist the turbulent desire, which was fiercer than the waves of wrath, which were wilder than the thunder in the dark sky. I tried to calm down, but failed. My soul screams furiously. In the end, as the afternoon breeze called out from behind the window of the terrace, I cried there.

    Once, once, in the past, I almost forgot when, I knew that I was no less attracted to Arjumand. I know that secretly, may I be right, O God, how wild my mind is, that Khurram was once attracted to me. Nouruz, New Year. And the palace held a Meena Bazaar night market event at the palace. All the women, court ladies, noble wives, merchants outside the Fortress, anyone with a precious gift, were welcomed at the Meena Bazaar. They are racing to create a new model of jewelry, clothing with the most expensive embroidery. However, the meaning is implied, that the Meena Bazaar event is a show for the Sultan, the search for a mate for the Princes, and the search for concubines for nobles. For all women can stand firm, call any man, play their eyes without a veil for one night.

    When Arjumand was fourteen, for the first time when the boy entered the Meena Bazaar, he sold silver jewelry, which looked more like glass beads. I don't know much about how much the merchandise is, because what can a fourteen-year-old like him offer? But surprisingly, who became a weigh for all the virgins when they entered the Meena Bazaar that day, they all did not think, that the innocent child, Arjumand Banu Begam, was, has lured Prince Khurram with his beads. He has, everyone does not know how to dramatize it, even I was confused to choose the word because Prince Khurram just appeared among the curl of the oil lamp, fluttering Arjumand's tent cover, and, and tell the woman how much she loves him. You won't believe it, but that's what happened. Among the riots they secretly want to quell in order to create a world for both of them, Prince Khurram has bought Arjumand's love. He had bought it, and paid it at a fair price. Full of appreciation, trust, promise and devotion that is not fulfilled in a line of cheap words of the seducer.

    Prince Khurram bought all of Arjumand's jewelry for ten thousand rupees, an inappropriate price for his cheap jewelry, but enough to buy his childish love, it has become the love of adults up to now.

    So, I decided, too, that my way would be very different from the way my cousin peddled

himself to Khurram. Indeed, the charm of Arjumand is the allure of God's perfection, which He drops in a lucky woman. No one can dispute that. But I have determined that my perfection will be displayed in a different charm.

    At the Meena Bazaar a year ago, I used a tight blue-and-white silk blouse, which was filled with pearly circles the size of orange seeds all over its surface. My skirt was book-nailed, wide, dragging all the way to the ground, decorated with silk stripes of a brighter color. My hair is beautifully curled, not braided like the other women. Kohl lined up neatly above my eyes, curving around thin pointed eyebrows. My lips are decorated with mulberry fruit, red blush, and thin powder billows my face. Now that I have looked at myself in the mirror, realizing my own charm, I am sure God will give me His charms tonight.

    And so, I danced in front of the palace men with bare feet. About twenty dancers,

including me, dancing kathak in front of the Meena Bazaar audience. My limbs were agile, the clattering of bracelets on my arms and legs ringing in rhythm, making a simultaneous sound like the bells of temples and churches every morning. The sound of dholak and sehnai they crack and bud in the air. Occasionally his voice was loud, combined with our sharp movements. Sometimes his voice was faint, and occasionally swallowed until it was barely audible. Like peacocks, my confidence grew there, in line with the drab events witnessed by the Sultan, by the Queens, by the Sultan's Widows, by the princes and Princesses of the sultanate, as well as the patricians of the entire class. At the end of the dance, Sultan Jahangir and my mother gave gifts in the form of necklaces, nose rings, bracelets in the form of my untouchable mind thrown in the middle of the courtyard.

    Pretty impressive, I thought later. But none of those gifts fulfilled my own desires. Because my thirst is only in Khurram. It is his praise I look forward to, the snap of a finger or the blink of a matanyah that I hope in silence. And Meena's Bazaar is almost over. The night was about to age and began to recede down the earth line. I began to doubt, to be lazy to myself, to be ashamed of my own actions and achievements.

    Then, as I grew weary of hope, followed by sobbing, God gave me a way. A slave girl carries a gold tray with a jewel-encrusted necklace with a bright sapphire chunk in the middle. There, there is a white rose bud that is dried.

    The slave girl carrying that thing blurred out of my sight. I was left standing alone under the silvery light beams of the moon, which turned white when touching the sapphire necklace. I smelled flowers, happily laughing at my luck. This thing is from Khurram. He's the one who gave it to her. White roses only grow in the Khurram palace. There's only one in the palace, and it won't change. In the tradition of young people, roses are an eye sign. A sign that a man has a heart. I never saw him speak a sin. But his actions represented all the words he might not have been able to say.

    That night, for the first time, I slept with satisfaction, with the sweat of happiness dripping from a tired dream. The sweet smile was still tempestuous, wetted by the words I said in silence, and I was still writhing and circling over the cots until the guards shouted the curfew. My chest exploded, as if drawn by two camels, dipped in the ink of love, stained with guilt. For at the end of the night I knew, jolted, made aware of a nightmare and thunder, that Arjumand should not know about this. And even if he knew, that Arjumand would never say anything. For he has learned that his violence and show of jealousy in real life will only bring mala to him. Therefore, he chose to be silent, even though I did not know the meaning of silence at all.

    Lately, I have known, that Arjumand knows more than I thought. That he had forbidden Khurram to send similar objects. That he told her how it was just his passion, not love! It was as if Khurram was lusting like a bull. That Arjumand wept and grieved in the puddle of jealousy that her own husband dug up. In the end, Khurram realized that his love for me would be impossible, because Arjumand's devotion surpassed all the love he might have for me. Nazeer Khan knows, I know, the whole Zenana knows, but I doubt if Sultan Jahangir knows. Those people, either Nazeer Khan or Mother, let me wrestle in one's pain

selves. People decide their own path as they grow up. And I'm no longer the innocent girl who likes to whine and ask. Not just a woman in her sickening love story. At the end of it all, I had exhausted all my strength, because all I did was smell the dry white rose like a madman. My eyes were swollen one night, lips dry one more night, fainting the other night.

Until now, when I thought about the incident again, my eyes had swollen with tears.[]