The Tainted Throne by Alex RutherfordThe crevices splintered into the fabric of a soul that is fragmented and wounded with lovelessness and anguish, cannot be filled as likely as an ointment may fill the wound of a flesh.
The reaction to which, usually, is a tainted heart…and so, a tainted throne too!
‘The Tainted Throne’ is the fourth book in the ’Empire of the Moghuls’ series written by Alex Rutherford. Consecutively, the novel depicts the story of the fourth Moghul emperor Jahangir, followed by Babur, Humayun and Akbar.
Post the death of the third Mughal emperor, Akbar, the dynasty of Moghuls tripped in imbalance; like a goblet of poison skiddering sideways and spilling itself till the entire sky was gathered with venomous shadows of doom and gloom.
Punch-drunk by negligence, impulsiveness and lust for power, the map of the Moghul empire began to experience cracks, here and there, until, it neared its tearing downfall followed by total collapse.
Jahangir a.k.a. Salim was the eldest son of Akbar, born to his wife Hirabai, in Agra Fort. While growing up, Jahangir depicted to have a sensitive and anxious personality. Akbar, however, more inclined towards his ever-growing empire, was much lesser gravitated towards his son’s increasing complexity.
Nevertheless, not until Jahangir was a full-fledged grown-up, was that, he discovered himself to be yearning for a father who was never there, but only a king, whose imperial perfection he couldn’t strive to surpass or even match.
Often having to compete his own sons who were regarded much more than him by their grandfather Akbar, Jahangir found himself to be like a boat…a boat to nowhere.
The consequence – Jahangir glided on the slippery slope of rebellion and numbing pleasure experiences.
Gaining the throne, though, Jahangir lost himself, bit by bit, piece by piece, until it was too late for him to revert.
Jahangir turned out to be a ruthless ruler, who was willing to destroy anyone who appeared to him as a threat to the throne which he had acquired after awaiting nearly lifelong, and which, he didn’t want to lose at any cost, or to anyone.
His first battle, apparently, was with his eldest son Khusrau. Upon defeating him badly, Jahangir held his son captive in a dungeon, punishing him by getting his eyelids stitched by the hakims, so as he wouldn’t plot any further against him.
However, what turned out to be his greatest enemy was his own mind. His lovelorn mind caused him to murder Sher Afghan, the governor of Bengal, who was the husband of a woman he desired. The woman was Mehrunissa. She was the daughter of Ghiyas Beg, a loyal treasurer appointed by Akbar in Kabul.
Once a widow, Jahangir was free to marry her, and that was what he did, too. He married her. Soon after Jahangir’s first wife Man Bai, committed suicide, thereupon, Mehrunissa became the sole empress.
A genius by nature, Mehrunissa was highly skilled in various forms of arts including painting, poetry, embroidery, textiles, hunting, politics and even warfare. She could craft strategies which exceeded and transcended even Jahangir’s intellect, and it was she who was the real ruler behind the throne.
Mehrunissa was a sharp-witted woman, brilliant in all sorts, only except for the deep-seated anguish that guarded her heart since her childhood. Once upon a time, as a baby, she had been abandoned by her parents under a tree because they lacked resources and couldn’t raise her up.
Driven by this anguish, Mehrunissa grew up fuelled with the craving of power. And alas, as Jahangir’s weakness for opium caused him to slacken his hold over the imperial matters, Mehrunissa grasped the opportunity with zestful appetency and wrote her name in history as first of the very few most powerful women ever.
Jahangir was obsessed about Mehrunissa. He had endowed her with various glorious titles; first ‘Nur Mahal’ and then ‘Nur Jahan’, which signified ‘the light of the world’. Despite that she loved Jahangir equally well, but her love for power overpowered every other emotion she had.
While Jahangir, doused under opium, catered to her influence too soon and easy, Nur Jahan often played with his mind to cause him to do what she wanted. Under one such scenario, Jahangir even disowned his beloved son Khurram a.k.a. Shah Jahan. In another scenario, she caused one of Jahangir’s friends from England, Sir Thomas Roe, to leave the fortress, by poisoning his meals with rotten meat, for days and days, till he was too sick to stay in this country any longer.
She didn’t want anything to come between her and Jahangir as that’d be a threat to her exponentiating power. Jahangir’s thralldom to opium and compounding asthma only supported Nur Jahan’s goals more and more. She was the first ever empress to have coins minted on her name. She was, in fact, the real power behind the throne, while Jahangir was merely a medium.
Upon Jahangir’s sudden demise in Lahore, Nur Jahan sensed Shah Jahan as a threat and immediately plotted to spade him away from her way. However, when defeated by him, Nur Jahan tricked even Shah Jahan, thereby, saving herself and instead, surrendering her son-in-law Shahriyar, as guilty in her place.
Albeit, Nur Jahan was sequestered by Shah Jahan, into seclusion in a small fort in Lahore, and blocked from the rest of the world.
In the present day, sitting right next to Jahangir’s tomb in Lahore, there lies Nur Jahan’s tomb, the epitaph of which, ironically, reads,
"On the grave of this poor stranger, let there be neither lamp nor rose. Let neither butterfly's wing burn nor nightingale sing."
[Note: This review essay is written in accordance with the storyline presented in the novel and the characters are depicted according to the point of view of the novel’s fiction, and therefore, it does not guarantee the factualness of real history.]
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