A peek into a precious wardrobe of strange outfits that are fast becoming invisible from Delhi evenings.
Ghararas, too, are fast becoming invisible from Delhi evenings, although Rakhshanda Jalil is often spotted wearing it in literary gatherings.(Mayank Austen Soofi / HT Photo)
The other day, we spot a strange outfit. It is neither a skirt, nor a gown, and definitely not a sari. It is also not a pajama.
What is it, we ask.
“It is gharara,” says author Rakhshanda Jalil, pronouncing the ‘gh’ from the base of the throat.
We are at Ms Jalil’s home in central Delhi. Her most precious wardrobe is a treasure-house of about two dozen ghararas. Most have been passed on to her from her mother and mother’s mother; a few are even older.
Indeed, Ms Jalil has a fascination for souvenirs of the past. One of her many books is titled Invisible City: The Hidden Monuments of Delhi. Ghararas, too, are fast becoming invisible from Delhi evenings, although Ms Jalil is often spotted wearing it in literary gatherings.
Years ago, she had worn a pink gharara for her wedding. Her two young daughters also wear it on during special occasions such as… well, weddings, particularly in Uttar Pradesh, where more people are likely to be similarly attired.
It is not unusual in Delhi weddings to see women in gharara’s sister dresses, such as the lehenga and the sharara — which is like flared pants. The gharara is more complicated. Each leg is comprised of two parts. The first goes down from the waist to the knee, and the second, which is much wider, begins from the knee and goes down to the foot.
Truth be told, Ms Jalil prefers saris and trousers for ordinary outings. But the gharara was the daily costume of her maternal grandmother, Zahida Suroor, who lived in the university town of Aligarh. “In my grandmother’s time, it was common for women to wear cotton ghararas made of chintz (called chheent by Urdu speakers) at home,” says, Ms Jalil. “Silk or satin ghararas were worn on formal occasions. And the heavy brocade, called kamkhaab, was worn at weddings.”
Each gharara should have its own kameez and dupatta, though these days one has more liberty to mix and match. Ms Jalil says that back in the day an entire gharara was sewn in four or five days. Each piece was stitched by hands. The entire hem was turned in with tiny invisible stitches. Sparkling bits of gold lace were tagged to camouflage the joints at the knees.
Ms Jalil’s mother, Mehjabeen, recently hand-stitched a red gharara for her. The happy daughter gave it a trial run at a dinner in her own home. There was much applause. The gharara came with a short white shirt. The red dupatta was lined with gold frills.
In the old days, women of a family gathered together to sew a gharara if it had to be made for a bride’s trousseau. Neighbours and friends also chipped in. Opinions were eagerly sought on the design, and the leftover cloth was never thrown away — it was used to make an accompanying batua (wallet), or jootis (sandals).
There was a time when a few cities were known to make special types of ghararas, says Ms Jalil. Benares was famous for its brocade ghararas, with master-weavers painstakingly transporting the design to lighter gauzier material for the accompanying dupatta. Lucknow favoured a patchwork design called chatapati. Delhi specialized in something called ‘farshi’, with a long train that women were supposed to hold delicately in their arms.
Perhaps the most ideal way to study this old-world costume is to ask the wearer to sit still. On request, Ms Jalil settles down beside a window with an Eric Segal novel. While the book belongs to her elder daughter, Aaliya, the gharara belongs to her great grandmother. Made of atlas (no relation to the book of maps), the fabric is so fragile that it can tear at the slightest tug. It has a blue background with yellow, orange and pink flowers. At one point, Ms Jalil looks out of the window. Her gharara ceases to be a dying tradition, and seems very much a part of the present.
source: http://www.hindustantimes.com / Hindustan Times / Home> News> Cities>Delhi News / by Hindustan Times / by Mayank Austin Soofi / October 09th, 2017
The four years of the World War 1 saw the service of 1.3 million Indians, of whom 74,000 never made it back home.
The First World War , or the Great War as it is also called, raged across Europe and several war arenas scattered across the world from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918. These four years saw the service of 1.3 million Indians, of whom 74,000 never made it back home. For their families, the war was something they couldn’t quite understand.
Given the large-scale Indian involvement in a war that the majority of Indians could not fully comprehend, we shall once again look into the mirror of Urud to see how the poet viewed the momentous years of the Jang-e Azeem as the Great War came to be called in Urdu.
Several poets, lost in the veils of time and virtually unknown today, made interventions as did the more famous ones who continue to be well known though possibly not in the context of what they had to say about World War I.
Urdu’s Rendition of the Greatest Human Tragedy
Presented below is a sampling of the socially-conscious, politically-aware message of the poets of the times. Not all of these poets are well-known today nor is their poetry of a high caliber yet fragments of their work have been included here simply to illustrate how the poet had his finger to the pulse of his age and circumstance.
Let us begin with Sibli Nomani and his wryly mocking Jang-e Europeaur Hindustani that deserves to be quoted in full:
Ek German ne mujh se kaha az rah-e ghuroor
‘Asaan nahi hai fatah to dushwar bhi nahin
Bartania ki fauj hai dus lakh se bhi kum
Aur iss pe lutf yeh hai ke tayyar bhi nahin
Baquii raha France to woh rind-e lam yazal
Aain shanaas-e shewa-e paikaar bhi nahin’
Maine kaha ghalat hai tera dawa-e ghuroor
Diwana to nahi hai tu hoshiyar bhi nahin
Hum log ahl-e Hind hain German se dus guneh
Tujhko tameez-e andak-o bisiar bhi nahin
Sunta raha woh ghaur se mera kalaam aur
Phir woh kaha jo laiq-e izhaar bhi nahin
‘Iss saadgi pe kaun na mar jaaye ai Khuda
Larhte hain aur haath mein talwar bhi nahin!’
(Consumed with pride, a German said to me:
‘Victory is not easy but it isn’t impossible either
The army of Britannia is less than ten lakh
And not even prepared on top of that
As for France, they are a bunch of drunks
And not even familiar with the art of warfare’
I said your arrogant claim is all wrong
If not mad you are certainly not wise
We the people of Hind are ten times the Germans
Cleary you cannot tell big from small
He listened carefully to what I had to say
Then he said something that can’t can’t be described
‘By God, anyone will lay down their life for such simplicity
You are willing to fight but without even a sword in your hand!’)
That the Urdu poet was not content with mere high-flying rhetoric and was rooted in and aware of immediate contemporary realities, becomes evident when Brij Narain Chakbast declares in his Watan ka Raag (‘The Song of the Homeland’):
Zamin Hind ki rutba mein arsh-e-aala hai
Yeh Home Rule ki ummid ka ujala hai
Mrs Besant ne is aarzu ko paala hai
Faqir qaum ke hain aur ye raag maala hai
Talab fuzool hai kante ki phool ke badle
Na lein bahisht bhi hum Home Rule ke badle
(The land of Hind is higher in rank than the highest skies
All because of the light of hope brought forth by Home Rule
This hope has been nurtured by Mrs Besant
I am a mendicant of this land and this is my song
It’s futile to wish for the thorn instead of the flower
We shall not accept even paradise instead of Home Rule)
Poems Charged With the Spirit of Revolution
Similarly, Hasrat Mohani, in a poem called Montagu Reforms, is scathing about the so-called reforms that were given as SOPs to gullible Indians during the war years, which were mere kaagaz ke phool (paper flowers) with no khushboo (fragrance) even for namesake. The poem ends with a fervent plea that the people of Hind should not be taken in by the sorcery of the reforms.
Ai Hindi saada dil khabardar
Hargiz na chale tujh pe jadu
ya paayega khaak phir jab inse
Iss waqt bhi kuchh na le saka tu
(O simple people of Hind beware
Don’t let this spell work on you
If you couldn’t couldn’t take anything from them now
You’re not likely to get anything at all)
Josh Malihabadi who acquired his moniker of the shair-e- inquilab or the ‘revolutionary poet’ during the war period, talks with vim and vigour of the revolution that is nigh, a revolution that will shake the foundations of the British empire in his Shikast-e Zindaan ka Khwaab (‘The Dream of a Defeated Prison’:
Kya Hind ka zindaan kaanp raha hai guunj rahi hain takbiren
Uktae hain shayad kuchh qaidi aur torh rahe hain zanjiren
Divaron ke niche aa aa kar yuun jama hue hain zindani
(How the prison of Hind is trembling and the cries of God’s greatness are echoing
Perhaps some prisoners have got fed up and are breaking their chains
The prisoners have gathered beneath the walls of the prisons)
Satire, Pain and Passion Punctuate These Poems
The ever-doubting, satirical voice of Akbar Allahabadi— a long- time critic of colonial rule and a newfound admirer of Gandhi, shows us the great inescapable link between commerce and empire that Tagore too had alluded to:
Cheezein woh hain jo banein Europe mein
Baat woh hai jo Pioneer mein chhapey…
Europe mein hai jo jung ki quwwat barhi huwi
Lekin fuzoon hai uss se tijarat barhi huwi
Mumkin nahin laga sakein woh tope har jagah
Dekho magar Pears ka hai soap har jagah
(Real goods are those that are made in Europe
Real matter is that which is printed in the Pioneer…
Though Europe has great capability to do war
Greater still is her power to do business
They cannot install a canon everywhere
But the soap made by Pears is everywhere)
The great visionary poet Iqbal, who is at his most active, most powerful during these years, does not make direct references to actual events in the war arena;
nevertheless, he is asking Indians to be careful, to heed the signs in Tasveer-e Dard (‘A Picture of Pain’):
Watan ki fikr kar nadan musibat aane waali hai
Tiri barbadiyon ke mashvare hain asmanon mein
(Worry for your homeland, O innocents, trouble is brewing
The portents of disaster awaiting you are written in the skies.)
Adopting a fake admiring tone, Ahmaq Phaphoondvi seems to be praising the sharpness of the British brain in Angrezi Zehn ki ki Tezi (‘The Cleverness of the English Mind’) when he’s actually warning his readers of the perils of being divided while the British lord over them.
Kis tarah bapa hoon hangama aapas mein ho kyun kar khunaraizi
Hai khatam unhein schemon main angrezi zehn ki sab tezi
Ye qatl-o khoon ye jung-o jadal, ye zor-o sitam ye bajuz-o hasad
Baquii hii raheinge mulk mein sab, baqui hai agar raj angrezi
(Look at the turmoil and the bloodshed among our people
The cleverness of the English mind is used up in all such schemes
This murder ’n mayhem, wars ’n battles, cruelties ’n malice
The country’s garden is barren, with nothing but dust and desolation)
Towards Freedom and Fervour..
Zafar Ali Khan sounds an early, and as it turns out in the face of the British going back on their promise of self-governance, entirely premature bugle of freedom. While warning his fellow Indians to change with the changing winds that are blowing across the country as the war drags to an end, he’s also pointing our attention to the ‘Toadies’, a dreaded word for the subservient Indians who will gladly accept any crumbs by way of reforms in his poem Azaadi ka Bigul (‘The Bugle of Freedom’):
Bartania ki meiz se kuchh reze gire hain
Ai toadiyon chunne tum innhe peet ke bal jao
(Some crumbs have fallen from the table of Britannia
O Toadies, go crawling on your bellies to pick them)
In the end, there’s Agha Hashar Kashmiri who, in a sarcastic ode to Europe called Shukriya Europe, thanks it for turning the world into a matamkhana (mourning chamber), and for having successfully transformed the east into an example of hell.
Utth raha hai shor gham khakistar paamaal se
Keh raha hai Asia ro kar zaban-e haal se
Bar mazar-e ma ghariban ne chiraghe ne gule
Ne pare parwane sozo ne sada-e bulbule
(A shout is rising from the dust of the downtrodden
Asia is crying out and telling the world at large
On my poor grave there are neither lamps nor flowers
And not the wing of the moth or the sad song of the nightingale.)
(Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian. She writes on literature, culture and society. She runs Hindustani Awaaz, an organisation devoted to the popularisation of Urdu literature. She tweets at @RakshandaJalil
This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
source: http://www.thequint.com / The Quint / Home> Voices> Opinion / by Rakshanda Jalil / November 11th, 2022
Image of the book cover and the author.(Photo: Altered by Kamran Akhter / The Quint)
(The following has been excerpted with permission, from author Rakhshanda Jalil’s latest book ‘But You Don’t Look Like a Muslim’, published by Harper Collins India. Sub-headers are NOT part of the book, and have been added by The Quint.)
I was eight years old in 1971. I remember the brown paper pasted on our windowpanes, the trenches dug in the park facing our house in a South Delhi neighborhood, and the near-palpable fear of air strikes that held us in thrall.
I also remember being called a ‘Paki’ by other kids in school, as India and Pakistan prepared to go to war against each other yet again, or at least the only time in living memory for my generation.
Being the only Muslim child in class, many of my peers, a Kashmiri Pandit boy in particular, took great delight in grilling me on my Pak connections. I tried, in vain, to explain that I had none. But no one would believe my stoic denials; I was a Muslim after all, I must have relatives in Pakistan. My sympathies must necessarily lie with ‘them’. And this tacit sympathy – taken for granted by my young tormentors – made me as much an enemy as ‘them’.
The Option of Going to Pakistan – And the Choice to Stay Back in ‘Hindustan’
I remember coming home in tears one afternoon. I remember my father, a man of great good sense, sitting down with me and giving me a little spiel. That afternoon chat was to give form and shape to my sense of nationhood in more ways than I could then fathom. It was also to place me squarely on a trajectory that has allowed me to chart my destiny in 21st century India precisely as I wish – not out of defiance or head-on collision, but with self-assurance and poise.
My father started by telling me how he had to leave his home in Pilibhit, a small town in the Terai region bordering the foothills of the Himalayas, and find shelter in a mosque, how many homes in his neighbourhood were gutted, others were vacated almost overnight by families leaving for Pakistan, and his goggle-eyed surprise at the first sight of the Sikh refugees who moved into the houses abandoned by fleeing Muslims.
Image of the book cover. (Photo: Harper Collins India)
While the option of going to Pakistan was there for him too – a newly-qualified doctor from a prestigious colonial-era medical college in Lucknow – he chose not go. In choosing to stay back and raise a family here in this land where his forefathers had lived and died, he was putting down more roots – stronger and deeper into the soil that had sustained generations before him. ‘Wear your identity, if you must, as a badge of courage not shame’, he said.
Why Muslims Like My Family Chose Nehru Over Jinnah
He also gave the example of my mother’s father, Ale Ahmad Suroor, a well-known name in the world of Urdu letters, and his decision too, to stay put, despite the many inducements that were offered to qualified Muslim men from sharif families. The ‘Land of the Pure’ held out many promises: a lecturer could become a professor, a professor a Vice-Chancellor, sons would get good jobs, daughters find better grooms and there would be peace and prosperity among one’s own sort.
And yet, my mother’s family like my father’s, chose not to go. To be honest, I was later told, my grandmother – a formidably headstrong lady – wanted to go, especially since many in her family had moved to Karachi.
But my grandfather, then a Lecturer at Lucknow University, was adamant: his future and his children’s lay here in ‘Hindustan’. And so they stayed. In the face of plain good sense, some might say. Why? What made them stay when so many were going?
Over the years, I have had many occasions to dwell upon this – both on the possible reasons, and the implications of their decision. I have grappled with my twin identities (am I an Indian Muslim or a Muslim Indian?), or tried not to sound defensive about my so-called liberalism, or struggled to accept the patronising compliment of being a ‘secular Muslim’ without cringing. And I have wondered, why families like mine, in the end, chose Jawaharlal Nehru over Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
How Did Muslims Become the ‘Other’?
Like many Muslims in India, I have often wondered if the cleavage of hearts and land was truly inevitable, or could it have been averted? What would have been the state of the Indian sub-continent today had a pact been reached between the Muslim League and the Congress? What happened to the heady days of 1919, when Hindus and Muslims had come together to fight the common enemy, the British? What went so wrong between the two major communities of the subcontinent? What caused the disenchantment with the Congress? What made some staunch Congressmen rally around the once-derided Muslim League? What cooled the Muslim’s ardour to join nationalistic mainstream politics?
For that matter, why was the Muslim suddenly regarded as a toady and a coward, content to let the Hindus fight for freedom from the imperial yoke? Why was he suddenly beyond the pale? How did he become the ‘other’?
And what of the dream of the ‘Muslim Renaissance’, spelt out in such soul-stirring verse by the visionary poet Iqbal? In turn, why did the Congress balk at the issue of separate electorates, calling it absurd and retrograde? Why did it do nothing to allay the Muslim fear that the freedom promised by the Congress meant freedom for Hindus alone, not freedom for all?
Seen from the Muslim point of view, the Congress appeared guilty of many sins of omission and some of commission. ‘Nationalism’ increasingly began to mean thinking and living in the ‘Congress way’ and none other. Those who lived or thought another way, came to be regarded as ‘anti-national’, especially in the years after Independence.
How the Muslim League ‘Divided’ Muslims
However, to come back to the Muslim League and the extreme reactions it has always evoked among Indian Muslims, it is interesting to explore why the ‘League logic’ enamoured some so completely, and left others cold. When the Leaguers (or ‘Leaguii’ as they were referred to among Urdu speakers) first spoke of protecting the rights of the Muslims by securing fair representation in the legislature, they were giving voice to a long-felt need to recognize the Muslims as a distinct religious and political unit.
On the face of it, these seemed perfectly legitimate aspirations; the problem, I suspect, lay in the manner in which the Muslim League went about its business. It employed a combination of rhetoric and religion to bludgeon its way.
It used fear as a campaign tool, making Muslims view all Hindus as a ‘threat’ to their survival, once Independence was achieved and the ‘protective’ presence of the British removed.
The sentiment behind Choudhry Rahmat Ali’s pamphlet Now or Never: Are We to Live or Perish Forever? was echoed by countless volunteers – clad in the by-now trademark black shervani-white ‘Aligarh-cut’ pajama – who saw themselves as soldiers in the “grim and fateful struggle against political crucifixion and complete annihilation”. They descended in droves on towns and hamlets all across Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, where their speeches – delivered in chaste Urdu and peppered with suitably rousing verses penned by Iqbal and Mohamed Ali and Hafiz Jallundari – found rapt audiences and deep pockets. While a great many began to share their enthusiasm for the Muslim League, and simple country women began to stitch League flags out of every available bit of green fabric, an equal number still held out.
The Pain of Partition
Quite a few were frankly unconvinced by the very notion of Muslims being a homogenised monolithic community that could be brought under the green banner unfurled by that most unlikely of all Muslim leaders – the Karachi-born, English-speaking, ultra-anglicised Jinnah.
Many Muslims began to see the bogey of Hindu domination as exaggerated, others were uneasy with the theocratic underpinnings of the proposed new homeland.
The Muslim League’s final unequivocal demand – a separate homeland – did not appeal to some Muslims for the same reasons of faulty logic. Jinnah’s assurance of providing constitutional safeguards to minorities, appeared humbug in the face of his proclamation of a Pakistan that would be a hundred percent Muslim. As Partition drew near, scores of Muslims who had hitched their star to the wagon of the Muslim League, began to leave for the new homeland. Families began to be divided, often with one sibling opting for Pakistan and – as it were – choosing Jinnah over Nehru – and the other digging their heels in and putting their faith in a new secular nation.
In the end, while it is clear why those who went did so, it is not always entirely evident why those who didn’t go chose to stay back. Was it gross sentiment or astute foresight that kept them back? Was the choice between Nehru over Jinnah made from the head or the heart?
My Grandfather’s Wise Words in ‘Khwaab Baqui Hain’
The generation that could have fully and satisfactorily answered these questions is either dead and gone or too frail to be disturbed by ghosts from a troubled past. Hoping to find some clues, I find myself turning the pages of my grandfather’s autobiography, Khwaab Baqui Hain (‘Dreams Still Remain’). His words bring me solace and hold out hope for my own future and that of my children:
I am a Musalman and, in the words of Maulana Azad, a “caretaker of the thirteen hundred years of the wealth that is Islam”. My deciphering of Islam is the key to the interpretation of my spirit. I am also an Indian and this Indianness is as much a part of my being. Islam does not deter me from believing in my Indian identity. Again, to quote Maulana Azad, if anything “it shows the way”.
While it is true that I imbibed religion from my family and the environment in which I grew up, my own experiences and understanding made its foundations stronger. In Badayun, religion was the name for blind faith in traditionalism and age-old orthodoxies, miracles and marvels, faith healing by pirs and fakirs. I believe Belief in One God leads the way to equality among all mankind. Allah is not simply Rabbu’l-Muslimeen [‘the Lord of Muslims’]; He is also Rabbu’l Aalameen [‘the Lord of the World’]. The all-encompassing compactness of the personality of the Prophet of Islam has always drawn me.
Islam doesn’t teach renunciation from the affairs of the world; it teaches us how to fulfill our duties in this world while at the same time instructing us to regard this mortal world as the field in which we sow the seeds for the Other World. There is no obduracy in Islam. I have seldom found obdurate people to be good human beings. The Islam that I know gives more importance to Huqooq-ul ibad [‘rights of the people’] rather than Huqooq-ul Lah [‘rights of God’].
Despite Ayodhya & Gujarat, I’m Glad Families Like Mine Didn’t Choose Pakistan Over India
I am hopeful that Islam will ‘show the way’ as, indeed it did for my grandfather – a much-feted Urdu writer, critic, poet and teacher – and will in no way deter me from believing in my Indian identity as much as in my religious one.
As I clock in a half century and more, I find I have done my share of soul-searching and raking over the ashes. I am done, too, with defensive or aggressive posturing, or the equally ridiculous sitting-on-the-fence. Life has come full circle.
My daughters went to the same school and university as I did. The clamorous unruly Jana Sangh of my childhood has been replaced by the Bharatiya Janta Party, a stronger, more vociferous – yet no less militant – face of the Hindu right-wing. My daughters meet their share of Muslim-baiters. I have told them what my father said to me. As I watch them grow into confident young people, I know that they shall cope, as I did. That they shall enjoy the dual yet in no way conflicting identities – of being Muslim and being Indian in no particular order.
Despite Ayodhya and Gujarat, despite the politicians who come and go spouting venom and spreading biases, despite the many bad jokes about katuas, despite the discrimination that is sometimes overt and often covert, I do feel, it is a good thing that families like mine chose not to hitch their star to the wagon of the Muslim League.
(Rakhshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian. She runs Hindustani Awaaz, an organisation devoted to the popularisation of Urdu literature. She tweets at@RakhshandaJalil. This is an opinion piece and the views expressed above are the author’s own.The Quintneither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)
source: http://www.thequint.com / The Quint / Home> Books / by Rakshanda Jalil / May 15th, 2019
Indira Iyengar’s book flounders on history, making some foundational conclusions untenable.
Shazi Zaman who has recently written a well-researched book on Akbar and has a detailed account of Akbar’s contact with the Europeans who visited his court, makes no mention of a Bourbon. Credit: Wikipedia
Some books need to be read because they are likely to tell you things you have always wanted to know. Some stories need to be told because they make for riveting narratives or expand your frontiers of knowledge in exciting and dramatic ways.
It is with such noble (and hopeful) intentions that one embarks upon The Bourbons and Begums of Bhopal: The Forgotten History despite its awkward size and substantial weight. In its size and appearance, it is is an unfortunate mix of a book with pictures and copious amounts of running text: too large to carry while travelling and not sufficiently picturesque to qualify as a coffee-table book. Its contents prove to be an awkward mix too, floundering between academic research and family lore.
The Bourbons and Begums of Bhopal: The Forgotten History Indira Iyengar, Niyogi Books Private Limited, 2018.
Indira Iyengar’s tale is part family history, part archival research and part anecdotal memoir. It opens with a disarming admission: ‘I am no historian, but I have a story to tell.’ Iyengar’s mother, Magdaline Bourbon traced her lineage to Jean Philippe de Bourbon who left his native France to arrive in Mughal India, sought and received employment in Emperor Akbar’s court, was actively involved in Akbar’s meeting with the Jesuit priests from Goa. For his services, Akbar is said to have gifted him a small principality, Shergarh near Narwar in present-day Madhya Pradesh and the sister of his Christian wife, an Armenian woman (Portuguese by some accounts) by the name of Juliana who apparently also served as a doctor in Akbar’s harem. Thus began the Bourbon line in India which spread its roots from the Mughal court to the princely state of Bhopal where the descendants of this first Bourbon eventually settled down. Being neither Muslim nor Hindu the Frenchmen were viewed as unbiased and loyal to their masters. The stories of their swashbuckling past and alleged purported ‘royal bloodline’ no doubt added to their mystique.
While Iyengar is at pains to establish her ancestor’s descent from the Bourbons of Navarre, historians are divided as to whether Jean Philipe was indeed from the royal house of Bourbon or simply a fugitive Frenchman, a mercenary who found name and fame in distant India, established a lineage and bestowed a legacy. Iyengar seems to be working on the principle that her mother’s version of the family history should suffice and she, as the custodian of that family history, is obligated to tell the story. ‘My mother’s narration of the family was also very interesting,’ Iyengar writes, ‘and I feel it needs to find a place in recorded history’. It is this assertion that proves to be problematic. For, had it been told as a colourful yarn with anecdotes and family portraits or even bits and pieces of trivia and family lore it could have been a charming story – as history it is on decidedly shaky grounds.
Also, while Iyengar’s research in the archives of the Agra Archdiocese may well establish the role of her French forefathers in various administrative capacities, it does not satisfactorily establish Jean Philippe’s link with Duke Charles III de Bourbon (1490-1527), also known as Connetable de Bourbon. The earliest account of Jean Philippe she is able to offer is by Madame Dulhan Bourbon, wife of Balthazar Bourbon; this comes in the form of a testimony made to a British general. Coming from a family member, that too as late as the late-19th century, it carries dubious weight at best. All other accounts, by missionaries, are in the nature of hearsay, urban legends that acquired veneers of half-truths with each telling. Jean Philippe himself is said to have presented a document to Jahangir in 1605 or 1606, according to Iyengar, stating that he was the son of Charles Connetable de Bourbon and that he had to flee France after arranging a mock funeral for himself. Since such a document does not exist, we can only rely on the author’s mother, Magdaline Bourbon’s memory of a ‘certain priest from Bombay’ who possessed the Bourbon family records that were subsequently ‘lost with time’. Shazi Zaman who has recently written a well-researched book on Akbar and has a detailed account of Akbar’s contact with the Europeans who visited his court, makes no mention of a Bourbon.
While Jean Philippe’s relationship with the House of Bourbon may be in dispute, Iyengar’s research in the archives of the Agra Archdiocese shows that there existed a certain Jean Philipe de Bourbon, who was married to a certain Bibi Juliana (referred to in later Jesuit accounts as Dona Juliana Dias da Costa) who helped build the first Catholic church in Agra in 1588 on land gifted by Akbar. Jean Philipe is said to have died in Agra in 1592 leaving behind two sons one of whom, according to Iyengar, was in charge of the seraglio. At the time of Nadir Shah’s invasion, the Bourbons left poor, ravaged Delhi and the clan, by now comprising 300 men and women, sought refuge in the family estate in Shergarh and thence began the southern sojourn of Jean Philippe’s descendents. Mamola Bai, the first woman ruler of Bhopal, offered Salvador Bourbon the position of general in the Bhopal state army. Salvador married a certain Miss Thome and the family then embarked on a long innings serving as confidantes, generals, even Prime Ministers to the Bgeums of Bhopal.
Already carrying two names, a European and a Muslim one, the Bourbons began to wear Bhopali dress and live like the local nobility. However, the fleur de lis in their coat of arms never failed to remind them and their local patrons of their royal past in distant France.
Rakshanda Jalil is a writer, translator and literary historian.
source: http://www.thewire.in / The Wire / Home> Books / by Rakshanda Jalil / October 05th, 2018
