Tiger Slayer is an interesting contribution that combines the work of a historian and an artist to present the story of Mughal Empress Nur Jahan. The rigour of both is remarkable that brings together a well-documented, visually aesthetic book, which would certainly grasp the attention of the children but also of those interested in knowing Mughal history, and particularly its glorious women. Introducing the book rather differently, and giving it an individualistic persona, Lal talks about the story maker and the artist of the book, which includes herself and the artist Molly Crabapple. Narrating the story sessions with her mother when she was a young girl, Lal tells us how she went into a ‘trance’ on hearing the tale of Nur Jahan, the empress that captured her imagination and ‘conquered’ her mind. Molly Crabapple too, was influenced by her mother, an illustrator for toy companies and children’s books. Even as Crabapple spent time in her mother’s studio, and museums and libraries, she was fascinated by Indian miniature paintings. Inspired by Edmund Dulac’s lively illustrations, a painter was born in her. It is in this context that Lal takes the reader to the year 1577, more than four hundred years ago, to tell the story of Mihr un-Nisa, later known as Nur Jahan, the circumstances in which she was born, and then her long odyssey into the Mughal Empire. The illustrations of each event, each episode, and each occasion are exceptionally enthralling and revealing.
Perhaps to stimulate and hold the interest of the children keen on star-watch and astronomy in present times, Lal brings in the story of a large comet that passed close to the earth in the year of Nur Jahan’s birth, and follows it up with a brief description on comets, and what they entail in astrology. Persia at that time was in crisis. Several Persians, including Ghiyas Beg and Asmat Begum, the parents of Nur Jahan, left their country for a better future in Mughal India known for its permissiveness and acceptance. Persia too practiced tolerance. In fact, for several decades, Persian artists, musicians, doctors, soldiers, diplomats, and several others had come to the wealthy, indulgent Mughal Empire for secure opportunities. As the caravans journeyed on the roads from Persia to India, Nur Jahan, ‘the migrant girl’ was born. Bringing alive the birth of Mihr un-Nisa, with minute details, Lal recounts the ways in which the caravan served as Mihr’s first nursery, and the city of Lahore as her second nursery till she along with her parents reached the court of the Mughal Emperor Akbar in Fatehpur Sikri, where a large house in the center of the city became her first home. Notwithstanding the patterns of formal education then, open only to elite, royal boys, Mihr grew to be a highly literate, well-read girl in Persian literature, and wrote sophisticated poetry. At age 17, Mihr was married to a Mughal officer, Ali Quli Beg. Lal regales the reader with elaborate arrangements and the actual conduct of the nuptial ceremony, illustrated remarkably by Crabapple.
From being one among many, Mihr rose to become the favourite wife of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir, who married her in the sixth year of his reign subsequent to the demise of Ali Quli Beg. Sharing an extraordinary, sensitive relationship with his twentieth wife, Jahangir gave her a new royal name: Nur Jahan or Light of the Palace. A woman with unusual strength and phenomenal political shrewdness, Nur Jahan was not only enormously influential in the harem, but also fully immersed and pre-eminent in male dominated feudal court politics. Challenging her confinement to the harem, she travelled the Mughal territories with the emperor and his mobile court, a significant aspect of Jahangir’s reign. This portended a new paradigm in Mughal history: for the first and perhaps the only time, the Empress governed as a co-sovereign. Later, court historians defined her power as fitna—civil strife or universal disorder. European travellers, such as Pelsaert and Ralph Fitch depicted her as the ‘crafty wife of humble origin’, and ‘a very cunning and ambitious woman’. Regardless, it would not be iniquitous to suggest that she was distinguished by her exceptional ambition, courtly endurance, military and trade acumen, and ascent to power. She was often involved in strategizing the court hierarchy, approving official appointments, and signing the farmans or decrees independently as a co-sovereign. So, while the Mughal archive has abundant evidence on Nur Jahan, there is, Lal argues, erasure of her contributions and accomplishments from popular history. This was probably because of her non-conformist, daring, and emboldened spirit that threatened the patriarchal order. The Persian chronicles and imperial court records evaluated her within patriarchal norms and also reinforced them. The prejudices of the patriarchy-driven male writers of her time and later downplayed the life, works, and talents of Nur Jahan. The emphasis on her romance with Jahangir, argues Lal, truncated her biography that diminished her; her stories stopped with her marriage to Jahangir, when actually her life’s best work began. Lal resurrects Nur Jahan, goes beyond her love story with Jahangir, and the personal moments between them, and reiterates that Nur Jahan’s history was much more. She, of course, embodied love: a capacious kind of love, and that she was indeed, as Lal asseverates, a humane, magnificent empress.
Written simply and lucidly, Tiger Slayer would unequivocally hold the attention of its readers: teenagers or otherwise. Reading Lal’s work on Nur Jahan, whether this one or her earlier one, Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan, reveals her passionate writing of the Empress. Sometimes it seems like a eulogy, a tale of a perfect women. But then, that does not take away the author’s vision as a feminist historian, her commitment to facts of history, and her subtle communication. The book, equipped with the details of the period in which Nur Jahan lived, the attributes of Jahangir’s reign, his campaigns, Mughal court, etiquettes, diverse culture, language, poetry, music, education, cuisine, clothing, jewelry, nature: including birds, flowers, animals, cities: their geography and demography, and the description of the journey from Persia to India, is vivifying. The detailed paintings are sensitively done and are enlivening. The pull-out boxes, list of ‘Major Characters’, the map of the Mughal Empire of 1605, the Sources and Notes complement the book. An engaging book indeed!