The Indu Sundaresan Interview: or, History Made Fun
A Review by Laurie Edwards
02/27/2002
Born and reared in an Indian storytelling family, Indu Sundaresan tells her tales of the Mogul Empire with a fascinating mixture of fact and legend. Her talent, perhaps honed by those childhood stories, shines in her novel, The Twentieth Wife, and in her short stories and history (chronicled on her nicely kept website, http://www.indusundaresan.com/)
With a degree in Economics and passion for Mogul history, Indu Sundaresan is nobody's fool; she knows her stuff and communicates her points clearly. This woman has a personal strength we Westerners don't generally associate with women of her background. On the other hand, she's a quiet and pleasant woman whose vocal style engages immediately. All in all, Ms. Sundaresan is easy to talk to—and easy to learn from.
Laurie Edwards: Who are the descendants of these Indian Muslims in The Twentieth Wife? I see Kandahar mentioned several times as an outpost of the Empire; are modern day Afghans more or less the same culture as the one you're talking about in the book?
Indu Sundaresan: That would be my impression; around the 12th century [AD], Afghans came into the Mogul Empire, essentially as a colony-state. Between the 12th and 16th centuries, many people of the Arabic nations (though "nation" is perhaps too strong a word) emigrated to the Mogul Empire and settled. They are the ancestors of Afghans today.
The borders in the Middle East were so fluid; there were no real cohesive nations, as we know them today until the Mogul Empire. They were the first people to bring everything together. It lasted for about three hundred years, until the British became India's official rulers in 1858, with Queen Victoria.
LE: Your descriptions of the luxury and beauty of the palaces, as well as clothes and jewels are wonderful. Have you had an opportunity to visit museums to study this sort of thing? Can you tell us about some of the more gorgeous physical remnants of Nur Jahan?
IS: Clothing from that time period hasn't survived as well as other items. The heat destroys fabrics. Most of our understanding of their clothes comes from their diaries and requisition forms.
When Jangahir would commission a new coat, he would explain how he wanted the collar, how long it should be, what material...the notes of the people he spoke to is what allows us to know what they were wearing.
The commission of a coat was an interesting procedure. The Emperor would have a coat made, and certain members of his Court were permitted to wear the same one as a mark of favor. To be dressed like Jangahir was an honor.
I have visited museums with clothing exhibits and several monuments, and I was completely awed at the intricate details of Mogul workmanship. The exactitude awed me. There is a fort so perfectly symmetrical that there is even a legend of its perfection: It's a square, a kilometer long on each wall, and the legend says that if you speak from one tower [one tower on each corner], you can hear in each of the other towers—a kilometer away. I remember trying it in school [on field trips], but it didn't work. It's just a legend.
LE: You chose to write about an utterly male-dominated culture from the feminine viewpoint, a rather uncommon approach. Did you feel more drawn to the women as another woman, or did the lack of much reference material on the subject bring out the historian in you?
IS: There is more reference material available than you think. These people kept diaries, some of them very extensive, and Court records are quite complete too. But it wasn't as a historian that I was interested in Mehrunissa; the history is there for those who want to read only that.
No, the connection I felt to Mehrunissa was as a woman. She's a woman, I'm a woman. She did things that could almost be 21st century, things not many women even today have managed to do. In my novels and short stories, I tend to write about strong women, women who do exceptional things other women can't or don't do.
LE: Did you find the lack of reference to Nur Jahan's childhood frustrating? Why did you decide to fill in the blanks with fiction, rather than simply letting that time be blank?
IS: I wanted to write a novel based on historical fact. There are several legends about Mehrunissa's birth; I chose the one about her being abandoned by her parents and then found by their friend.
Though I have no absolute proof of her early life, I know from my research that her parents were at Court by the time she was eight years old. She would have been with them. During her first marriage, official records place her husband, and she would have been with him. There are few records of women at the time; I had to place her with those people she was close to until she married Jangahir.
I placed her at Court to serve the Empress so she could meet Jangahir. That meeting was important to establish the basis of a long-term love between the two, which we know really happened. It also gave me the opportunity to place her in the harem and have her learn the intricacies of harem life, and I could show the way women lived at the time.
LE: You managed to tell a romantic tale focusing on the participants in that romance, without becoming gooey or mushy. Was it difficult as a writer to balance the love affair with the history and the rest of the story?
IS: It's hard to tell a romance. It can take over the story you're trying to tell, but in this case, the romance is the story. The story is the deep affection between Jangahir and Mehrunissa; he trusted her so much...and in his position, he couldn't really trust anyone.
She had everything except one thing; she had coins minted in her name—only the Emperor had that privilege. She signed royal edicts and issued orders to the navy and army. She formulated domestic policy and also ruled the harem. The only thing she didn't have that a reigning monarch had was this: Since there was no mass communication, the people often had no news for weeks, so every Friday before noon prayers, a runner [a sort of town crier] would announce the name of the Emperor. That way the people knew who the ruler was. She never had her name announced before Friday noon prayers, but in every other way, she ruled the Mogul Empire—because he [her husband] trusted her.
Where does this trust and enormous affection come from? I thought that was the real story. Mogul society took affairs of the heart very seriously. It was a very poetical society; people would spend evenings sitting together making up love verses. Love built gardens, buildings...and betrayals weren't tolerated. There's a story of a concubine who had been unfaithful; she was entombed alive standing up. They stood her up and built her tomb around her.
Hindi [Indian] movies really help tell the story of Jangahir and Mehrunissa—there have been several—and it's a very romantic story to tell. As he grew up and throughout his life, Jangahir wasn't known for expanding the Empire, as Akbar [his father] was, and he didn't build things like Shah Jehan [his son]. He was known for his romantic enterprises. For him to have fallen in love so deeply was a surprise to everyone, and his love for Mehrunissa is legendary.
LE: You mention several times in the book that Nur Jahan understood that she'd have to rule through her husband, and that her power would have to come from him. Were there no outlets for a sovereign queen in that time and place?
IS: There were sovereign queens at certain times—wives of dead kings. Mehrunissa would certainly have heard of Elizabeth I, obviously; Elizabeth reigned during Mehrunissa's lifetime, and there were Englishmen at the Court of Jangahir.
It wasn't in the culture for her to be what Elizabeth was, though; women didn't do that. Even if she had made an effort to rule independent of Jangahir, the people wouldn't have accepted her; she had no royal line or ancestry of her own. Even after his death (which ended her power), the people wouldn't have allowed it.
Jangahir had many sons to follow him, though he and Mehrunissa never had children. It's important to remember that primogeniture wasn't a Mogul precept. In that time it was so hard to keep babies alive, so all sons were equal, with equal right to the throne upon their father's death (though often it was the eldest son of the first wife who became the next Emperor). Sons of wives and sons of concubines were had equal rights. With all those sons, there was little chance a female—especially one with no claim of her own—could become an Empress in her own right.
LE: Do you see any comparative points between Nur Jahan and any powerful woman in today's world? In today's world, would she be Margaret Thatcher or Ivana Trump?
IS: [laughs] That's an interesting question. I've never thought about that before; the cultures are so different, it's hard to compare them enough to answer. Without the restrictions of her culture, Mehrunissa could easily have been a Thatcher figure...but without her culture, she would never have been in a position to have the power to do what she did.
It is no longer a crime for a woman to do things on her own, as it was in Mehrunissa's time. I'm not really sure who she would have been if she lived today.
LE: Finally, can you say anything about your next book, Power Behind the Veil? After loving The Twentieth Wife, I'm very eager to read it. When's it due out?
IS: It's tentatively scheduled for April 2003. I say tentatively because I have more research yet to do on it.
LE: Will we see more of the British in the sequel?
IS: Yes, you will meet the first English ambassador, from the Court of James I, Sir Thomas Roe. He spent three years in the Mogul Empire and dealt regularly with Mehrunissa, knowing she was the power behind Jangahir. He kept a thorough diary, and I have researched his journals extensively. There is more direct history on Mehrunissa after her marriage; this [Power behind the Veil] will be much deeper than The Twentieth Wife, but it will still be a romance. The love between Jangahir and Mehrunissa is the story.
After the interview was over, I thought about something: Indu Sundaresan would be a great teacher, if she weren't a writer; in her words, I actually saw in my mind the pictures of what she'd told me, and I felt the love she has for her subject. That low, musical voice had led me through a charming history lesson—and I'd enjoyed every minute of it.
© Copyright CultureCartel.com 02/27/2002
