The Last Mughal, JLF London and a bit of luck
I briefly considered interviewing a friend today, whom I was meeting earlier in the day for lunch, but given it’s a new friendship and that we made plans to meet after months, launching into in-depth tête-à-tête without warning seemed inappropriate. We’ll dine another day.
Instead, I’m going with a book review for this week, The Last Mughal, and how in June this year, by happy happenchance, I met the author in London.
Dalrymple is a writer I took an instant liking to back in 2019 when introduced to his work, City of Djinns, a book about Delhi, which I picked up to learn more about the city I’d spent a large part of my life in. His writing confirmed his scholarship and dedication to research as a historian but more importantly revealed the markings of a gentle author with a non-judgemental eye, quick wit, balanced use of language and natural flair for recital. It also helped that unlike the reverse migration which is the order of the day, here was a Scottish man, who moved to India in his 20s because he couldn’t resist the pull of the beauty, mystery and magnificent history of the capital city.
So you can imagine my consternation when casually browsing through the shelves of a bookshop one day, the melancholy eyes of a former ruler arrested my steps and made me question why I had not revisited this cherished author sooner.
With an alluring title for a history buff and fitting reviews supplementing the blurb, I soon found myself curled up in bed late at night revisiting the events that would shape the destiny of modern India.
The book was a revelation with its painstaking research, faithful recording of events and splendid storytelling, and topped the now forgotten in memory City of Djinns, while retaining its best elements.
1857 was summarised in my school history book in 2 lines. The soldiers mutinied against the East India Company. Mangal Pandey was the first to revolt. The Last Mughal is a little more detailed.
Talking of my school, I studied in St. Joseph’s Convent, Patna, one of the oldest schools in the country, incidentally set up in 1853 by a group of evangelical Christians. The 1857 War of Independence was a religious war of Hindu-Muslim collaboration against the spread of evangelical Christianity and forced conversion. The irony did not escape me.
There are many reasons to like the book, compulsive page-turner aside.
It helps you make sense of a chaotic world and understand how you got to where you are today. In the author’s own words,
‘at the centre lies the question on why the relatively easy relationship of India and Britain during the early years of the East India Company gave way to the hatreds and racism of high nineteenth-century Raj. The uprising was a result of that change and not its cause’.
The rise in Britain’s military might led to a shift in power dynamics and ‘an attitude of undisguised imperial arrogance’.
You learn about the thriving, syncretic and plural culture of the Mughal court in its last days, with King Zafar decisive on one point alone – to keep both his Hindu and Muslim subjects happy. He acknowledged that preserving the bond is what held his favourite city together, a lesson we’ll do well to remember today. There’s also tremendous sadness at the barbarism with which the finest architectural marvel of the capital, Red Fort, was mercilessly levelled by the British in vengeance. In the current age, it’s the equivalent of levelling a Buckingham Palace or an Eiffel Tower.
The book in the late and wonderful Khushwant Singh’s words is
‘how history should be written, not a catalogue of dry as dust kings but to bring the past to the present, put life back in characters long dead and gone and make the reader feel they are living among them’.
Fin. (for the review)
Now, a quick introduction to JLF, or the Jaipur Literary Festival, one of the largest and most prestigious annual literary festivals of the world, hosted in Jaipur, India, for almost 20 years now. Dalrymple is one of the festival directors. I’ve tried making plans with my friends and cousins in the past, but like the best-laid schemes, they gang aft a-gley.
This year, to my pleasant surprise, I discovered that JLF has a lesser publicised yet more than a decade-old London edition as well, hosted at the British Library (walking distance from my current college). Thanks to Instagram algorithms, I learned of the event in the nick of time, bought tickets at enviable speed and had a ringside view of the best Sunday events – ethereal morning music (no exaggeration), Elif Shafak in conversation with William Dalrymple (I’m halfway through There are Rivers in the Sky), Shekhar Kapur’s Life in Films (my 4-year-old nieces hum Lakdi ki Kaathi) and stumbling on funny man Nish Kumar (who didn’t kill my vibe).
Putting my faith in lady luck, I had also carried my copy of The Last Mughal with me, in case I ran into the co-founder himself. And literally run into him I did, on the stairs between venues and sessions. He graciously signed my book and even agreed to get a picture clicked.
You can catch me grinning from ear-to-ear.
If in the future, I ask you about your favourite London memories in the series of interviews I hope to conduct, this day would be one of mine. Cheers!
