A Journey To Discover Life

The entourage was too large and extravagant for a musician. Roopmati remembered that as a child, during festivities, she would ride on her father’s shoulder to see the entourages pass by the main streets of the town nearby. She had seen many a musician. None had such a huge entourage. Roopmati frowned a little, unsurely as she took her father’s leave. His warning rang in her ears. “Remember what you do, how you behave will all come back to me.” She nodded.  The chief queen was at a loss for words. She had never seen the Sultan himself step into the Mahal to check the chambers to be allotted to one of the girls who were coming in. She was not one of the girls. She was a musician. The queens were curious. What would her position be then? She could not be a concubine, and she was not a queen. A musician in the royal palace of the ladies? Had the Sultan lost his senses? Or did he have some other agenda? If he wanted someone, he had them. He was the Sultan. There was no way he was tryin...

A week was enough for the master to be pleased enough with the new student to tell the Sultan that she was ready for her first performance. The Sultan was extremely pleased and rewarded him with a gold chain. As the master bowed to leave, the guards announced the arrival of the chief queen. Sultan Baz Bahadur sat upright. She was his first bride, a childhood alliance his father had forced upon him when he did not even know what marriage implied. Now he only saw her face when she had complaints about the inner palace and its inhabitants. Honestly, he expected her to be there since Roopmati arrived. His queen did not like changes, especially if those changes were threatening to her position. The Chief Queen arrived with her maids, dismissed them at the threshold and came up to her husband to bow and greet him. “What brings you here?” Baz Bahadur asked, with a lingering smile on his lips. The queen could hear the hint of taunt in his voice. She forced a smile. Her marriage to this reckles...

Roopmati was dressed in her best clothes for the evening in honour of the Prince of Khandesh, as she approached the Mehfil. Wine poured with music as Baz Bahadur found himself humming the songs she presented with a smile on his face. Roopmati looked up at him through her veil, and she wore a smile as she sang. Although her face was not visible, Baz Bahadur knew it was on him. A sudden warmth gushed through his veins to his ears. It was then that Mubarak started praising Roopmati as she bowed. He was highly intoxicated, and his praises swept from her voice and singing to her beauty, the poetry that talked of her and finally a proposal to take her along and give her more luxuries than Malwa promised. Roopmati stepped back, a little shocked at his proposition, as Baz Bahadur stood up to make him stop. The Mehfil broke as Baz Bahadur ordered Mubarak’s men to let him sleep off in the guest wing, and he turned to see that Roopmati had already left. Roopmati felt insulted at the praises of Mu...

The next morning, the Jahaj Mahal was woken at dawn by the sound of construction on the roof. The women flocked to the lawn to catch a glimpse of what was happening. A pathway was being cut to the hill. On top of the hillock, a pavilion was to be built, the soldiers informed. A pavilion for what? The women contemplated. “Rani Roopmati’s viewpoint of the Reva.” Suddenly, all the eyes of the palace were on her. Roopmati stood there stunned. Baz Bahadur had called his best builders and chosen the highest point of Mandu to build a pavilion for his new queen. If she stood on its edge and looked at the horizon, she could spot a thin silver line right where the sky met the land. The Reva. The queens were displeased. A pavilion for her? What about them? Where did she find the audacity to ask for it? But their surprises were not over yet. By midday, builders arrived to dig out the lawn. “What is happening?” One of the concubines gasped. “Our beloved flowers are being plucked out. Why are you di...