Of over two dozen titles that I chanced to read during the year, the three titles drawn from history, philosophy, and ethology interconnect to create a better understanding of us and our times.
Childhood curiosity about the Queen who had said ‘Let them eat cake’ in response to the widespread bread shortages during one of the famines that occurred during the reign of her husband, Louis XIV, in the 18th century France had prompted me to read Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days (Rowman & Littlefield). Historian Will Bashnor has brought the shocking facts of the Queen’s last days before she was sent to the guillotine, which during the French revolution was called the 'national razor'. It offers a riveting account of her tragic fate, with the jury predisposed on its verdict. The narrative captures the compelling conditions in which the royal prisoner, registered as Widow Capet No. 280, was torn from her family, especially from her eight year old son who was made to die under most tragic solitary (dark) confinement. The book records the most significant event in world history, but is a painful reflection on the justice system on which Napoleon could not resist commenting, “The queen’s death was a crime worse than regicide”.
The quest for power and the lure for riches can drive anybody nuts, be it the ruler or the ruled. Yet, there remains a conflict between the virtues of simple life and the merits of extravagant living. Frugal simplicity may be a boring idea amidst the quest for more, but the need for frugal living is more pertinent now than ever before. Philosopher Emrys Westacott has pulled together over two thousand years of moral philosophy, from Socrates to Gandhi and from Buddha to Thoreau in The Wisdom of Frugality (Princeton), to drive home the contemporary relevance of an idea that counters the apparently irresistible economic imperative to grow. One of the central preoccupations in the book is why, if so many smart people have championed frugality, it hasn’t become the global norm. No wonder, therefore, luxurious living continues to be viewed as morally suspect but not without being equally envied and admired. The book rightfully concludes that the idea and appeal for frugality is more than just nostalgic because the very survival of mankind rests on simple and less wasteful existence, thus giving ancient wisdom a new relevance.
We might consider ourselves to be the wisest on the earth, but in reality we have yet to outsmart animals. Renowned ethologist Frans de Waal pulls together amazing surprises from the cognitive world of animals in his fascinating book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are (Granta). The book focuses on observations and behavioural experiments from the growing field of evolutionary cognition. It allows us to peer into the minds of non-human animals – such as primates, corvids, dolphins, elephants, and even the octopus. It puts to rest many myths around animals’ wisdom, including the story of the thirsty crow. Experimental observations have proved that if there are pebbles lying around a jar, the crow is sure to pick these up to source water from the depth to quench its thirst. Interestingly, the book offers a corrective on so-called human exceptionalism, and should be a must-read as much for young students as for the adults past their prime.
Contributed on invitation from The Hindustan Times and published on Dec 23, 2017, the interesting books read during the year.
There is little room for literary enterprise to flourish in the political arena as electoral politics thrives on wooing a divided society on lofty promises.
Can literary acumen act as a means to political ascendency in recent times? Alternately, is there scope for political prowess to be embellished by literary merit? Far from getting any further on it, the veracity of such questions will be frowned upon and the audacity of the seeker will evoke mirth and glee. Present day political life is marred by a moral decline and a slump in ethics, to say the least. And there is little room for literary enterprise to flourish in the political arena as electoral politics thrives on wooing a divided society on lofty promises. Acquisition of power is at the cost of everything humane, literature being an essential casualty.
That literary enterprise of history, language and religion can be combined as an aspect of nation building is an essential take away from the lives of two nobles, the father and son who lived separately through the reigns of four Mughal emperors. Bairam Khan for his military acumen, and Abdur Rahim for his literary prowess, had stamped their extraordinary presence during the period of great literary and spiritual effervescence under the reigns of Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir and Shajahan during the 16th and 17th century. More than their unconditional loyalty, it was their political acumen and martial valor that had helped both to enviable positions in the royal courts.
In his painstakingly detailed and historically accurate account, T.C.A Raghavan captures the political jealousies and ideological controversies that these nobles were prey to. How they maneuvered through the muddle without compromising on their literary talents is both intriguing and inspiring? Ability to compose and recite poetry spontaneously came handy for Bairam throughout his distinguished career. Adroit in encompassing flattery in its subtlest form in his poetry, the decorated regent could push many crucial political decisions in favor of the empire. Politics was not a disgrace for wise men during those days, but close proximity to the throne did cause repulsion and ultimate decline of Bairam Khan.
Attendant Lords is a vivid narrative on the most important period in history, when the Mughals were not only consolidating power but were negotiating religious diversity through political upmanship. It is not just the Mughals who were pulling the diverse socio-cultural-religious narratives into a nationalistic discourse, history is replete with instances where powers-that-be have tried to reconcile such tensions in different ways. What made the Mughals different was their attempt at invoking sympathies from our across cultures, with an aim at demonstrating liberal behaviour towards the masses.
Bairam Khan’s dismissal and subsequent departure from the court had left a residual guilt in the mind of Akbar, who showered his kindness on child Abdur Rahim who was only five years old at the time of his father’s demise. Rahim grew up as a well-regarded scholar of Persian, Turkish and Arabic, and owed these acquisitions to the liberal scholarly atmosphere in the court. It had lasting impact on Rahim, on his approach to life, politics, and power. Subsequent to the ceremonious return of his abducted wife on the instructions of Rana Pratap, Rahim had lost all desire to defeat so worthy a foe and had requested Akbar to be relieved of his command on grounds of ill health. On being questioned by the emperor, Rahim is believed to have responded ‘his courage, pride, chivalry and patriotism distinguish him as one who should receive the emperor’s benevolence’. The campaign against Mewar was given up, suggestive of the sowing of the earliest seeds of Indian nationalism on Hindu-Muslim unity.
Given his background in history, Raghvan delves on historicity of the cultural effervescence of the period from a literary lens. Persian poetry was ‘an important vehicle of liberalism in the medieval Muslim world (and) helped in no significant way in creating and supporting the Mughal attempt to accommodate diverse religious traditions.’ Language, poetry and politics were aligned under the patronage of nobles like Rahim, who had himself emerged as a poet of extraordinary brilliance. From decorative to devotional, Rahim’s moral aphorisms rest on simple verses in which everyday life resonates. His verse Rahiman pani rakhiye, bin paani sub sun (Always keep water, for without it nothing exists) has an immortal endurance.
Attendant Lords is a work of scholarship, navigating the lives of these two nobles in history, literature, and later in cinema. Akbari dispensation of interfaith harmony would not have been possible without Bairam Khan, which was subsequently nurtured by Abdur Rahim. Raghvan aptly concludes the biography of two important pillars of the empire by locating them in the present, ‘..it is their ambitions, accomplishments and flaws, interfacing with difficult choices, rightly or wrongly made, that give us the point of entry to use our own present to understand their long-past lives.’ It is no modest admission than to say that in doing so we do get to understand our own times better.
Attendant Lords
by T C A Raghvan
Harper Collins, New Delhi
Extent: 337, Price: Rs 699
This review was first published in the Hindustan Times, dated Dec 16, 2017.
