The Feast of Roses by Indu Sundaresan

Knowing the book-freak I am, one of my friends recommended this book to me. At that time, I had lots of books ordered or on the verge of ordering, so I just made a note and saved the icon of the book (means picture of the cover page for posterity). 

Anyways, I have completed this book in a record 3 weeks. Yup, it is a record of highest time taken to read the book. It has nothing to do with the attention-grabbing quotient of the book.

The book is about Emperor Jahangir’s ‘Twentieth Wife’ Noorjahan. Noorjahan is one of the most distinguished and illustrious of Mughal women. During those days, women had very little role in public life but Noorjahan dreams of such power – unheard of and unprecedented for any women - and accomplishes her goal. Noorjahan comes across as a shrewd, ambitious and gutsy woman who makes a lot of enemies along the way but no friends.

This intriguing and fascinating story of Noorjahan holds quite a few revelations (atleast for me):

• Noorjahan was actually the 20^th wife of the emperor
• She got married to Jahangir when she was 34 years old – quite old for the years of yore
• Jahangir was Noorjahan’s second husband. She was married earlier to someone else earlier and had a daughter from her first marriage
• Shahjahan (prince Khurram) was not Noorjahan’s son
• Shahjahan’s wife Mumtaz Mahal was Noorjahan’s niece and Noorjahan was instrumental in getting her niece married to Prince Khurram, who was later known as Shahjahan
• Noorjahan’s real name was Mehrunnisa
• In her pursuit of power, possessing the title of ‘Begam Padshah’ and authority to command the kingdom, Noorjahan makes and breaks several collaborations within the palace – with different sons of Jahangir in different times since she did not have a son of her own.

I think I have already blurted out half the book. But in any case, this book is not a thriller. It is the quest of a woman to become the most powerful lady of the kingdom.

The stories surrounding Mughal princesses are intriguing. We have often heard the love stories of Jahangir-Noorjahan and Shahjahan –Mumtaz Mahal. There is a prequel to the book called “The Twentieth Wife”. 


‘The Feast of Roses’ starts from the time when Noorjahan is already the wife of Jahangir. It is also a glimpse into the inner dynamics of harems (harem = living quarters reserved for wives and concubines and female relatives in a Muslim household) of kingdoms – how a king used to have several queens (mostly to form alliances), and were also allowed to have several concubines and slave girls; how women could just be spectators of court proceeding, never the participants and how there was a hierarchy inside the harems.

This book is an captivating story of how Noorjahan dreams and gets the role much powerful than any Mughal queen had ever dreamt of. I absolutely loved this book, more so because the narrative was quite illustrative – the prevalent social norms and the mannerisms. Must read!

P.S. It also has a very user-friendly family tree at the beginning for people like me who keep forgetting who was whose wife and who was whose son!

And by the way, my "The Twentieth Wife" is already on the way from India Plaza, and I have also bought this book called "Taj: A Story of Mughal India By Timeri N. Murari"