While we are debating about Taj Mahal and Shah Jahan like never before, I came across an interesting novel Maamalar by Jeyamohan. This fiction work, based on Indian epic Mahabharata, portrays the character of coward Chandravamsa King, Yayati.
We all know about Yayati’s story in our childhood days. He is son of King Nahusha and an angel Asoka sundari.
About Yayati’s Lust
Although he was a kshatriya, he has been personified as a coward and lusty person in Indian puranic stories. Though he was married already, he accepts to marry Asura princes Sharmistha. Later, He marries Devyani, daughter of Shukracharya, the guru of Asuras. Devyani brings Sharmistha as her maid, with whom Yayati fall in ‘love’ and got Druhyu, Anu and Puru as sons.
When Devyani realized that he deceived her, she went back to her father’s ashram. This is an mind-blowing episode in Maamalar. As per this feminism fiction of Jeyamohan – Yayati accepts his fault by saying, he went behind his lust of his uncontrolled senses. Neither he deny as if he is an ideal man, Nor he justify as a kshatriya king. He became totally submissive and accepts being cursed by Shukracharya.
Though he was cursed to be a old man, he gave his curse to his son Puru and gets his adolescence to enjoy more women. His love or lust or whatever it is, is fulfilled with Asrubintumati, another lady, before he took back his curse and died.
Shah Jahan’s love!
Shah Jahan is a great lover – thats what I’ve been taught in Indian schools and stories. His love on his wife Mumtaz is not something we can explain easily. We need to write as beautiful as Taj Mahal, don’t we?
Only when he has enormous love on his wife, he can build such a beautiful monument for his dead wife. Though he was jailed by his son later, he spent his last days by looking at the monument until his soul departed.
But you may know this earlier, as many hinduva guys used to say this. But it was written by some Dr Irfan Zafar in his article It was never Love.
Leave our bed time stories and badly written Indian history text books apart, It is interesting to know that Mumtaz was Shah Jahan’s 4th wife out of his 7 wives. So he was married before he marry Mumtaz, He married even after Mumtaz.
Mumtaz was not Shah Jahan’s bride. He was wife of someone else. Jahan killed him to marry her!
In other words, he was dating Mumtaz for a long time and finally murdered the poor husband to satisfy his hunger (Lust). Ever heard the word morality? Making babies, as we all know, is our favorite sport.
http://nation.com.pk/columns/02-Nov-2013/it-was-never-love
Mumtaz live through the pain for fifteen years, until she died in her 14th delivery. Interestingly Dr Irfan makes a wit by saying, Shah Jahan married Mumtaz’s sister, as a final ending of his wife with Mumtaz!
Love 💕
It is not scarce to hear love stories in our youthful India. We have pairs from Ambikapathi-Amarapathi to Elavarasan-Divya. The number of unaccomplished romantic missions are increasing everyday. Right or wrong – is a different question, but we see people, even commit suicide for their love.
While all these political discussions make a debate cloud all over, I recall about one of our Tamil women of Muthollayiram, who says the following about his lover.
My dear elders, with a garland of blooms in hand!
You are saying, ‘It’s morning already. Open your eyes’
Even if I loose my soul, I won’t open my eyes. Maran made my bangles to fall off from my hands. Such a ruthless man, he came in black elephant and entered in my eyes last night. He is inside my eyes. If I open, he will run away. No dears, I won’t open my eyes.
Please bear with my poor translation. Have a good weekend. See you in another interesting post.
Today is the last day of SWF. We couldn’t attend any family sessions as we had other appointments. Later we had a panel discussion ‘Challenging conventions in Tamil Literature‘ with S. Ramakrishnan and two other Singaporean writers Shanawaz and Jeyanti Sankar. Shanawas is good in story telling. This is the first time I had a chance to listen to Jeyanti Sankar.
