Brothers At War by Alex Rutherford“Ambition corrupts wisdom.”
Shakespeare used to say…
No one knows whether this is true or not, in a general sense, however, in the life-story of Humayun, this saying could be witnessed in a chunk of reality absolutely crystalline.
Typically and mostly, in the history’s narratives, Humayun is depicted to be a spoilt ruler, who brought much downfall to the Mughal dynasty due to his carelessness, addictions and over-sensitivity of emotion.
Well, this is true; only partly however.
While his father, Babur, built the fledgling Mughal empire from scratch, on the other side, Humayun was born mollycoddled in the silken chambers of the royal; already dolled up in glittering gems from head to toe and feasting on the delicacies of the shahi rasoi of the sun-baked sandstoned Agra Fort. Also, this is true on the account that Humayun had an obsession with stargazing and cosmic symbolism. He even had a time period in his life, when he would wear dresses according to the colour which, he believed, was most suited to a specific day; specific colours for specific days of the week.
And he divided his court’s departments as well as his royal officers according to the elements, namely the ‘Office of Fire’, ‘Office of Water’, ‘Office of Earth’ and ‘Office of Air’. He had a special carpet embroidered too, with circles of the solar system featuring in its design, and each time someone would have to say something in his court, the officer had to stand in a specific circle according to the planet most relevant to their communication.
Things like that.
Though very fascinating an organization, however, this arrangement crumbled away soon enough and didn’t last very long, because his court officials had started to mock him behind his back. Also his warriorlike Moghul aunt, Khanzada Begum reprimanded him, saying that, his obsession with these symbols was causing him to lose his grip over reality, thereupon, weakening their grip over the newly gained lands of Hindustan. And so, Humayun had to give it all up, until, atleast, his later years.
Post the death of his father Babur in the Agra Fort, Humayun spent the initial days of his life as a voracious womanizer, droopy with the red wine of Ghazni and laced with opium, pondering over dreamlike hallucinations, attempting to discover the answers of questions that agitated his soul and willing to connect his mind with the mystical world, with particularly little, if no, interest in the matters of the court. It was, perhaps, too much for a mere boy to fully comprehend and grasp this new, vastly and strange empire of Hindustan, all alone.
However, this is merely one part of Humayun’s story. The rest of it demonstrates a catastrophic fragment of Humayun’s life story; a cluster of knotty conflicts; a snarl of devious betrayals; a cross-sword of heart and mind; and a tangle of grapples with his own flesh and blood….
Brothers At War is the second book in the Empire of the Moghul series by Alex Rutherford. In line, it depicts the story of the second Mughal emperor Humayun.
Humayun was born to Babur, in the kingdom of Kabul. He was also the first Mughal prince to accompany his father in their conquest of Hindustan.
During the ‘First Battle of Panipat’, he, still in his boyhood, fought side-by-side with his father Babur. Upon their victory over Sultan Ibrahim Lodi of Delhi, he brought him the magnificent Koh-i-noor diamond, that, an elderly royal woman had gifted to him for bestowing courtesy to her Hindustani women, who were his captors in defeat.
However, not long before he could strengthen his stronghold over the Hindustani lands, he was tossed away by Sher Shah Suri, back to the northern mountains and he found himself as vulnerable as a footstep atop a shard of old ice, that could melt and crack anytime beneath.
There is especially a chunk in history which outlines Humayun’s journey through the death-engulfing deserts. It is said that there were some days when he and his family had to survive on spiceless horsemeat extracted by killing one of their horses, and boiled inside the steel helmet of one of the soldiers in their cavalry. Not only this, Humayun even had to dig a grave for his aunt Khanzada, midway through the deserts of Rann of Kutch, as she lost her breath to a gushing whirlpool of sandstorm.
Encapsulated amidst the sweltering heat, Humayun took shelter in the fortress of Marwar (present-day Jodhpur), only to secretly retreat away from the fortress one morning, on account, that he came to know, that the Raja of Marwar, Rao Maldeo Rathore, had joined hands with Sher Shah Suri and together they were plotting to warp away his armies. Betrayed and powerless, Humayun charged his enemies through the blistering Thar Desert; alongwith his eight-month pregnant wife Hamida Bano Begum; all men and women starved and parched as crunchy dead leaves.
It is only during these tough times that Akbar was born to Humayun and Hamida, in the desert near a small village called Umarkot. And it is only there that this little prince was kidnapped from the queen’s sleeping tent, by Humayun’s half-brother Kamran.
Just like Babur, Humayun too had to underpass the suffering of being a king without a throne. And just like Babur, he too had to learn it the hard way, not to trust others so easily and readily – not even his own flesh and blood.
Having said that, unlike his father Babur, while he didn’t have to deal much with the uncertainty of external enemities, however, his greatest challenge was posed by his internal enemies which mainly included his half-brothers Kamran and Askari, as well as his stepmother Gulrukh.
Whilst his stepmother Gulrukh adopted a quiet means to destroy him by making him addicted to her specially-crafted brew of wine and opium pellets; on the other side, his brother Kamran, the green-eyed prince, crossed every perimeter of deception, betrayal, plotting and trickery…
Driven by a deep sense of resentment and grudgery, Kamran even kidnapped Humayun’s baby prince Akbar, holding him captive in the fortress of Kabul and demanding that Humayun leave his empire or lose his only heir.
Traversing the deathly, sun-bleached deserts of Rajasthan that seemed to stretch across everwhere, and other times, pushing their sweat-trimmed horses to the steepy slopes flaked with slippy glassy wet snowlands, Humayun moved his cavalry from place to place, city to city; his younger half-sister Gulbadan and his beloved wife Hamida Bano Begum by his side yet all of them stricken with melancholy and fear over his separated son Akbar.
Throughout most of his lifetime, Humayun’s mind was agonized over the butchery and betrayal of his half-brothers. Unable to concentrate either his mind or his forces towards a bigger conquest, Humayun was, at all times, walking on eggshells, to survive and to protect his family from the sudden attacks plotted by his brothers. Withal, he always pursed his lips at a promise that he had given to his late father in his last moments; that is, to be always merciful and loving towards his brothers despite whatever.
Despite the incident that his brother Kamran bribed his men against him and, kidnapped his son Akbar, Humayun forgave him and let him go, only to be betrayed again as, another time, Kamran plotted to kill him and take his throne. At last, he had the eyes of Kamran removed by his hakims and half-heartedly had him sent to Mecca for pilgrimage.
It was only after that all of his half-brothers had ceased to torment his soul and his kingship, was that, he began re-establishing his empire in Hindustan and planning the conquests.
Nevertheless, the lessons learned over these years and his strong will reflected in his kingship when, in his late forties, Humayun discovered himself to be a handsome king, shining bright with grace. He had re-cultivated his charm with the might of his strong will, abstaining totally of all wine and opium, and re-establishing his conquest over Hindustan, this time, relinquishing the traces of his last few enemies and setting up a reorganized and vaster empire for the Mughal generations to come.
Whilst sitting on the throne of Delhi after his victory over his last enemy Sekunder Shah, Humayun renovated the Purana Qila and brought up many plans of city’s improvement.
However, unfortunately, one of the octagonal buildings that he had got constructed as his library and observatory, turned out to be his last exploration. When on one evening, he was walking down the staircase of his observatory’s towering balcony called as the Sher Mandal, he tripped his foot, and rolling from stair to stair, slipped down straight into heavens.
The life story of Humayun, just like his father Babur’s, is inspirational and oozing with a pastiche of deep insights. Unmatched in his skills of astrology and mathematics, Humayun also loved painting and wrote poetry. In fact, as it turns out, the reveries of Humayun’s youth only conferred much depth, contemplation, patience, kindness, generosity, inquisitiveness and stillness to Humayun’s overall personality. This mystical personality made Humayun not only the second great Mughal emperor, but also, the one who was an epitome of a great artist, a romantic lover and a soft-hearted compassionate human being.
This novel by Rutherford is based on the writings of Humayun in his diary as well as on the historical details jotted down in the documents of Humayunnama, the diary of his half-sister Gulbadan – the rosebodied Mughal princess.
Drama and treachery; wars and victories; feasts and famines; rise and fall; the book presents all these emotions interwoven into a stimulating piece of written historical fiction. A fine read, overall!
You may like to read the book as an independent volume however, my recommendation is that the storyline will be better grasped if you read the book in accordance to the number of the hexalogy series, that is, after reading the first part titled as “Raiders from the North”.
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