Book Review: The Lost Apothecary | Neha's Notebook

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner

As I closed the book after reading it, the book left me with a lonely feeling. The world presented in the book was so immersive and intriguing that it had such an effect on me. I did not want to leave this world once dived into it.

The Lost Apothecary by Sarah Penner is a bestselling historical fiction novel based in the setting of London. It is a story of 3 women, and countless other women who desired to take control of their lives.

The novel presents the story of three protagonist women character named Nella, Eliza and Caroline. While Nella is a 17th century apothecary, Caroline is a present-day aspiring historical researcher.

Nella has a shop in which she secretly sells poisons to the women who want to get rid of the men who have betrayed or wronged them. She works hard to brew every poison working day and night in the disguised corner of her shop. She has only two rules – that her poisons will never be used against any woman, and second, the names of all her women customers will be recorded in her apothecary register.

One day Nella has a customer, who she expects to be a woman, but who turns out to be 12-year old girl named Eliza. Eliza works as a maid in the house of a woman who wants to get rid of her husband, and who has sent Eliza to get some poison for her purpose. Over time, Nella, a forty-year old woman and Eliza began to form a close bond of friendship. Nella shares some of her buried secrets with her.

Whereas in the present day, Caroline, a middle-aged woman is experiencing betrayal and infidelity from her husband James. She sets out on a solo trip to London to process her emotions and have some alone time. There, while on a mudlarking tour near a river, she discovers a blue-colored vial with an etching of bear. Upon researching in the library and on the internet, she comes across the story of Nella and Eliza, only discovering much more than what the world knows about them.

The novel beautifully blends the flavours of a contemporary fictional world and intriguing historical ingredients with a tinge of mystery concocted into it. The Lost Apothecary is a captivating read both for a reader’s mind and for a writer’s mind. The language is simple yet weaving an engrossing world of storytelling. So, if you are a fiction lover, do add this book to your reading list. It’s absolutely worth it, and therefore, a bestselling hit!

 
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Book Review: The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

Death.
Imagine what if death was a person. And this person could speak.
Imagine if you could hear it speak, and all of a sudden, it opened its mouth and began narrating to you, a story about a girl;
a girl who was a thief, a thief who stole books…

The Book Thief by Marcus Zusak, is a historical fiction novel. The novel is written in a third-person narrative. But even more interesting an aspect about this narrative is its narrator. The narrator here, is not a human. Rather, the narrator is ‘death’.

Yes!
In this novel, the narrator is none other than the character of Death.

Death narrates the story of a girl named Liesel Meminger. But the story is not only about this girl who relishes words and steals books. The story is also about a small street called Himmel Street, in a small town of Germany, precisely during the rule of Adolf Hitler, the Führer. The story is also about the people and the children and the families living in the boxlike houses sewn into the muddy snow blanketing this street. And the story is also about the tiny pockets of people who were like the subtle splashes of colours on the otherwise gloomy field smattered with ashy charcoal sky of dystopia and chalky-powder mountains of the rubble of war, these were the people who despite the terror blanching the veins of their hearts, liked to see people as people, transcending the boundary that was scribbled under the dictatorship of Hitler.

In simple words, the story features the setting of Nazi Germany, and it revolves around the time period of history when Adolf Hitler triggered the World War II between Nazis and Jews, upon the invasion of Poland.

The book comprises of eighty-eight chapters, divided in chunks among a prologue, an epilogue and ten central story parts.

Another noteworthy highlight of the book is that, it doesn’t only uses the common storytelling technique ‘story-within-a-story’, but also employs an intriguing approach called the ‘books-within-a-book’. Tucked within the chapters of the novel are two little story-sketchbooks, named as ‘The Standover Man’ and ‘The Word Shaker’ respectively.

In a writing style that is thoroughly poetic, almost musical and songlike, the author has embroidered into the book, the emotional gems of friendship, attachment, pain, separation, angst, fury, little joys, family, love, tragedy and above all these, the greatest law of life, that is mortality.

After witnessing her young brother die in her arms, Liesel was abandoned by her mother to a couple named Hans Hubermann and Rosa Hubermann, who would be her new foster parents. Hubermanns lived in a house located in a location named Himmel Street which nestled in a small town of Germany called Molching.

Hans was a painter and accordionist, whereas Rosa did the ironing of clothes for people living nearby. Liesel went to school, played soccer with the neighbourhood gang of kids, ate bread & peasoup that her mother cooked, helped her mother with the delivery of ironed clothes, strolled with her best friend Rudy and in the meantime, she engaged herself with reading the books that she had stolen.

She stole books from ice and fire, and sat in the basement of her house, unraveling the mysterious words printed in the rectangular-square lodgings of old paper.

The first book that she stole was The Grave-digger’s Handbook. She had stolen this black-and-silver pocket book from the ground of the graveyard while the grave-diggers were digging her brother’s grave. To Liesel, the book was not only a stolen treasure, but the last memory of her brother she could cherish, as well.

While this was but only a coincidence, her curiosity for deciphering words led her to steal some more, sometimes from the library of the mayor’s wife, who lived in a house on a slopey hilltop and sometimes, even from the fire set in the town square to commemorate Hitler’s birthday celebration. Yes! In those times, these German people liked to host their celebrations by burning books and papers in the bonfire!

While in her house, Liesel had still not forgotten the dead body of her brother slinging from her arms. Every time she slept, the nightmares of it shook her up and awake from her sleep. And so, to cure this, every day, her father began to teach her to read. They read from the books she had stolen. Often times she wondered that she learned more about words, reading and books from his father than her school where she was taught by an obnoxious Sister Maria who didn’t seem to believe that Liesel could ever read an alphabet. On special occasions, her father brought her books by trading some old used cigarette rolls with a gypsy in the city who took these in return for some money.

Liesel was having the good time of her childhood life.

Until one day, when her life took an unexpected turn…yes, yet another one…

A boy named Max, the son of his father’s old friend from army and a Jew knocked the door of their house to seek a shelter amidst all the outer atmosphere tussled with smoke, rubble and bloodshed of World War II. Hans and Rosa received Max with an open-hearted generosity, despite the heavy terror culminating in their hearts. As time went by, Liesel began to see in Max, her dead brother, only except that he was an elder one and that he was still alive.

Quite soon enough, Liesel grew fond of Max. While he remained in the frozen cold of their basement, camouflaged by several dropsheets and paint buckets, Liesel would often bring to him presents that would enable him to know about the external world, about what was going on in the nature outside. Presents like trashed newspapers with blank crosswords, fallen feathers, leaves, old buttons, candy wrappers, tiny stones and pinecones, of course in addition to her detailed descriptions about where she had discovered these items, and storylike descriptions of the sky, the weather outside…what people were doing, what was air like….things like that…

During this period of time, there was yet another thing going on, besides the various wars initiated by Hitler, and the parades of Jew prisoners. In the town where Liesel lived, there were air-raids, in which several tin-can planes would fire bombs in their street, and the people living there had to hide themselves in some deep underground basement if they were to save themselves.

During these air-raids, Liesel, along with her parents as well as with their neighbours, all the people would snuggle inside the basement of a house owned by a common neighbour Fiedlers.

It was during these times that Liesel began to read stories from the books she had stolen. The stories seemed to distract the people’s minds from extreme fear, misery and sorrow.

Liesel read to people during these times, she read to a neighbour Holtzapfel every day, she read to Max more often than not, and Max gave her the story sketchbooks he had created during all the time he had to remain in the dark basement.

Above and beyond all, Liesel was beginning to heal from her nightmares. The more she saw of Max, the more she realized that there was so much in common to both of them. And so, he kept creating sketchbooks and Liesel kept reading the stolen books.

But it is not for no other struggle that a struggle ends…it seems.

for, in one sudden gash of a moment, Death hovered above the street, loosened and extracted the souls, and took nearly everyone away….

but there was a girl who was left
alive
because when death arrived, it couldn’t find her
because at that time
the girl had been sitting in the basement
busy reading from a book
she had stolen

Death was puzzled,
it grinned and went away
wondering
until the right time then…

In the end, the book signs off with a reedy note that is a mixture of a sensation that is dreadfully numbingly terrorizing and warmly soothingly comforting.

The story is not exactly the one that will cause you to cry. The story is not either the one that will make you smile. Rather, the story is a bittersweet lyric rustling between the scales of melancholy and merriment, rolling between the gloom of terror and the glee of compassion, looming between the shadows of “mortal certainty of death” and “immortal uncertainty of life”.

A soupy swirl of feelings like these…
Life, what is life, it says!

And death, it watches a life named Liesel, it watches her as she falls in love with the thing called ‘words’, and then she hates this thing called ‘words’, and somewhere between this love and hate, she begins to write, because how after all, could she describe this contradictory bittersweetness of love and hate without this thing called words.

Words!

Signing off with a note, here are some words from the book uttered by death.

Death says,

“A small but noteworthy note. I've seen so many young men over the years who think they're running at other young men. They are not. They are running at me.”

True enough!

Well, thank you!

Neha

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Book Review: The Tainted Throne (Jahangir's Lifestory)

The Tainted Throne by Alex Rutherford

The crevices splintered into the fabric of a soul that is fragmented and wounded with lovelessness and anguish, cannot be filled as likely as an ointment may fill the wound of a flesh.

The reaction to which, usually, is a tainted heart…and so, a tainted throne too!

‘The Tainted Throne’ is the fourth book in the ’Empire of the Moghuls’ series written by Alex Rutherford. Consecutively, the novel depicts the story of the fourth Moghul emperor Jahangir, followed by Babur, Humayun and Akbar.

Post the death of the third Mughal emperor, Akbar, the dynasty of Moghuls tripped in imbalance; like a goblet of poison skiddering sideways and spilling itself till the entire sky was gathered with venomous shadows of doom and gloom.

Punch-drunk by negligence, impulsiveness and lust for power, the map of the Moghul empire began to experience cracks, here and there, until, it neared its tearing downfall followed by total collapse.

Jahangir a.k.a. Salim was the eldest son of Akbar, born to his wife Hirabai, in Agra Fort. While growing up, Jahangir depicted to have a sensitive and anxious personality. Akbar, however, more inclined towards his ever-growing empire, was much lesser gravitated towards his son’s increasing complexity.

Nevertheless, not until Jahangir was a full-fledged grown-up, was that, he discovered himself to be yearning for a father who was never there, but only a king, whose imperial perfection he couldn’t strive to surpass or even match.

Often having to compete his own sons who were regarded much more than him by their grandfather Akbar, Jahangir found himself to be like a boat…a boat to nowhere.

The consequence – Jahangir glided on the slippery slope of rebellion and numbing pleasure experiences.

Gaining the throne, though, Jahangir lost himself, bit by bit, piece by piece, until it was too late for him to revert.

Jahangir turned out to be a ruthless ruler, who was willing to destroy anyone who appeared to him as a threat to the throne which he had acquired after awaiting nearly lifelong, and which, he didn’t want to lose at any cost, or to anyone.

His first battle, apparently, was with his eldest son Khusrau. Upon defeating him badly, Jahangir held his son captive in a dungeon, punishing him by getting his eyelids stitched by the hakims, so as he wouldn’t plot any further against him.

However, what turned out to be his greatest enemy was his own mind. His lovelorn mind caused him to murder Sher Afghan, the governor of Bengal, who was the husband of a woman he desired. The woman was Mehrunissa. She was the daughter of Ghiyas Beg, a loyal treasurer appointed by Akbar in Kabul.

Once a widow, Jahangir was free to marry her, and that was what he did, too. He married her. Soon after Jahangir’s first wife Man Bai, committed suicide, thereupon, Mehrunissa became the sole empress.

A genius by nature, Mehrunissa was highly skilled in various forms of arts including painting, poetry, embroidery, textiles, hunting, politics and even warfare. She could craft strategies which exceeded and transcended even Jahangir’s intellect, and it was she who was the real ruler behind the throne.

Mehrunissa was a sharp-witted woman, brilliant in all sorts, only except for the deep-seated anguish that guarded her heart since her childhood. Once upon a time, as a baby, she had been abandoned by her parents under a tree because they lacked resources and couldn’t raise her up.

Driven by this anguish, Mehrunissa grew up fuelled with the craving of power. And alas, as Jahangir’s weakness for opium caused him to slacken his hold over the imperial matters, Mehrunissa grasped the opportunity with zestful appetency and wrote her name in history as first of the very few most powerful women ever.

Jahangir was obsessed about Mehrunissa. He had endowed her with various glorious titles; first ‘Nur Mahal’ and then ‘Nur Jahan’, which signified ‘the light of the world’. Despite that she loved Jahangir equally well, but her love for power overpowered every other emotion she had.

While Jahangir, doused under opium, catered to her influence too soon and easy, Nur Jahan often played with his mind to cause him to do what she wanted. Under one such scenario, Jahangir even disowned his beloved son Khurram a.k.a. Shah Jahan. In another scenario, she caused one of Jahangir’s friends from England, Sir Thomas Roe, to leave the fortress, by poisoning his meals with rotten meat, for days and days, till he was too sick to stay in this country any longer.

She didn’t want anything to come between her and Jahangir as that’d be a threat to her exponentiating power. Jahangir’s thralldom to opium and compounding asthma only supported Nur Jahan’s goals more and more. She was the first ever empress to have coins minted on her name. She was, in fact, the real power behind the throne, while Jahangir was merely a medium.

Upon Jahangir’s sudden demise in Lahore, Nur Jahan sensed Shah Jahan as a threat and immediately plotted to spade him away from her way. However, when defeated by him, Nur Jahan tricked even Shah Jahan, thereby, saving herself and instead, surrendering her son-in-law Shahriyar, as guilty in her place.

Albeit, Nur Jahan was sequestered by Shah Jahan, into seclusion in a small fort in Lahore, and blocked from the rest of the world.

In the present day, sitting right next to Jahangir’s tomb in Lahore, there lies Nur Jahan’s tomb, the epitaph of which, ironically, reads,

"On the grave of this poor stranger, let there be neither lamp nor rose. Let neither butterfly's wing burn nor nightingale sing."

[Note: This review essay is written in accordance with the storyline presented in the novel and the characters are depicted according to the point of view of the novel’s fiction, and therefore, it does not guarantee the factualness of real history.]

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Book Review: Ruler of the World + Akbar's Life

Ruler of the World by Alex Rutherford


When we think of the Mughal emperor Akbar, what we usually think of is, “Akbar, the Great!”. In fact, even the name Akbar implies the meaning “great”.

Withal, in reality, emperor Akbar’s life was not ‘all-great’. Rather, it was a bittersweet symphony playing somewhere between a trumpeter's buzzing tunes of achievement and a sitarist’s mellow drones of loneliness. But of course, a stark personification of greatness, it was, though.

Akbar’s father, Humayun, died as abruptly as an avalanche, one evening in Delhi’s Red Fort a.k.a. Purana Qila. He was only twelve-years old at the time of his father’s death.

This was the time when the Moghuls were only re-settling their empire in the Hindustan provinces. Their rule was still quite vulnerable to threats. And so, to protect this boy emperor from a giant score of enemies lurking everywhere around them, Akbar was hidden from the view of the public and secretly ridden away from the fortress by his mother Hamida Bano Begum, his aunt Gulbadan Begum and his father’s khan-i-khanan, Bairam Khan.

Very similar to his grandfather Babur’s secret crowning ceremony, the khutba for Akbar too, was read in a secret affair, proclaiming him the third Moghul emperor. Yet, unlike Babur, there was no trace of fear that he was feeling. He was already well-trained in the business of kingship and well-accustomed to these lands of Hindustan. These were the lands, after all, where Akbar was born. His flesh and blood were made of the very soil and water of here, where he was birthed.

With the supporting aid of his father’s loyal regent Bairam Khan, Akbar was able to re-gain the fortress of Delhi, snatching it from the hands of a man Hemu at his victory in the Second Battle of Panipat against him.

True to his name, Akbar was a man of deep-dyed excellence, magnificence and greatness. Prior to him, in the entire timespace of history, no other king had exhibited such a magnetism of perfection as he casted during his rule. Jalal-ud-din Akbar not only proved to be a tipping point for Moghul dynasty, but a game-changer who remained unconquerable, from his previous generation of kings as well as, even from his younger generations and the emperors who succeeded him.

Fond of hunting tigers & leopards, Akbar loved to utilize his imperial power for executing his youthful desire for independence and free-willed decision making. He was unafraid and unmatched, yet a mighty devotee of God. Not merely religion(s), but God.

It is usually said that Akbar was a miraculous child. In his own words, Akbar, one day, was hunting and then immediately he gave up the desire to hunt further anymore. He felt crampy, sweaty and empty-headed. He sat under a tree and asked his courtiers to leave him alone. He shut himself in his fortress’s chambers for a few days, not allowing anyone to see him or speak to him. Then after a few days of seclusion he announced Din-i-illahi, the religion of one god.

He banned cow slaughter; prohibited the practice of sati & jauhar; and introduced the idea that all religions were leading to one and the same god, and no human would be converted to any other religion in the future unwillingly; and all would be granted the freedom of worship. Lover of spirituality, he frequently visited the Sufi mystic Salim Chishti, and only inspired by his name, he named his own eldest son as ‘Salim’ (Jahangir).

Once a Rajput raja presented to him a gift of Upanishads, and Akbar was so fascinated with these texts that he ordered even more scriptures and entire Vedic literature to be added to his library. He even initiated several works of translating these scriptures from Sanskrit to Hindi, Persian, English and other languages. It is usually said that this work of translation was completed by his great-grandson Dara Shukoh, who himself was an open-minded prince and composed his own version commentating on the Vedic texts.

But guess what, Akbar was born dyslexic. That is, he couldn’t read. In his own words, whenever he would face a scroll or a diary scribbled with words, the words appeared to him to dance all around in the space, yet he couldn’t decipher any of its meaning. He couldn’t read or write himself but his curiosity for knowledge, hunger for creativity and thirst for intellectual stimulation caused him to hire a large number of scholars in his fort and build a giant library for himself. One or the other scholar always remained with him, to read to him, books of poetry, spiritual scriptures, religious texts and other books, whenever he would feel like.

A prodigious mind-reformer, Akbar was the first of emperors to hire his own personal writer who documented the chronicles of his everyday life, taking notes and also acting as his advisor, accompanying him everywhere. It was due to his writer-chronicler Abul Fazl, that the diaries of Akbar, named Akbarnama and Ain-i-Akbari; over forty-thousand pages chronicling his life, were discovered by the future generations.

This novel of historical fiction by Alex Rutherford, also utilizes the extracts from the translated versions of these diaries to craft the scenes as well as the overall storyline.

“Ruler of the World” is the third book in the ‘Empire of the Moghuls’ series. It is centered around the trajectory of Akbar’s life, Akbar, who was the third Mughal emperor following Babur and Humayun respectively.

Apparently, Akbar’s life-story cannot be demonstrated in a sequence, for it was never a continuum of events. Rather, Akbar was a spark of light for the Moghul dynasty who illuminated not only fresh, creative ideas, but also demolished the various destructive superstitions prevailing in the minds of his subjects, as well as bringing light to the truth of spirituality.

Having said that, Akbar discovered himself to be as lonely as the desert sun; never having anybody to share his innermost thoughts and feelings. But the gem of his trust wasn’t concealed until, before it was cracked and shattered by some of those, who, he loved the most.

Soon after his appointment as the emperor, Akbar found out his half-brother Adham Khan guilty of betraying him. Even more so, his foster-mother Maham Anga too, was discovered to be supporting her own son Adham Khan over Akbar, as well as poisoning Akbar’s ears against his own mother Hamida. Followed by these harsh pinpricks, Akbar developed a bitter resistance towards trusting anybody throughout his lifetime. Even his own his sons too…

…the reason why throughout his lifetime, Akbar’s relationship with his children was mostly distant and estranged; lacking in depth and emotional connection if any. At the point of his nearing death, he reflected how he didn’t really know his children, because he never tried to be close to them; except only he competed with them, and his perfection, undoubtedly they couldn’t match.

Also the reason why, driven by a deep jealousy, his son Salim (Jahangir) ordered his chronicle writer Abul Fazl to be killed and his head brought to him, followed by his own campaign of rebellion against Akbar.

Akbar wore the veil of imperial magnificence to hide his deep vulnerability and fear that he felt towards the world as well as his own family.

The novel depicts, factual or fictional can’t be said, that, Akbar had no “real love in his life”, despite having over thousands of women in his fort’s women’s quarters, and hundreds of wives in marriage, a bond which he considered only as useful as a matter of imperial alliance. Nothing more, nothing less.

No wonder, still and all, Akbar remained one of the most powerful kings, not only in the Mughal dynasty, but in the entire history. Not only great spiritual mystics and thought leaders, but also a medley of artists, architects, writers, and traders from all across the world gathered together in his ibadat-khana to contemplate on various topics, reflect upon the nature of life and discuss motleys of innovative ideas. As the title of the book signifies, he truly was the “Ruler of the World”, invading and ruling everywhere from the southern Deccan to the northern Kandhar, and all in between.

There is no shadow of doubt in this….after all,

…generations of kings rose and dissolved. But Akbar’s reign is something which is remembered by the most.

Akbar used to say, very often, that, a king should be like the sun, his magnificence so bright that it would fulfill everyone’s heart, yet too brilliant for anyone to look directly at.

As his saying goes, so was his very own nature. He was a ruler just like that of the sun. So magnificent, yet so full of contradictions to be fully understood by anyone.

To wrap it up all together, I enjoyed the book big-time, not only in context of the storyline but also in terms of galvanizing my own historical curiosity!

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Book Review: Brothers At War + Humayun's Story

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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Book Review: Raiders from the North + Babur's Story

Raiders from the North by Alex Rutherford
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

While the twelve-year old prince Babur is witnessing the sight of pinkening hilltop sunset standing alongside his father, his destiny takes a sharp turn as his father surmises into the dark night of death; leaving a mere young boy that he is, to govern the throne of his kingdom.

Young he might be, but the blood of his ancestors - of the warriors like Genghis Khan and Timur, flows in his veins. So, afraid and nervous as he is, shaky and stunned as he is, he wipes his tears and rises to the occasion, ready to put his feet into the deadly ocean of fire, as enemies lurk and lurch all around him, keen for a tiny crack of chance, to wipe his name off the planet and to employ their own puppet-candidate to rule the throne and gain booty.

With the help of a few trusted chiefs, his mother and his mighty grandmother Esan Dawlat, he allows himself to look past his beads of anxious sweat, as the khutba is read in his name in an urgent, secret affair, proclaiming Babur as the new king of Ferghana.

Nevertheless, kingship brings with it the confining fringes of boundaries and stacks of responsibilities. But kingship also brings with it the gifts of pride and dignity, the will to conquer the world and to dream.

But, paradoxically, what is a dream without challenges? Nothing!

The same holds true for a dream that, Babur as well his late father, had in their mind; the dream of ruling the city of Samarkand.

Throughout his lifetime, the turquoise-domed city of Samarkand, Babur’s greatest dream, acted for him, like a frippery-hypnotic opium pellet, causing him to wigwag swingily in and out of the city like a spinning bob, yet never actually retaining his hold over its throne. Samarkand, in Babur’s life was a moment of light that flickered like dots of evening candleflames, but finally extinguishing to the rule of the black-robed Uzbeks (the reason, probably, why, today it is called by the name of Uzbekistan). While getting to the throne of the city thrice, he had to ultimately let it go, just like a drifting dream and it was only then that his thoughts drifted towards the conquest of Hindustan, beginning from Delhi.

However, clearly, his journey from his mountainous kingdom Ferghana, all the way to Hindustan, was no thigh-slapping doddle, but a herculean, toilsome challenge, that he had to undertake.

Discarded as a king without throne during his young years, by the plottings of his own cousin brothers, uncles and rivals, Babur discovered himself to be turning into a petty raider, fighting for his survival, hiding, escaping, and surviving his days with nothing but pieces of old dry meat, stale flatbread and gulpfuls of riverwater; sleeping under trees and crossing icy passes capped with slippery snow; carrying his father’s eagle-hilted sword Alamgir hinged to his waist and donning the majestic tiger-emblemed ancestral ring in his finger, he raided from place to place, never allowing his enemies to have a breath of restful sleep. He was a king fallen into a raider - a raider with veins trembling of rage, his eyes red-rimmed with days of sleeplessness and his belly throbbing with a burning desire for sadistic revenge; his glinting swordtip thirsty for blood and his jewelled dagger waiting to play polo with the vermin heads and eyeballs of his greatest enemies. Yes, a raider he was, but a chalk-and-cheese one!

Babur was a raider from the north setting forth his mighty foot into the golden lands of Hindustan emerging from beyond the glaciers of Hindu Kush and currentlike waters of Indus river.

'Raiders from the North’ is the first part composing the ‘Empire of the Moghul’ series authored by Alex Rutherford.

The novel is a finely-stitched royal embroidery; woven together with the jewelled beads of words and golden threads of factual clippings extracted from Babur’s personal diary, the Baburnama. The author presents this timeline of Babur’s life, dipped in meticulous expositions, stirred scrupulously with tender - sometimes racy emotional curiosity and sausaged with lusciously peppery descriptions, only to be embellished in the reader’s mind as an unforgettable, brilliant gem-like opus of historical fiction.

The story of Babur’s life is not only glorious but more than that, inspirational. It is fascinating to note that while, when it was time for him, he feasted as wildly and voraciously as a king should do, with food, wine & entertainment surpassing the bounds of worldly pleasure, but during his time for conquest and war, he struggled too, perhaps even more than a common peasant, trotting like hungry wolves and foxes to gain conquest over the lands of the world, which, in his mind, were already his, and he, already the emperor of the world, the padishah.

On the account of his kingship and that he was betrayed by almost everybody he came across in his lifetime, some for his throne, some for his women and some for his lifeblood, still and all, he remained a king at heart, never allowing any women to be treated with disrespect or taken unwillingly into his harem, never breaking his word to his people, and never using his pride to underestimate his enemies either, though once, he had to sacrifice his own real sister Khanzada to the hands of his greatest enemy Shaibani Khan.

Aided by his bold grandmother’s lessons and foremost by his destiny, he gained conquest over the kingdom of Kabul, where he spent a major part of his imperial life, before getting pulled by the strings of his great destiny yet once again. This time, on the other side of the Indus river, towards the abundant lands of Hindustan waiting to be explored with its rich variety of gems, a wealthy range of exotic spices, flavourful cuisines, symbols of mythological gods and a vibrantly colourful culture!

And this was where he marked the line of history with the title of ‘Moghul empire’, punctuating the timeline with his conquest, first of Delhi, by slicing the head of Sultan of Delhi, and thereby, moving on to the fortress of Agra where he spent the rest of his life and also where he took his last breaths, his eldest and beloved son Humayun by his side.

The story of Babur, as presented through this marvelous novel, will cause you to absorb into your imagination, what it means to be a king. And believe me, it is not as nice as we already imagine it to be. It, after all, is not the throne that makes the king, a king, but rather the ragbag of his chilling challenges and thrilling adventures that teaches him the toughness of mind, the caution of instinct, the sensitivity of emotion and most of all, the faith in life, causing him to cultivate a perfection of thought that is beyond all skill.

The novel is not only impressive in terms of producing an organized chronicle of Babur’s inspiring lifeline, but also totally immersive with the elaborate depiction of dust-soaring battles, throat-cutting fighting scenes, geared-up cavalries, obscenities of whoredoms, dramas of emotions, mouthwatering cuisines of royal kitchen and other archaic sweetmeats of people’s everyday lives in the medieval time period!


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