Salman Khur-shid’s play Sons of Babur describes the history of the Mughal dynasty as seen through the eyes of the last Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar.
Using a clever device of a contemporary history student’s obsession with Bahadur Shah, the writer and the adapter, Ather Farouqui, shows an interface between the boy and the emperor at Rangoon, where the latter was sent into exile by the British colonialists after the 1857 mutiny when he was unanimously proclaimed the emperor of Hindustan by rebellious sepoys. The play was presented by the Pierrot Troupe in M. Sayeed Alam’s insightful direction at the Shri Ram Centre.
The scenes of college life are played in the auditorium and on the stage in apron against the cacophonic slogan “Babur ki auladon vapas jao” (Go back children of Babur).
Rudranshu Sengupta, a Bengali boy, is a gentle butt of ridicule as he continues his obsessive desire to go to Rangoon to research his play about Bahadur Shah. Subtitled “A Search For India”, some connecting scenes are read out by the boy’s friend Sara.
The interaction between the 92-year-old Farsi-Urdu-speaking emperor and Rudranshu is quite amusing with the old man constantly affronted by the Bengali’s pronunciation of words, including his honorific “jahan panha” which rolls off the boy’s tongue as “johon ponoh”.
The old man, played quite brilliantly by Tom Alter, decides to show some important anecdotes from Mughal history. He begins with the rebellion of Babur’s soldiers against living in India where there is no ice for drinks, where the meat is bad and the grapes and watermelons dry and juiceless. Then he shows how Babur sacrificed his life for his son Humayun.
Rudranshu refuses to accept the spiritual angle and passes it off as a coincidence that Babur also fell ill, probably caught the infection from his son. Then we come to Akbar, who, while watching the fire in Chhitorgarh, learns about “jouhar” from his anguished wife Jodha Bai and he declares the Rajputs as a more faithful people. Deen-e-Ilahi, the faith founded by Akbar which according to him is not a religion but a way of life, is seen by the boy as a clever trick to keep both Muslims and Hindus happy. When the emperor asks him to stop, the boy declares he is a communist. And goes on to analyse Akbar as a man who with shrewdness maintained the balance of power by appeasing both creeds. While Jahangir’s sons fight mortal battles to lay their hands on the throne, old Bahadur Shah mourns the fact that he has only one son.
Jahangir was besotted with his Begum Noorjahan who had a devious mind when it came to intrigue but was by far the better administrator. It was she who prevented the British from coming to India as traders during the reign of Jahangir.
Shah Jahan, the builder of the Taj Mahal, jailed by his son Aurangzeb who kills his father’s favourite son, the Sufi poet Dara Shikoh who was popular with both Hindus and Muslims and someone who could have carried Akbar’s tradition forward, was perhaps the most miserable amongst the great Mughals.
Bahadur Zafar takes one to Aurangzeb in his dotage. He is 92 years old. We are told he sold caps and wrote the Quran for his livelihood. He did not touch the treasury and believed that all the money belonged to the people. He, a hater of music and dance, also fell in love with Hira Bai a dancing girl, but did not have the guts to accept her as his own, We are presented a one-sided picture of Aurangzeb who is repentant for his sins against the people. This last sequence makes Rudranshu really angry; he calls the emperor a fundamentalist.
By now Bahadur Shah has lost his patience. He screams at the boy and asks him to tell the people of his time that the Mughals were all Hindustani. They had Indian blood running through their veins.
Even the much-maligned emperor Aurangzeb’s mother was a Rajput and a Hindu. Fed up of the boy’s Bengali-Urdu and of his continual use of “wretched English”, Bahadur Shah wants to leave.
An emotional Rudranshu begs Bahadur Shah to come to Delhi with him and become the Emperor of Hindustan. If Britain can have a constitutional monarchy with democracy why not India? To which Bahadur Shah replies, “in Britain they do not exile, publicly torture or kill their king.”
The end is as expected with the boy left alone to weep his loss, with the recitation of Bahadur Shah Zafar’s immortal poetry in the background “Umre daraaz se maange the chaar din. do aarzoo main kat gaye do intezaar mein. Kitna hai badnaseeb zafar daphan ke liye, do gaz zameen bhi na mili kuoye yaar mein”.
While the downstage right was occupied by Bahadur shah and Rudranshu, a spirited response to the veteran thespian from youngster Ram Naresh Diwakar, the rest of the stage was used to play out the various scenes.
Efficient lighting demarcated the two playing areas.
The production was well-mounted with authentic costumes and props. The play in original English has been worked upon by the translator and adapter Ather Farouqi and further by M. Sayeed Alam, the director.
How stage-worthy the original script by Salman Khurshid is one does not know, but the content is well laid out and makes a point about Babur Ki Aulad — the sons and daughters of Babur — they are all Indian.