Really, Salman Rushdie should stop butterflying among his numerous muses and write more such delightful prose. It’s an 8-part article. It is not without its faults though. Rushdie alternates between showing Akbar’s cruelty and his own fascination for the "secular" Akbar.
Ah! And he shows how Jodhaa was merely Akbar’s love-phantasm.
Presenting a few excerpts.
There was whispered poetry in the Emperor’s ear, and in the pachisi
courtyard on Thursdays there was much languid play, with slave girls
being used as living pieces on the checkerboard floor.
The queens lay together and moaned, and what they did to distract one
another, what entertainment they found in one another in their veiled
quarters, will not be described here.
A diversion into the Kathiawar Peninsula to quell the obstinate Rana of
Cooch Naheen, a young man with a big mouth and a bigger mustache (the
Emperor was vain about his own mustache, and took unkindly to
competitors), a feudal ruler absurdly fond of talking about freedom.
Freedom for whom, and from what, the Emperor harrumphed inwardly.
Freedom was a children’s fantasy, a game for women to play.
Often, instead of executing his vanquished opponents, the Emperor would
marry one of their daughters and give his defeated father-in-law a job:
better a new family member than a rotting corpse. This time, however,
he had irritably torn the insolent Rana’s mustache off his handsome
face, and chopped the weakling dreamer into garish pieces—had done so
personally, with his own sword, just as his grandfather would have, and
had then retreated to his quarters to tremble and mourn.
He did not want to be like his bloodthirsty ancestors, even though his ancestors were the greatest men in history.
He would keep his promise to the dead Kathiawari princeling. In the
heart of his victory city he would build a house of adoration, a place
of disputation where everything could be said to everyone by anyone on
any subject, including the nonexistence of God and the abolition of
kings.
Contrast this with Hindu kings who rarely killed a defeated and/or surrendered enemy.
Tags: Commentary, History, Indian Politics, Islam Watch, Pseudo Secularism Hall of Shame, Society & CultureAkbar the Great, the great great one, great in his greatness, doubly great, so great that the repetition in his title was not only appropriate but necessary in order to express the gloriousness of his glory—the Grand Mughal, the dusty, battle-weary, victorious, pensive, incipiently overweight, disenchanted, mustachioed, poetic, over-sexed, and absolute emperor, who seemed altogether too magnificent, too world-encompassing, and, in sum, too much to be a single human personage—this all-engulfing flood of a ruler, this swallower of worlds, this many-headed monster who referred to himself in the first-person plural—had begun to meditate, during his long, tedious journey home, on which he was accompanied by the heads of his defeated enemies bobbing in their sealed earthen pickle jars, about the disturbing possibilities of the first-person singular—the “I.”
Sandeep, did you see this?
http://indianmuslims.in/previewing-jodhaa-akbar-and-the-myth-of-jodha-bai/
Fuck Rushdie and you soggy Sandeep. All this fuss over a movie….what a bunch of crybaby shit…
Hehe, Sandeep, look at what you’re doing! You’re creating a christo-islamist nexus with your “crybaby shit”. LoL.
john bete, fuss over a movie, eh?? Why fuss over a harmless post? Why the paranoia and the khujli (itch)?
Hey papa john, maybe you and your poet friend ought to get a life and go to the movies. Saffron Simians do find the most silly things to fuss over don’t they?
“Fuck Rushdie and you soggy Sandeep. All this fuss over a movie….what a bunch of crybaby shit…”
He..He..He… I do remember some people of the True Lord being cry babies over the Da Vinci Code and vandalising some cinema halls in Hyderabad.
Poor deluded John. He actually believes himself to be a Semite or European of some sort!
Johnnyboy, what is sad is that you probably believe your own shit. Don’t forget, your ancestors happened to be “Saffron Simians” before they converted to the religion of their oppressors. Unlike those gaddars who converted to Islam to save their lives, I am willing to bet your Madrasi ancestors probably converted over free fish heads or something. I guess they must have believed the BS about the CarpenterKing feeding thousands with a fish or two. Typical greedy Madrasi. I bet your family did not realise they were converting into a pyramid-scheme religion, where you have to con more and more people into it, just to keep from admitting that the whole thing is a pile of crap. The Islamists suffer from the same thing.
In any case, I will let you in on a secret. Think of it as a messianic secret, as it is the secret to life or to death: even if you call yourself John, they will still hate you, even if you read their book, worship their God, dress like them, act like them, and (clearly) think like them, they will still hate you. They will always hate you, as no matter what you do, you will never be one of them. The same way your ancestors could not become one of them despite the fact that they submitted to the alien religion of their oppressors, you will never be one of them. They may have taught you to call your natural kin “Saffron Simians”, but what you don’t know is that they call you a simian as well, it is just that you are one of their simians.
What you regard as following the true faith is actually the Leviathan swallowing you whole. Think about it.
“THE END IS NEAR!”
Yeah, only 2000 years late….but it will here anytime now…lol.
johhny boy, i’d love to but am busy with work. See, our government depends on taxes paid by a saffron simian(s) like me to subsidize mohammedans going to haj, xtians going for christa-haj, giving money to jihadi terrorists’ families killed by our security forces, shameless freeloading mohameddans of the kashmir valley etc.
Anyway, previous question remains unanswered: why the discomfort with an innocuous blog entry and what gives you the rectal khujli? Poppy seed muffins or something else?
Sanjay, IIRC, another one was Meenaxi by MoFo Hussain which the ‘peaceful’ goats objected to.
>> do remember some people of the True Lord being cry babies over the Da Vinci Code and vandalising some cinema halls in Hyderabad
And ‘Last Temptation of Christ’
John’s just pissed that Catholic Secular Forum rants against Shekar Kapur’s Elizabeth didn’t get enough coverage vis-a-vi Jodhaa protests.
The Catholic Secular Forum (CSF) Mumbai-based, activist community NGO said the sequel is a misinterpretation of history and presents the Pope, the Jesuits and loyal Roman Catholics in bad light.
The morons call themselves “Catholic Secular forum” talk about oxymorons (pun intended). LOL!!
http://www.theindiancatholic.com/report.asp?nid=9004
See this post to know how great was Akbar http://facetsofindianhistory.blogspot.com/2008/02/akbars-youthful-follies.html