Fit for a King II
Part II
An Enlightened Ruler
Whilst Ram Parsad wends his way to the Palace, I will seize the opportunity to tell you what little I know about the noble people who occupy it. Let me begin with her serene majesty. The Empress Noor- E- Aleem, beloved wife of the Shahenshah, Emperor of East India, was known throughout the east for her peerless beauty and kindness, but what historians chose not to reveal, for it was deemed unseemly to extol women for other than their appearance, was that she was a fount of wisdom and a scholar in her own rights. She was the daughter of the Sufi poet Hamza Walid Abedeen who was reputed to have memorised the whole of Plato and to have translated it into Urdu. His enemies, jealous of his achievement plotted against him, and called this erudite work heretical, resulting in all copies being publicly burnt. It is not clear whether the poet’s exile was self-imposed or not, but he travelled to China, with his infant daughter Noor Banu, guided by the precept of our sainted prophet, on whom be peace: Seek knowledge even unto China.
Happily when the fanatical usurper Jamil Khan was ousted and replaced by Bahadur Khan, the esteemed father of the present emperor, he despatched his men to scour the land and beyond in an attempt to find the Sufi poet and invite him back to become the court poet. Sadly both the old emperor and the bard died shortly after.
The new Emperor, Shah Abdul Aleem Khan was barely twenty when he inherited the mantle of power, and one of the first things he did was to marry Noor Banu who had captivated his heart, hs eyes and his head, from the first time he had heard her recite one of her father’s rubayyats. Although she liked the new emperor who was said to be very modern in his outlook, she only agreed to become his wife on condition that he took no other spouses or concubines. Abdul Aleem agreed to this, laughingly saying, Why would I want another wife when I’ve got you, Sunbeam of my Heart? And indeed kept his promise for many years. To all intents and purposes he was more than satisfied with Noor, but as time went by, he began a number of affairs with court dancers and courtesans. Noor knew that there was nothing she could do about this, and accepted it philosophically. On the surface at least, she seemed happy enough. Before you judge her too harshly, O esteemed female feminist readers and listeners of the female gender, remember that the past is another country where a Mughul emperor with only one wife was an oddity, even an incomplete man. Nevertheless in many ways he was considerably ahead of his time. You square that circle. But stop me someone before I mar my narration with a surfeit of spicy details which end up by diluting the real flavour of what I am about to serve you. And will somebody _ preferably someone else stop me from sprinkling too many flowery but soporific metaphors around. I am here to tell you a simple story about how beloved by his subjects our Shahenshah was, and how keen everybody was to show him respect.
Before the Chief Wazir passed a decree forbidding young baby boys being named after the exalted Emperor, ninety five percent of newborn males were called Abdul Aleem, with the remaining five percent opting for Bahadur, the emperor’s much respected father. I will not bore you with the many headaches this caused the court statisticians. Abdul Aleem ordained that the capital city be rebaptised Bahadurabad, in honour of his sainted sire. But all this you know.
It was a tradition that when a cabinet maker was making an article of furniture, a chair, a table or a cupboard for a client, if it turned out to be of singular beauty, he would beg his client to let him offer it to the Emperor instead. The love and respect for their potentate was so universal, that there is not one record in our archives to the effect that anybody refused.
There is a story in one of the chronicles of a certain silk merchant called Hamid Mumtaz who had ordered a small wooden coffer inlaid with garnet, and which turned out to be such a stunning piece of artistry, he himself begged Zainul-Noureddine the wizard of the wood, to offer it to the emperor, who accepted it with gratitude. Zainul-Noureddine then proceeded to make a similar one for Hamid Mumtaz, but incrusted with tigerstone this time. When he saw it he decided that it was even better than the previous one, whereupon he said that he had no option but to take this one too to the palace. This led to a quarrel and Hamid Mumtaz ended up by pushing the cabinet-maker who fell on his hand and broke it. Never again was he to fashion another masterpiece again. This has led to false accusations against the Shahenshah that he perpetrated the accident to ensure that nobody could ever possess a coffer of similar perfection to the one he had been given. But I repeat that there was not an iota of truth in that story. Abdul Aleem Khan was an enlightened emperor and not a despot or a murderer. Now where was I?
Oh yes, beloved audience, Ram Parsad has finally arrived at the Palace Gates.
The last thing that he expected was that the Shahenshah himself would be opening the gate for him. He invited the humble peasant to follow him into the throne room, where Noor- E- Aleem in resplendent silk was seated on her throne. The poor man stuttered the history of the baigans, omitting the part played by Shaikh Mahaboob, as he knew nothing about this. The Emperor, who had taken his place on his throne, clapped his hands twice. Immediately a courtier appeared bearing a small leather purse on a gold plate.
‘But, but _’
‘No but, my dear man,’ the Empress said kindly, ‘what you have brought is worth more than gold. Take it.’ Ram Parsad floated on air as he made his way back to the village.
What he did not know, was that the second clap was to summon Sher Khan, the Emperor’s Wizard of the Spices. It is said that his eyes bulged out at the perfection of the twelve eggplants. It was Noor- E- Aleem who broke the stunned silence.
‘Oh Sher Khan to whom our palates owe an eternal debt of gratitude, you are the only man alive who can do justice to these. Look at the shape of these gems, have you seen that colour before? You go ahead and create a culinary masterpiece commensurate with the quality of those gifts from Allah’s earth.
Sher Khan spent the whole night elaborating a new recipe. In the morning, he himself sliced the eggplants in ellipses no thicker than half his little finger, and allowed them to soak in salt. He then took two whole hours scouring the woods for the right herbs. When he came back, he made a batter with besan flour (chickpea) and dahi (yoghurt), adding crushed onion and garlic. To this he added his secret ingredients, but I’ve been told that chillies and coriander figured prominently. He mixed everything until he had a homogeneous mixture. He got Jabar his sidekick (“because the boy needed his arse kicked on a regular basis”) to dry each ellipse with blotting paper which the Empress had imported from China.
He put ghee in a wok, also from China. He then dipped Ram Parsad’s little gems in the mix, and was gratified to find that they held most of the batter. Now he is ready to commit them into the boiling fat. He allowed them to fry gently until brown, turned them over for a bit, and scooped them out with his invention, a ladle with holes to allow excess fat to drain away, spreading the finished product on a large sheet of blotting paper.
The palace servants told the world of the oohs and the aahs emitted by mouths royal as the munched masterpiece slid down their palates and down gullets, and this took little time to reach the pained ears of Shaikh Mahaboob. He had to do something.
To be continued.
