The Royal Meena Bazaar was a private marketplace attached to the palace harem. It was a sanctum sanctorum where the women of the aristocracy purchased the dyes, oils and waxes indispensable to their elaborate toilet. No male dared to trespass within the walls of this exclusive bazaar and if he was foolish enough to do so, in all probability he could expect to lose his hands and feet at the executioner’s block.
However, certain days were set aside when everything was done in reverse and then, for one or two uninhibited days in a month, the Royal Meena Bazaar opened its gates and became a busy public pleasure ground.
On such days, everyone was welcome, male and female, royalty and lesser nobility. Most came to indulge in a peculiar game that was customarily played on such occasions. The ordinarily docile wives and concubines of the court reversed their roles and became noisy shopkeepers, selling trinkets from behind pavilions in the marketplace and flirting and bargaining with the young male courtiers who were momentarily freed from the suffocating formality and monotony of the court.
These courtiers competed for female attention or showed off their cultured wit by asking for prices in rhymed Persian verse.
On such days, sometimes the emperor himself arrived and if he did happen to come, then the Meena Bazaar’s custom allowed that even his majesty was fair target for a discreetly insulting haggle.
At one particular Meena Bazaar in 1607, the vendor hawking silk and glass beads was a newcomer, a girl of 15 named Arjumand Banu Begum. She was lovely and highborn, the daughter of the Prime Minister.
These facts were enough to frighten away most customers, even those young bloods who ordinarily might have approached the stall of the one who was so exquisitely beautiful and privileged.
This is because the Prime Minister was Asaf Khan, a powerful and suspicious statesman who was not to be trifled with and was always treated with respect, even on the contrary days at the Meena Bazaar.
Only the most powerful in the land would dare to flirt with the daughter of the king’s wazir.
On that day, the young Prince Khurram strolled into the Meena Bazaar. He was just 16 years old and was already the veteran and a poet who could match couplets with the court laureate.
His mastery over the Koranic calligraphy and his singing voice were both well regarded. He was so skilled in the basics of architecture that he was often asked to design balconies and municipal warehouses for his father, the Mughal emperor Jahangir.
If he did at times enjoy executions in his father’s underground torture chambers and if he was especially fond of watching the spectacle of death by strangulation, he was after all a Mughal prince.
Following the fanfare of the royal arrival, Prince Khurram began to stroll from stall to stall, chatting with his friends and occasionally pausing to inspect the pretty faces which on any other occasion but this would have been obscured by veils.
Suddenly, he caught a glimpse of Arjumand and was instantly drawn to her stall. He wished, he said, to know to price of the large piece of glass at the counter, the one that was cut to look like a diamond. It was indeed a diamond, she facetiously insisted and its price was very high — ten thousand rupees.
It was more, she declared, than even a prince of such eminence and reputation as he enjoyed could pay.
Legend has it that for a moment Khurram remained motionless, entranced by the young woman, wondering why the court gossips who discussed the ladies every afternoon at the underground baths had never spoken the name of Arjumand Banu Begum.
Then, without a word, he drew ten thousand rupees from his sleeve, took the piece of glass and vanished into the crowd, carrying the stone and Arjumand’s heart with him.
The following day, at the court of Jahangir, the prince requested the emperor and the emperor’s favourite wife for a special favour. He asked for their permission to marry the daughter of the Prime Minister.
Wait for the next issue to read more about the story of Prince Khurram and Arjumand.