Jahanara: A Novel

About the BookA NOVEL ON THE INNER LIFE OF SHAH JAHAN'S DAUGHTER, JAHANARALittle is known about Shah Jahan's daughter Jahanara, the most erudite of Mughal princesses. Even as an adolescent she advised her emperor father on state affairs and diplomacy. Fending off the machinations of Shah Jahan's devious stepmother, Noor Mahal, who manipulated her husband Jahangir and later Aurangzeb like a puppeteer, Jahanara is known to have continually attempted to broker peace between Shah Jahan, Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb. Conversant in Persian, Sanskrit and several other languages, she had studied not only the Quran but also the Vedas and Puranas. She owned, at one point, the largest number of ships for sea trade in the Bay of Bengal. However, hers was also a life of great emotional turmoil. Her grandfather, the Emperor Akbar, had ruled that women born into the royal family were not to take lovers or enter into marriage. But Jahanara had fallen deeply in love with the Rajput king Chattar Sal. She led a life of constant isolation, tending to her father and relying on the friendship of a tenacious eunuch called Panipat. An unusual novel in Tamil literature, Sukumaran's Jahanara tells the story that Panipat stood witness to. It brings to vivid life a woman whose personal freedom was tossed into the hellfire burning between her brothers. Stifled by the veil of Mughal traditions, Jahanara found solace in writing diaries, which this moving novel draws upon.About the AuthorSukumaran is an acclaimed writer and editor. He has published six volumes of poems, six volumes of essays and articles, and a novel in Tamil. He has translated several works including selected works of eminent writers such as Vaikkam Mohammed Basheer, Paul Zachariah, K. Satchidanandan and Adoor Gopalakrishnan from Malayalam into Tamil. He has also translated the works of Pablo Neruda, Gunter Grass, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Alessandro Barrico, Ayfer Tunc, among others, into Tamil. Sukumaran was the editor of the Tamil magazine Kungumam and the chief editor of Surya TV. Currently, he is the executive editor of Kalachuvadu magazine.