"Supplications NOR force NOR gold can WIN me" | Zeb-un-Nissa - Part-2

This post is about a daughter of Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb - Zeb-un-Nissa. Sharing her journey with all of you. This is a 3-series article. This is the Part-2 of the same. 

Links of other Parts.
Part-1 > "I will not lift my Veil" - Zeb-un-Nissa | - I 
Part-3 > "My name is Zeb-un-Nissa | I am the Glory of Womankind" - III

Continuing from Part-1 ~~~


In personal appearance, Zeb-un-Nissa is described as being tall and slim, her face round and fair in colour, with two moles, or beauty-spots, on her left cheek. Her eyes and abundant hair were very black, and she had thin lips and small teeth. In Lahore Museum is a contemporary portrait, which corresponds to this description. She did not use missia for blackening between the teeth, nor antimony for darkening her eye­lashes, though this was the fashion of her time. Her voice was so beautiful that when she read the Koran she moved her listeners to tears. 

In dress she was simple and austere; in later life she always wore white, and her only ornament was a string of pearls round her neck. She is held to have invented a woman’s garment, the angya kurti, a modification, to suit Indian conditions, of the dress of the women of Tur­kestan; it was worn all over India. She was humble in her bearing, courteous, patient, and philosophic in enduring trouble; no one, it is said, ever saw her with a ruffled forehead. Her chief friend was a girl named Imami, a poet like herself. Zeb-un-Nissa was skilled in the use of arms, and several times took part in war. < This fact is surprisingly recorded in the Amer chronicles.

Zeb-un-Nissa - wearing angiya-kurti

In the beginning of 1662 Aurangzeb was taken ill, and, his physicians prescribing change of air, he took his family and court with him to Lahore.  

Following is a tale, of whose "degree of authenticity" , i can not say, but i am mentioning here. 

At that time Akeel Khan, the son of Aurangzeb's Wazir was governor of that city. He was famous for his beauty and bravery, and was also a poet. He had heard of Zeb-un-Nissa, and knew her verses, and was anxious to see her. On pretext of guarding the city, he used to ride round the walls of the palace, hoping to catch a glimpse of her. One day he was fortunate; he caught sight of her on the house­top at dawn, dressed in a robe of gulanar, the colour of the flower of the pomegranate. 

He said - “A vision in red appears on the roof of the palace.” She heard and answered, com­pleting the couplet: “Supplications nor force nor gold can win me.” She liked Lahore as a residence, and was laying out a garden there: one day Akeel Khan heard that she had gone with her companions to see a marble pavilion which was being built in it. He disguised himself as a mason, and, carrying a hod, managed to pass the guards and enter. She was playing chausar with some of her female friends, and he, passing near, said: “In my longing for thee I have become as the dust wandering round the earth.” She understood and answered imme­diately: “Even if thou hadst become as the wind, thou shouldst not touch a tress of my hair.” 

They met again and again, but some rumour reached the ears of Aurangzeb, who was at that time gone to Delhi, and he hastened back. He wished to hush up the matter by hurrying her into marriage at once. Zeb-un-Nissa demanded free­dom of choice, and asked that portraits of her suitors should be sent to her; and chose naturally that of Akeel Khan. Aurangzeb sent for him; but a disappointed rival wrote to Akeel: “It is no child’s play to be the lover of a daughter of a king. Aurangzeb knows your doings; as soon as you come to Delhi, you will reap the fruit of your love.” Akeel Khan thought the Emperor planned revenge. 

So, alas for poor Zeb-un-Nissa! at the critical moment her lover proved a coward; he declined the marriage, and wrote to the king resigning his service. Zeb-un-Nissa was scornful and disappointed, and wrote: “I hear that Akeel Khan has left off paying homage to me”—or the words might also mean, “has resigned service”—“on account of some foolishness.” He answered, also in verse, “Why should a wise man do that which he knows he will regret?” (Akeel also means, a wise man). But he came later to Delhi again, perhaps regretting his fears. 

He went to her garden; the Emperor was told and came unexpectedly, and Zeb-un-Nissa, taken unawares, could think of no hiding-place for Akeel but a deg, or large cooking-vessel. The Emperor asked, “What is in the deg?” and was answered, “Only water to be heated.” “Put it on the fire, then,” he ordered; and it was done. Zeb-un-Nissa at that moment thought more of her reputation than of her lover, and came near the deg and whispered, “Keep silence if you are my true lover, for the sake of my honour.”  

One of her verses says, “What is the fate of a lover? It is to be cruci­fied for the world’s pleasure.” One wonders if she thought of Akeel Khan’s sacrifice of his life.?

Note:
Please remember as i mentioned before that - this Akeel Khan death incident is a TALE associated with her, and not proved. The "degree of authenticity" can not be ascertained. Here, I mentioned this just for information.

After this she was imprisoned in the fortress of Salimgarh in Delhi, some say because her father dis­trusted her on account of her friendship with her brother, Prince Akbar, who had revolted against him; others say because of her sympathy for the Maratha Chief Shivaji.

 
Note:
Prince Muhammad Akbar had accompanied Aurangzeb in his wars against the Rajput states in 1679 AD and had the army totally under him. He rebelled against his father in 1681 and proclaimed himself as the Emperor. Zeb actively lent her support to him during his rebellion. After the rebellion was suppressed, her private correspondence with her brother was discovered. She became the recipient of her father's wrath as the letters revealed how closely attached she was to her brother's interests. Her property was seized and her pension stopped. Aurangzeb was later able to forgive his son but could never forget what he perceived as deep betrayal on the part of Zeb, whom he had trusted more than anyone else in his life.


There she spent long years, and there she wrote much bitter poetry, which can move the most cheerful person to tears:— 
{Note - Makhfi was her pen name, meaning "the hidden one".}

"

So long these fetters cling to my feet! My friends have become enemies, my relations are strangers to me.

What more have I to do with being anxious to keep my name undishonoured when friends seek to disgrace me?

Seek not relief from the prison of grief, O Makhfi; thy release is not politic.

O Makhfi, no hope of release hast thou until the Day of Judgment come.

Even from the grave of Majnu the voice comes to my ears—“O Laila, there is no rest for the victim of love even in the grave.”

"

She writes :--

I have spent all my life, and I have won nothing but sorrow, repentance, and the tears of unfulfilled desire:—

"

Long is thine exile, Makhfi, long thy yearning,

Long shalt thou wait, thy heart within thee burning,

Looking thus forward to thy home-returning.

But now what home hast thou, unfortunate?

The years have passed and left it desolate,

The dust of ages blows across its gate.

If on the Day of Reckoning

God say, “In due proportion I will pay

And recompense thee for thy suffering,”

Lo, all the joys of heaven it would outweigh;

Were all God’s blessings poured upon me, yet

He would be in my debt.

"

When her memory was becoming dim in the hearts of her friends, Nasir Ali(see part-1 post) alone thought of her, and wrote a poem to her, saying that, now, the world could not delight in her presence, and he himself had to go about the earth unhappy, having no one but himself to appreciate his verses. But she sent no answering word.

When she was released(briefly) she lived solitary in Delhi, and the verses she wrote there are very melancholy, telling of the faithlessness of the times:—

"

Why shouldst thou, O Makhfi, complain of friends, or even of enemies? Fate has frowned upon thee from the beginning of time.

Let no one know the secrets of thy love. On the way of love, O Makhfi, walk alone. 

         Even if Jesus seek to be thy companion, tell him thou desirest not his comradeship.
"

Here is one of her saddest poems, expressing something of the tragedy of her life:—

"
O idle arms,

Never the lost Beloved have ye caressed:

Better that ye were broken than like this

Empty and cold eternally to rest.

O useless eyes,

Never the lost Beloved for all these years

Have ye beheld: better that ye were blind

Than dimmed thus by my unavailing tears.

O foolish springs,

That bring not the Beloved to my abode;

Yea, all the friends of youth have gone from me,

Each has set out on his appointed road.

O fading rose,

Dying unseen as hidden thou wert born;

So my heart’s blossom fallen in the dust

Was ne’er ordained His turban to adorn."

Continued....
Part-3 > "My name is Zeb-un-Nissa | I am the Glory of Womankind" - III


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