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TALES WITHIN TALES

Taj: A Story of Mughal India By Timeri N. Murari, Penguin, Rs 275 It is ironical that the Taj Mahal, the marble mausoleum hailed as the most splendid emblem of love came to be erected in the Mughal period — tarred by hatred, cruelty, torture, and fratricide. Timeri N. Murari’s novel, Taj, plays out this irony, highlighting the paranoia which gripped the minds of Mughal princes and emperors confronted with the bewildering choice of “takt ya takhta” (throne or coffin). The novel cuts a swathe of 59 years (1607-1666 AD) from Mughal history. It is conspicuously marked by a warped time sequence as Murari does not stick to the linear pattern of historical time. This time-tampering in the narrative is coupled with the epilogue predating the prologue. The monkey and the blind, old man episode of the prologue projects the entire novel as a flashback, underscoring the futility of power-struggles and individual glories represented in history. The two parallel narratives contrived by Murari progress with varied pace in alternating chapters. The odd-numbered chapters are titled “the love story” and touch on events like Shah Jahan’s courtship, his marriage with Arjumand Banu (later named Mumtaz-i-mahal), Mehrunissa’s conspiracy, Shah Jahan’s flight from the Mahabat Khan-led Mughal force and his eventual accession to throne, culminating in Arjumand’s death — all happening in the years between 1607 and 1630 AD. The even-numbered chapters, titled “the Taj Mahal”, are devoted to chronicling the story of Murthi, a Hindu idol-carver who is somewhat mysteriously employed to fashion the famous marble jali around Arjumand’s sarcophagus. The mystery is later resolved as the full identity of Isa, Arjumand’s favourite eunuch and Shah Jahan’s trusted attendant, is revealed. This second narrative covers the time period 1632-66 AD. Another feature that distinguishes the two sections is the difference in the narrative voices. While the first proceeds through monologues of Shah Jahan, Arjumand and Isa, the second is basically a narrative. As a result, the immediacy of intimate personal details contrasts with the suspenseful narrative which brings alive the tricky twists and turns of politics. Each narrative has its own climactic points which are discreetly played against each other. Often the content of one narrative seeps into the other and the overlap turns up interesting perspectives. In the final analysis, Taj remains an expertly crafted novel with richly textured details, especially of violence and erotocism. It takes the reader through the corridors of history, pointing out lanes and by-lanes hitherto uncharted. Here the refrain of Mughal history “The Kingship has no Kinship” rings loud, reminding one of the life of those 22,000 architects “who lived and died building” the proud monument of love. The filmic quality of the novel may tempt a filmmaker to put it on the celluloid in near future.

THE TELEGRAPH                ARNAB BHATTACHARYA

-Only a masterly historical novelist like Timeri Murari could skate so teasingly near the lip of a volcano. In choosing the love story of Shah Jahan and Arjumand (Mumtaz) and tracing the subtle decline of the Great Mughals after Akbar, the author is able to build a remarkable framework which echoes the triumphant emergence of the Taj Mahal. The structure of this novel is as fascinating as the building it describes. Bill Aitken, SUNDAY OBSERVER. (THIS WAS A FULL PAGE REVIEW)

This powerful novel tells the story at two different levels. The first one talks about the love affair of Shah Jahan and Arjumand till her death. The latter narrates the story of the later years of Shah Jahan till his death. It is an old fashioned and stylish novel, told to perfection. More than a historical romance it brings out the political and social life of the Mughals. A historical novel written with amazing simplicity, the book also gives a fascinating description of how the immortal monument of love was built. THE STATESMAN.

It is not surprising that nearly two decades after the book first came out, Penguin India has chosen to bring out its edition of Timeri N. Murari’s TAJ. Both are clearly backing a proven winner. Murari fashions it well, skillfully weaving fact and fiction, steering the narrative back and forth in time…the reader is swept along easily by the inevitability of the historical denouement that must come, and by the classic love story that never ends. OUTLOOK.

People come from all over the world to visit the Taj Mahal and this book proves that India is all that its been made out to be, a land of fable, culture and a rich glorious past. This is a book portraying India in all her cultural finery, replete with fact and folklore. In this fascinating book Murari has written much more than a historical romance, he has skillfully recreated the period against which the story is set. Though erotic in parts the book has factually kept to the happenings of that era. As a historian I would definitely recommend this book, especially for someone who is planning to visit the Taj Mahal. DECCAN CHRONICLE.

Timeri N Murari has recreated this evergreen love story of the 17th century India with the lucidity of a poet. It’s more than a period love story. Murari deftly weaves this magical tale with the story of Murthi and his wife Sita, both fictional characters who, in the novel, are invited by Shah Jahan to assist in the building of the mausoleum. The grandeur that marked the lives of royalty is juxtaposed against the stark poverty just outside the palace gates. The parallel story Shah Jahan and Arjumand, Murthi and Sita’s struggle to survive at the mercy of the nobles touches one’s heart. The book reverberates with the message that love is all powerful. THE TRIBUNE.

What Timeri N. Murari has attempted is to give life a life to Arjumand beyond the tomb by which alone she’s remembered. His most thrilling chapters deal with the Mughal army’s chase of Shah Jahan and his family over four years for trying to usurp the throne. His sketch of Mehrunissa’s characters outshines all others. Along with the palace intrigues Murari also tells the story of Murthi, a Hindu carver of god’s statues, who is sent to Agra by his ruler to help build the Taj Mahal. The author’s strength lies in the way he has tackled several stories in one. HINDUSTAN TIMES.
'An exotic, passionate novel, sensual and violent by turn, always compelling' - The GUARDIAN
-Only a masterly historical novelist like Timeri Murari could skate so teasingly near the lip of a volcano. In choosing the love story of Shah Jahan and Arjumand (Mumtaz) and tracing the subtle decline of the Great Mughals after Akbar, the author is able to build a remarkable framework which echoes the triumphant emergence of the Taj Mahal. The structure of this novel is as fascinating as the building it describes. Bill Aitken, SUNDAY OBSERVER
-A sense of impending tragedy prevails throughout the novel, foreshadowing the destruction of brothers pitted against brothers in bloody pursuit of the Peacock Throne. One can read into the symbolic undertones, and find this a complex and disturbing novel. Asia Magazine.
-Much that is banal has been written about a passion that became woven into history, but in TAJ, Murari avoids the temptation for tears; instead he has written a book of powerful simplicity, and at the same time evokes those far off days when a great man buried his heart in a mausoleum. Gloucestershire ECHO.
-The writer does convey successfully au aura of 17th century India by having an eye and ear for detail. We learn of the incredible wealth and sumptuousness of the Mughal court we learn of the intrigues within families where Tamerlane’s law forbidding the killing of next of kin breaks down as brother plots against brother. BBC RADIO.
-Putting historical source to good use, Murari has fashioned a stylish novel that brings to life the politics and intrigues of Mughal court life. OUTLOOK.

EDINBURGH EVENING NEWS interview by John Gibson
She was 12. He was 17. And they fell madly in love. One of the greatest love stories that's just been told. By Tim Murari in his double-edged novel "Taj."
Half is a novel about the true-life love affair, half about the building of one of the wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal.
We're talking about the seventeenth century, long before the Brits made it their own. Shah Jahan, the Shadow of Allah and Conqueror of the world, fell in love only once.
But permit me to tell you the love story as I heard it from Mr Murari when he brought a breath of the subcontinent to Edinburgh the other day.
Monument
"The nobleman's daughter was always behind the veil until the one night of the year she was allowed out with the veil removed, during an annual festival. By chance the prince saw her and it was as they say love at first sight.
The Shah became the richest man in the world but all his wealth couldn't prevent her death at 35. He ordered eight days of mourning, he lost two inches in height and his hair turned white.
"Which brings me to the second half of my book. Shah Jahan, who never remarried, commanded 28,000 men and women to labour day and night for 22 years to build the Taj Mahal -an ever-lasting monument to his one love.”
      Murari now lives in London, New York and his native Madras, where at school he was taught that the Taj Mahal was designed and built by an Italian jeweller, before the education authorities set the record straight.
      With "The Jewel in the Crown" and "Gandhi" re-kindling interest in India, 43-year-old former Fleet Street Journalist and TV documentary writer Murari feels the climate is "Just right" for "Taj." But he stresses that his novel has nothing of Britain in it. It’s set exclusively in the pre-Brit period.
     "India bad been there for a thousand years and you discover from the book it bad a rich culture and a lot going for it. The British only re-invented it."
     And Lord Curzon, a Brit, was largely responsible for the restoration of the Taj Mahal in 1901.

LIVERPOOL POST interview by M.W
   FROM THE troubles of Toxteth to the marble splendours of the Taj Mahal is a fair leap. but ex-Liverpool resident Timeri Murari has made it.
   True, he lived in the city way back in 1974 when he rented a room near the furniture store which was to go up in flames in the Toxteth riots some years later.
Tim was strategically placed to see the social problems and sense the simmerings of violence among the young blacks and whites even then.
   He was gathering material for his book The New Savages; Children of the Liverpool Streets. which got good reviews even if the title did spark off some controversy.
   A more glamorous spot, the Taj Mahal, is the subject of his new novel '. Taj.'
It is a testament to love-in more ways than one.
  When Tim. who was born in Madras, took his Australian bride Maureen to see the Taj he realised how little he knew about its story. "Therefore," he says, 'I read all I could find about ii so I would appear more erudite in the eyes of my wife."
  Tim has dedicated "Taj" to his own lovely lady. ..Maureen.

MID-DAY (Bombay) interview by Tara Patel.
    WHO IS Timeri N. Murari? I was asked to interview him at such short notice I forgot to ask him what the "T" stood for!
    After all the man's of Tamil origin and not a very remote. origin at that. Murari's new book is titled Taj and more important, I didn't ask him enough about the novelist's licence, I imagine he's taken on is love-story of Arjumand Banu, the Mumtaz-i-Mahal of our very own marble monument in Agra which lovers (of all kinds, presumably) have come to gape at for over three centuries.
   It’s his eight book to date, must be the only novel of its kind-everybody well, almost- knows about the Taj Mahal and its story, never mind if the romance has been romanticised beyond historical fact, the whole world loves a lover and all that.
It's fact that Emperor Jehangir’ son Shah Jahan fell in love with a nobleman's 12-year-old daughter and married her-allegedly he adored her so much that in a span of 18 years or marriage she bestowed on him 14 children and, nor surprisingly, died during her last childbirth.
   Hence, the Taj-it is sad, 20,000 labourers worked day and night (so we are told) for 22 years on a marble tomb to beat all other marble tombs. Some say the emperor built the Taj to boost his ego, after al! building grand buildings was a royal Moghul past- time, others less cynical say it was built purely out of an undying love for his begum as also out of guilt that she died delivering his children that's the author's interpretation.
   In his early 40's, Murari relates how he'd come to pick on the Taj Mahal as a subject for a novel: it seems in a previous book set in India his American and British editors wanted to put a picture of the Taj on the cover (never mind if it was only fleetingly mentioned in the book!).
   "It made me so mad," remembers Murari, "their vision of India, especially in America, is limited to the Taj Mahal. I promised to write about it in my next book if only they'd remove it from the cover of my book at that time. Once I started researching, the story became absolutely fascinating and so tragic that I got taken up by it. I've enjoyed writing this I book the most’.
    No, not much of his research work was done in India although he'd visited the Taj several time. His father, a major in the army during his school days had a posting in Agra. But for the book, he spent a year researching and writing it at the New York Library (which in his opinion is the best in the world, on par with the British Museum Library).
   On how he took to writing. After boarding school in Bangalore he went to Loyola's in Madras, quit after a year in favour of an apprenticeship , with Marconi's (electronics) in the UK. But after two years, he went on to McGi11 University in Montreal.
   He started reporting for a small town paper in Ontario called the' Kingston Whig-Standard. the editor. Donald Sutter, taught him the ropes of the profession; alas, a new editor proved to be racist and Murari quit, took to doing journalistic assignments on a free lance basis for the London Guardian. the Sunday Times. the Observer and other papers and writing books.