The mystifying presence of Anarkali has loomed large in history and in folklore. Only a handful of dubitable details mark her story, the most legendary among which remains the tragic end that her life and love for Prince Salim, the son of Emperor Akbar, met.
In Anarkali, Sumant Batra ventures to piece together the puzzle that surrounds this woman whose silhouette is all that we have known, giving her an identity, a name, a family, and a life beyond the tragic love affair she has come to be identified with.
What comes forth is a saga, fresh and compelling, reflecting the experience of a woman navigating social structures in the Mughal Empire and bearing the consequences of asserting her desires. At the same time it honours the romance that originally earned Anarkali her name in history and in myth, inspiring within the narrative a treatise on a love earnest and pure, all-consuming and transcendental.
A labour of love that expertly fuses research and imagination, Sumant Batra's evocative prose and attention to period detail are sure to appeal to all lovers of historical fiction.
Sumant Batra is India's leading insolvency lawyer and among the top thirty globally, as rated by Global Restructuring Review.
He has worked as senior international consultant to the IMF, World Bank Group, OECD and other development institutions. His book on corporate insolvency is considered the most authoritative work on the subject. He has contributed essays in numerous anthologies on insolvency.
For his leadership and contribution in the field, he has been conferred the prestigious title of International Fellow by the American College of Bankruptcy, the only Indian thus far to have been bestowed such honour.
A champion of cultural initiatives, Sumant is the founder and architect of a number of innovative projects to promote Indian heritage and literature, including the popular Kumaon Literary Festival.
He is the author of The Indians, a bestselling coffee-table book that includes a foreword by Cherie Blair; and co-author of An Actor's Actor: The Authorized Biography of Sanjeev Kumar.
Anarkali is known to the world as a slave who fell in love with the Mughal imperial heir Salim, later, the emperor Jahangir - a love apparently passionately reciprocated by him. The name Anarkali is stated to have been bestowed on her by Emperor Akbar for her beauty and allure that compared to a blossoming pomegranate flower. The account of the love story, immortalised by Imtiaz Ali Taj's play, Anarkali (1922), suggests that the emperor did not approve of the debasing liaison and ordered Anarkali to be walled up alive. In his mega opera, Mughal-e- Azam, ostensibly inspired from Anarkali, K. Asif changed the end of the story dramatically. As Anarkali was being walled up, Anarkali's mother reminds Akbar of a favour he promised her years ago. The mother begs for her daughter's life in return. Akbar relents and arranges for Anarkali's escape into exile. There is an account suggesting she died of poisoning by a court official as part of the conspiracy hatched by other mistresses of Akbar's harem. Another version states she fell ill and died. There is also one that points finger at Salim for Anarkali's murder.
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