Fiction: A writer holds seances with Shah Jahan, who is elbowed out by Aurangzeb, to write a novel

Before writing this novel, the writer was doing his research for another one he was all set to write – about the Catholic nun Catarina de San Juan. You might ask who this Catarina was. She was born in 1606, in the palace of Agra, as Shah Jahan’s first cousin. Her given name was Mirra. She was raised in the same palace as Shah Jahan. Perhaps around 1617 – when she was ten or eleven years old – she was kidnapped by Portuguese sailors and sold into slavery. Her buyer was a trader from Mexico. She converted to Catholicism in Mexico and adopted the name Catarina to suit the newfound faith. Soon after, she joined a convent as a novice. Having performed several miracles in her lifetime, she was and remains highly regarded as a saint and Mother in Mexico. The Jesuit priest Alonso Ramos has written a three-volume biography of Catarina de San Juan.

In the early 17th century, at the time Catarina was being raised in the Mughal palace, Hindustan was the prime example of tolerance across the world. The Italian explorer Niccolao Manucci writes that traders and travellers were bound by law to wear the colour green in order to enter Turkey. They were obliged to speak with bowed heads. Meeting the eyes of one’s interlocutor could have one sentenced to flogging, and an argument to amputation. That was the Turkey of the time. Whereas Hindustan was quite like a metropolitan city of our contemporary world. And I’m talking not just about the capitals of its constituent kingdoms, but of all Hindustan. Foreign traders and explorers visited, stayed, left and returned. The land was so rich as to incite the jealousy of the entire world, and countries like Persia were waiting with bated breath for a chance to loot it. This prosperity was the reason for Mahmud of Ghazni’s repeated forays from across the Hindu Kush mountains. (Manucci writes that the senior bodyguards at Shah Jahan’s palace would carry batons made entirely of gold, while their subordinates would carry batons of silver.)

The peaceful coexistence of religions in Hindustan allowed several Catholic priests to ensconce themselves in the good books of the royal family. This may have been among the reasons for Aurangzeb’s fanatic adherence to the tenets of Islam, and his putting his brother Dara Shikoh to death. In one of his letters, Aurangzeb worries that if Dara were to mount the throne, he would hand over all of Hindustan to the priests.

While the three volumes written by Alonso Ramos were handy research material for the writer’s intended novel on Catarina, being a priest did tend to colour Ramos’s writing with his beliefs. He states that Catarina’s very birth was owed to the grace of Mother Mary. Her parents, having remained childless for twenty years, took the advice of one of the palace’s resident priests and prayed to the Virgin Mary. Ramos credits the birth of Mirra to this act. Well, that’s as may be. But the writer needed documentary evidence to verify certain facts about her life. He wasn’t able to find this anywhere. Everyone who had written about Catarina has used Alonso Ramos’s biography as his or her primary source. It was then that a friend of this writer’s mentioned an Aghori who could speak to Akbar’s spirit.

In fact, he could summon into his body the spirit of anyone with whom one wished to speak. And then it would be the spirit and not the Aghori who spoke to the interlocutor. Every now and again, he would call the spirit of Akbar for the entertainment of his friends. “What if there’s some golmaal in all of this, how can one be sure it is Akbar who is speaking?” the writer asked. “Come and see for yourself,” the friend said. The Aghori has asked that the writer not give out any details about him, and therefore it would not be right to speak about the Aghori or even his town either in this novel or in any other forum. So, it is asked of the readers not to pester either the writer or the publishers for such details about the Aghori.

At times, letters of this nature have caused the writer great distress. ‘I’ve had scabies for twenty years, and don’t remember when I last slept through the night. Please do give me the address of the siddhar about whom you had written.’ How can the soft-hearted writer deal with such a request? The siddhar, for his part, has asked that no one be made privy to his whereabouts. This is the sort of awkward situation in which the writer often finds himself. So, I ask that nobody write to ask for the Aghori’s address. Please.

There were ten people in that room. In a corner, incense sticks had been lit. The aroma of attar wafted through the air. A tinny recording of a woman’s mellifluous voice singing a ghazal played from an iPod in another corner. On a slightly raised platform cushioned by a quilt sat the Aghori, eyes closed. Everyone else was seated on a jamakaalam on the floor. The writer had taken pains to ensure that the spirit felt at home and had tailored the ambience to suit the purpose. It was indeed Akbar who spoke. Without a doubt. Because, the friend said, the Aghori didn’t know a word of Farsi. His connection with North India had given him some knowledge of broken Hindi, but he wasn’t well versed in Urdu, let alone Farsi. And Akbar’s spirit held forth in poetic Farsi, occasionally peppered with Hindawi.

Once the seance was over, the writer spoke to his friend and the Aghori. He wondered if it might not be a good idea to ask Shah Jahan himself for anecdotes about Catarina’s early years for his novel. The Aghori acquiesced and a date was set for the seance. But it was obvious, even before the spirit had announced his name, that it was not Shah Jahan who had entered the Aghori’s body. Shah Jahan was passionate about music. He was an accomplished singer. His voice is said to have mesmerised anyone who heard him.

Keeping this in mind, the writer had taken the precaution of playing a khayal in Raga Yaman by Kishori Amonkar. However, when the spirit spoke, they all heard, “Fie on you all! Stop that bleeding music at once, I command you!” At first, they looked around the room for Shashi Tharoor – the voice or, to be more specific, the accent and wording had suggested he might have made a sudden appearance. Not the order. While Shashi Tharoor’s interest in music or lack thereof isn’t known to the writer, he could not think of anyone else who might say “fie”. The confusion cleared when the spirit that had manifested itself in the Aghori announced its name.

“I, Alamgir, born Aurangzeb, have come before you.” Fresh confusion, however. The writer did not think Aurangzeb knew English, let alone the words “fie” and “bleeding”. The spirit looked at him through the Aghori’s eyes. “I know English well, and some French too. But we shall cross that bridge when it presents itself. We have a long journey together.” Which brought the writer to the more pertinent issue: Why had Aurangzeb arrived in Shah Jahan’s stead, and what was this journey they were to embark on, crossing bridges at the former’s will? Even before the writer could ask, Aurangzeb took it upon himself to explain.

Excerpted with permission from Conversations with Aurangzeb: A Novel, Charu Nivedita, translated from the Tamil by Nandini Krishnan, HarperCollins India.