I stumbled on Princess Kota, the protagonist of my book, The Last Queen of Kashmir, by accident.
I was researching the Dhar clan of Kashmir, to which my wife belongs. Among the Dhar luminaries is the great liberator of Kashmir, Pandit Birbal Dhar. An influential tax collector serving under the harsh regime of the Afghans, who had ruled Kashmir from 1747 to 1819, he led a secret appeal to Maharaja Ranjit Singh to take over the Valley.
Travelling with his son, Birbal Dhar had left behind his wife and daughter-in-law, in hiding with Qudus, his milkman. Judas emerged in the form of a family relative, Tilak Chand Munshi, who betrayed the whereabouts of the ladies to the governor, Azim Khan.
Troops were sent to bring the two women to the governor’s palace. Birbal’s wife was a noted beauty and she knew that Khan would dishonour her to punish Birbal for his secret mission to overthrow the regime. Oral history records that she swallowed poison and that her last words were:
“Know that Kashmir has yet a Kota Rani. Remember me to my lord!”
Who was this Kota Rani?
Who was this inspiring symbol of feminine resistance that was central to the social history that Kashmiri Pandit women carried with them over the intervening centuries? The bare facts were easily accessible, but did not justify the banner that Kota represented for Birbal’s wife in 1819; clearly there was much more hidden behind the veil of time. Thus began my twenty-first-century journey through the detritus of Kota’s fourteenth century world to try and put the pieces together.
What I discovered astonished me and would challenge every single preconception that I or anybody else might have had about Kashmir. What I had tripped upon was a treasure that held the supreme secret for humanity. What shone bright was Kashmir’s beacon to the known world, and Kota was its keeper.
The brave and beautiful Kota Rani played a critical role at a historic inflection point in Kashmir’s turbulent history. An icon of resistance against invaders and a symbol of the universal values that Kashmir’s civilisation stands for, her enduring message, “we were we will be”, is especially relevant to the challenges of contemporary times.
Kota is the girl with fire, the girl who will light you up, the girl who will make you kiss your heart goodbye. Her story speaks globally to the men and women of today. Importantly, Kota’s Kashmir will upend many ideological and theological historical constructs which have led to the closing of the Kashmiri mind, culture and society.
What was a sobering find was that Kota was surrounded by literary geniuses. A majority of Indic poetry in Sanskrit – and virtually all of Indic literature in Kota’s time was in the form of poetry – was written by Kashmiris. The work of these poets was invaluable as I began the sometimes painful task of reconstructing what had been sundered apart.
A Kashmiri aesthetic
In my zeal to be true to Kota, I made a strategic and perhaps ambitious decision to follow the aesthetic principles laid down by Kashmir’s towering polymath Abhinavagupta, whose 1000-year anniversary is being celebrated globally in 2016. Kashmiri literary principles, among other things, emphasise that historical stories are first and foremost an art form. The Pandits were the pioneers of storytelling and practitioners of edutainment. A story needed to both educate and entertain: it had to be for all ages and to be indestructible.
The author had to approach the subject with a love where the very thought would create an emotion similar to that of the mother hearing the cry of her new born baby. This tug should create an aesthetic experience that builds oneness between the observer and the observed. While the written word could wear ornaments and draw power from suggestion, the end product had to be perfected reality into which the reader gets immersed.
There should be multiple levels of interpretation and at the highest levels it should lead to self-awareness and consciousness. There is an ocean there, and this might offer an appreciation of why, between the research and the writing of this manuscript, it took ten years to craft and complete.
This book is probably the first literary property to be published in the English language that uses Kashmir’s formidable literary principles. After the Mahabharata and the Rajatarangini, this is the third book to be written in the Virasa rasa style, which is considered impossible to capture in words.
The Virasa rasa is very different from the catharsis of Greek tragedies, but instead distills into the bittersweet taste of santa rasa, the ninth and peaceful rasa. It is the play of dharma in an imperfect world of moral decay; it is a distasteful inoculation, but one that is hoped to lead to a healthier life. In this sense, Kota’s rebirth also represents a new renaissance voice from Kashmir.
Meetings with Merkel and Mehbooba
The first thing that Kota would do on her rebirth is to thank Chancellor Angela Merkel for returning her treasure, the tenth century Tengapura Durga stolen from Pulwama, Kashmir, to India on October 5 2015. It came back to the Valley in March 2016 after 25 years.
She would also share with Chancellor Merkel the personal experiences that she had with Rinchina, Shah Mir and Lamar Chak, each of whom entered Kashmir as a refugee and was granted sanctuary. What the consequences were to her and to Kashmir might lead to a word of caution for Merkel and the German people, since hope has to be balanced with the reality of life's experiences.
As for what advice Kota might have for Mehbooba, who after nearly 700 years is the first female administrator of Kashmir after her, there is an astonishing surprise in wait here. Remember that Kota’s lens is from the fourteenth century. She would be struck that Mehbooba was born on May 22, 1959. Kota’s astrologer would confidentially advise her that on that day Mars was in Cancer, the fourth house in astrology, which could potentially make Mehbooba an Angaraka like Kota.
After an appropriate period of mourning following the loss of her father, Mehbooba, again like Kota, had to reluctantly concede that the interests of the people demanded that she partner with the “enemy” (the BJP) and run Kashmir. An alert Kota would be struck by past parallels and wonder about what else could be common to them in the future.
She would observe that Mehbooba has two daughters while she herself had two sons. Mother to mother, queen to queen, she would say to Mehbooba, read my story and be the better armed by it. Woman to woman, she would suggest that being an Angaraka is not punishment but divine protection.
Rakesh Kaul's forthcoming novel is titled Last Queen of Kashmir.