The Tragedy of Love and Loss: Rani Roopmati and Sultan Baz Bahadur

Dance, music, painting, and theatre form the core of the Performing Arts. Bharata’s Natyashastra, the book that has single-handedly influenced India’s aesthetic expression, delineated the significance of performance in society. For millennia, courtesans (or tawaifs) had been the centre of immense learning - they catered to the nobility and were connoisseurs of Art. They were often involved in epic whirlwind romances with royalty, giving rise to colourful narratives.

(Pining for the beloved, source: Dolls of India - Art Store)

The world was a ceaseless note of melancholy. A war was raging and the air stank with terrible news. Death had become more frequent than life. Neither the harmonious music nor the murmurs of the glistening waters could placate the terror of the impending doom. The flowers were wilting; the spring of life had suddenly turned into cold, lifeless frost. A woman, she knew, had to die as a sacrifice and the death would not always be of the mortal body.

The historical landscape of India is dotted with grandiose exhibitions of love. Extravagant as they were, they would go on to extensively influence popular culture. These love stories were larger-than-life, befitting a King or Queen. Such was the epic, cross-cultural love story of Baz Bahadur, the last independent Sultan of Malwa, and Rani Roopmati. Their fateful tryst and abrupt separation have turned into legends as an epic love story of passion, contentment, upheaval, and inevitable separation. This union between a Muslim king and a Hindu commoner took the kingdom by storm.

When they first met, the Sultan was smitten. He was an artist and poet at heart, and the soulful tunes of the breathtaking Roopmati had caught him off-guard who was said to be “more beautiful than the moon, the tulip, and early dawn of the spring.” It was rather poetic, for the king had been out to hunt. By the end of it, he could hardly discern if the arrows he sent flying had not pierced his own heart; whether he was the hunter or by magical intervention had suddenly become prey. The unassuming shepherdess, in the company of friends, was hardly in a position to refuse. But she had a voice and placed an interesting condition on her acceptance of the Sultan’s proposal for marriage. He would have to “construct a palace for her right within the sight of River Narmada.” Thus was born the Rewa Kund in present-day Madhya Pradesh, a popular tourist attraction chronicling their love. Another Afghani-style sandstone structure known today as the Roopmati pavilion at Mandu was strategically positioned so that the Queen could view the Rewa Kund and her beloved’s palace.

Unbeknownst to them, a tale of love had begun - one that would be much discussed for eons to come.

Rumours have it that Khan’s primary motive behind the conquest was to enslave Roopmati. At the fall of Mandu, the terrorised Queen felt the full force of the jeopardy she was in. Abandoned by her husband at the persistent Khan’s feet, she held onto the last bits of courage. Death seemed more promising than life, and she chose it. She drank poison to escape dishonour and immortalised herself on the pages of history. Much is chronicled about a man's bravery. Little is known about the women who saw their hopes shattered into pieces before willingly embracing death.

Their choice to die was an act of exercising agency - a power seldom granted to women in those days. While the Sultan of Malwa remained a fugitive for years to come, the braveheart Roopmati died, only to continue living in people’s hearts forever. Her influence on the folklore of Malwa is unparalleled.

But there was more to Roopmati besides her beauty. She was a poet, with twelve dohas, ten kavitas, and three sawaiyas to her name. A classical singer, reciter, and acclaimed musician, it is believed that the pavilion in her name was where she often practiced her craft. Her alliance with the Sultan had transcended to intellectual compatibility. Baz Bahadur, a gifted lyricist and musician himself, had found his ideal consort in Roopmati. Such was their mutual involvement that history accuses the Sultan of neglecting his imperial duties. He was an artist and lover, not a king - qualities often considered mutually exclusive. As a result, he neither raised a strong army nor did he strengthen his alliances. It would eventually backfire one day, cutting short a promising tale of romance.

A translation by L.M. Crump of Sharaf-ud-Din Mirza’s Persian-language book on Roopmati has an interesting account of the two:

“Fair was life to them evening after evening on the roof of the Ship Palace, in the heart of their dear city impregnable, looking out over mosque and tomb, dome and cupola of blue and green and yellow and of marble white, and beyond, to lake and wood, to hill and vale fair indeed, and all the fairer for the music in their ears and the love within their hearts.”

Meanwhile, as the Queen awaited her paramour every day at her palace, the looming threat of a Mughal siege worsened. Word of Baz Bahadur’s incompetence had reached Emperor Akbar’s ears as had tales of Roopmati’s beauty. Presenting as reasons enough for an invasion, the Mughal army led by Adham Khan, Akbar’s foster brother and General of Imperial forces, and Pir Muhammad Khan, was encroaching on the Sultanate of Malwa. Baz Bahadur’s ill-equipped army was no match for the superior Mughal forces. In 1561, he was defeated in the Battle of Sarangpur and fled to Khandesh to seek help, leaving behind his Queen at the mercy of the notorious Adham Khan.

(Sojourn of the newly-weds, source: Wikipedia, Google)

(Fall of Baz Bahadur, source: Wikipedia, Google)