I, DARA SHUKOH

Where I alight

From the horse

Drained of all life

From far far away

I hear the tumultuous affray

Of a lost battleground

Where I lost

Not just my moorings

But my flesh and blood

The scimitar wasn't as indolent

With the smear of defeat

As when it remained stuck

Even as I wished it to be drawn out

And swung

Against my own ones

Some of these lessons

I had read but had not been prepared

When the drums played

And the armies stood face to face

I felt invincible though it was a

False assumption

For I had not factored the deviousness

Of being let down by my own commander

On whose advice I got down from the elephant

To bolster a supposedly slipping front

Now on horseback as I stood tall

I was in reality mingling with my downfall

As my soldiers started to desert me and run

Seeing the empty seat on the elephant

They thought I was no more

And the living emperor was taken for dead

Now Alamgir, the self styled Badshah of the world,

Sits in judgement on me

And declares me not just a lost case

But a heretic fit to be worthy of the worst fate

I Dara Shukoh, am standstill

Like a million pieces of me are broken inside

That can never complete

What remains of my drift

From Emperor designate to a fallen leaf

And nothing feels real as I accept my ignominy

Being walked towards the sentence

That the power drunk clergy shall deliver

I am intoxicated only with love

For I know I much more than this deserve

A fair trial that can come only when

The sun sets on my dhow

Somewhere in the lost sea of my spiritual

Preceptor

Whose mercy I am awashed in

Who reminds me of the strumming of the daf and the oud

And the swirls that the ecstatic

Dervishes take

On the streets of Baghdad

Where I made visitations in my trance like

States

I remember us as kids, when Aurangzeb wasn't crowned

As he is now

Not yet the airs and flow of regency

And still his haughtiness was for all to see

Even as a kid he desired what wasn't destined for him

And I, to whom much was given,

By Jahanpanah, my esteemed father

Was not covetous enough to fight for it

To value it

Wish I had given the attention that these

Worldly matters deserved

Wish I had not been led astray by the inevitability

Of my place in the world

That makes minds go bonkers with too much of cotton wool

Nothing is infallible, not even what looks permanent

I wish I had, not for myself, but to spare

My children

Of what now befalls them

Death, detention and being poisoned

For the endgame of a losing side

Is that misfortunes come from all over

And descend upon them like arrows

Shooting off from automatic quivers

I remember that improbable jew, Sarmad

Whose each word I held in deep regard

What a funny sight he was most days

Naked and mumbling inanities or profanities

Yet the truths he knew could surpass

All things considered great

And I wish that when I am killed

I too may be afforded a little bit of this

So that I might drown my pain

In the divinity that only exists

When pain makes a small space

For the spark to be lit

Now as I am being paraded on the streets

Of Delhi

Like an ordinary thief

Ostensibly on an elephant

But dressed in tatters and blackened

I can't look eye to eye and face

The common folks

Who once were my own and now

Mock and snigger at me

As is the case in human history

When you lose everything that held you

In place

People throw stones

Considering you as much disgraced

Finally I managed to see someone

And catch his gaze

He flinched and a tear surfaced on his eye

It seems I am now meeting my maker

Even before I am no more

I see the valleys of flowers, the sun that

Never sets

My children gathered around me

As I sup some freshly made soup

Offering them as well

And my dear sister, Jahanara, still attending to

My imprisoned father,

Named ironically the Queen of the World,

I see only dark circles growing under her

Eyes

I cannot meet those eyes

Now I say goodbye!

Shujaat Mirza, comes from a multicultural and multilingual background is easily at home in Hindi, Urdu, English, Gujarati and other languages and is an intrepid art aficionado, curator and critic, with a passion for multidisciplinary art. His primary area of interest is art at the intersection of visual aesthetics and verbal semantics. He is also a poet and writer and his work has been published online as well as in literary magazines. He has been passionate about poetry ever since he can remember. He has been on the official board of muslim endowments committee where he was instrumental in the documentation and microfilming of rare, handwritten persian manuscripts and he has been on many art collectives past and present. Based in Ahmedabad and Mumbai, (formerly Bombay), India, he has done his Master's in English and has worked in brand management and infrastructure.