My friend was recently helping her 10-year-old daughter Joya revise for her history exam, and decided to slip in a little social engineering in the course of studying the Mughals. Joya was very taken with Shahjahan, partly because of the romantic description of him as a devoted husband, a patron of great architecture and (no doubt) the idea of the gems and grandeur which went into the making of the Taj Mahal. Anyway, in order to highlight what she considers more important personal qualities, my friend attempted to steer Joya away from Shahjahan and persuade her to pay more attention to Akbar, the great social reformer, in the process also explaining to her daughter why we need more such leaders today. The child listened patiently and then (of course) said she still thought she liked Shahjahan better. Plus, she felt bad for Shahjahan because he spent the last eight years of his life imprisoned. At this reference, her mother quickly pointed out that Shahjahan had actually ascended the throne through violent means, by killing his own brothers and nephews. Not to mention the fact that his beloved wife Mumtaz Mahal, whom he professed to love so much, died a rather unromantic death giving birth to their fourteenth child! At this point, an exasperated Joya said, Ma, tumi shobshomoi manusher dosh khujo. You’re always fault-finding! Okay, I admit that Shahjahan did something very wrong by killing his brothers and nephews, but why should he be blamed for his wife having so many babies? :-) :-) :-) At this point, my indefatigable friend shied away from a discussion about the birds and the bees, choosing instead to branch out into the issue of the development costs of high population growth and why people should have smaller families. But all in all, I can’t help wondering who taught whom a lesson that evening :-D
Posted on: Sun, 04 May 2014 15:18:35 +0000
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