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Well-paced and well-written, Indu Sundaresan's Shadow Princess is a historical novel set in the Mughal period, and told through a woman’s perspective.
Well-paced and well-written, Indu Sundaresan’s Shadow Princess is a historical novel set in the Mughal period, and told through a woman’s perspective.
By Priyanka Chaturvedi
Indu Sundaresan’s Shadow Princess is an exciting sequel to the The Twentieth Wife and The Feast of Roses. While The twentieth Wife was about Noor Jahan and The Feast of Roses about Mumtaz Mahal, this book revolves around Princess Jahanara. It is yet another glorious retelling of life in Mughal India during the reign of Emperor Shah Jahan. The story starts from the year 1631 at Burhampur in Deccan India; that is where the Royal camp of Emperor Shah Jahan is. While The Emperor is busy directing the conquest of the Deccan from Burhampur fort in order to gain supremacy in Southern India, his beloved queen, 38 year old Mumtaz Mahal, or the Exalted One dies while giving birth to their 14th child in the 19 years of their marriage. That incident acts as a trigger to the crumbling of the Mughal Empire. With the death of his beloved wife, the Emperor slowly loses interest in everything, while his sons conspire and scheme to gain control of the empire.
Princess Jahanara, who is the eldest daughter of the Emperor, is only 17 year old when she has to take charge of the imperial zenana (harem) after her mother’s death. She becomes the most important woman in the harem and is forced to remain at the Mughal court all her life, caught up in the intrigues and the power politics of her siblings, sacrificing her own desires for the sake of her father. This book is essentially Princess Jahanara’s story. Jahanara was her father’s favourite child and he always felt that she was the most capable of all his children but belonged to the wrong sex.
The author manages to weave the story so interestingly that it manages to give the reader an in-depth understanding of the golden period of the Mughal era and the life of the royal family. If historical fiction interests you this book would be the right pick. A well-paced, well-written story of the Mughal dynasty through a woman’s perspective, the book’s appeal is not surprising given that her previous titles are also an absolute must read.
Publisher: Harper Collins
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UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
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