लग्नाला सोळा वर्षे, बारा मुले, अनंत प्रलोभने तरी पत्नीप्रेम?...Shah Jahan and Mumtaz

ज्या शाहजहाँच्या जनानखान्यात असंख्य स्त्रिया होत्या , त्याला आपल्या एका पत्नी, मुमताज महल (१५९३-१६३१), बद्दल एवढे आकर्षण कसे वाटत राहिले?

खालील उत्तर रोचक आणि २१व्या शतकातील लोकांना सुद्धा थक्क करून टाकणारे आहे.

मुमताज महल हे करू शकत होत्या याचा अर्थ त्याकाळच्या बहुतेक श्रीमंत स्त्रियांना, विशेषतः उत्तर हिंदुस्तानातील राजघराण्यातल्या, यातील अनेक गोष्टी करता येत असतीलच.

पण ज्याला आपण प्रेम म्हणतो त्याला खालील गोष्टींचा सुद्धा  टेकू मिळाला गेला असायची शक्यता कधीच नाकारता येणार नाही.

Diana Preston & Michael Preston, ‘A Teardrop on the Cheek of Time’, 2007:

 “…Even after sixteen years of marriage and twelve children, Mumtaz clearly still held a unique sexual attraction for Shah Jahan. She was by now in her late thirties, an age at which most wives and concubines were considered too old for sex, but as with her aunt Nur her beauty must have endured. She could also rely on a formidable battery of cosmetics to beautify and purify her body for the imperial bed, including concoctions of flowers, seeds and oils to give added lustre to black hair, black powdered antimony sulphide – kohl – to rim her eyes and pastes of burned conchshells and banana juice to remove unwanted hair.*

Mumtaz also had available the most seductive of clothes – thin silks in rainbow hues from pale apricot to lilac to ruby red, or diaphanous, gossamer-thin muslins that, because of their fine texture, were given names like ‘running water’, ‘woven air’ and ‘evening dew’. They were made up into tight-fitting pyjama or salwar – drawers which fastened with bunches of pearls – tight cholis or bodices, half concealing the breasts, and a V-necked pesvaj, a long transparent coat open to the ankles from its fastening at the breast. Though the clothes of Moghul women were still heavily Turkish in style, they had adopted Hindu ways of dressing their hair. Instead of simply wearing it loose and parted, they had begun twisting it ‘into a flat pad at the back from which a few curls rolled on’. Mumtaz draped her head with golden veils or wore turbans of bright silk with waving ostrich plumes. As the favourite wife of an emperor who was passionate about gems, she would also have possessed the most fabulous and elaborate of jewels. Some slight hint of what she must have worn comes from a European doctor allowed to treat a woman of the imperial harem. He complained that he was unable to locate his patient’s pulse because of the ‘very rich bracelets or bands of pearls which usually go round nine or twelve times’.

The sexual gratification of the emperor was paramount and there were techniques Mumtaz could use to make her vagina, the madan-mandir, or temple of love, slackened through constant pregnancies, contract to enhance his pleasure. She could delicately apply such fragrant pastes as camphor mixed with honey, lotus flowers crushed in milk, or pounded pomegranate skins to the vagina walls. However, the need for women to experience sexual pleasure was also understood and a range of aphrodisiac concoctions existed to help women achieve orgasm. Some, like powdered ginger and black pepper, mixed with the honey of a large bee, were applied inside the vagina. Other aphrodisiac concoctions were smeared on the lover’s penis two hours before intercourse; by stimulating and enlarging the organ, these were said to heighten the woman’s sensation. There were also methods of delaying male ejaculation, some involving swallowing opium, and aphrodisiacs claimed to be so effective that they gave a man the sexual energy of a stallion. A set of stimulants collectively named ‘the Making of the Horse’ was particularly popular….”