Skip to main content

Humayun’s Last Cough



Preface
According to Rajasthan BJP President Madan Lal Saini, Humayun was the father of Babur. "When Humayun was dying, he called Babur and told him - if you want to rule Hindustan, you must keep three things in mind: respect cows, Brahmins and women," said Mr Saini. What follows is a spoof of the history according to BJP.

Humayun, Babur and other Emperors

While Humayun was imparting his dying wisdom to his son Babur, Bal Narender rambled in with a platter of ladoos specially prepared by his father who was a royal chef brought to the Palace after Babur had enjoyed an exotic dinner at the Taj Hotel where Papa Narender was the chief chef.

“I have graduated from the Jio Institute of Eminence,” said the ten year-old Bal Narender. Babur was particularly fond of Bal Narender and hence the boy was granted many liberties in the Palace. 

Bal Narender was a child prodigy and what he heard as he came in caught his attention.

“If you want to rule Hindustan, you must keep three things in mind: respect cows, Brahmins and women.” Humayun was telling his son Babur. Devotion for the cow welled up in little Narender’s fervent soul. Reverence for women made him take a solemn oath of celibacy. But Brahminhood? How could one achieve that?

“Brahminhood can be achieved by karma, my boy,” said dying Humayun. “Do your karma such that you will become a Brahmin.” Humayun patted the head of Bal Narender and the boy was filled with divine grace. He added one more oath to the solemn occasion: “I am a Brahmin from this moment.”

“We should extend our empire far and wide,” declared the neo-Brahmin Narender. “Let the empire stretch from the plateaus and deserts of Afghanistan to the oceans in southern cape.”

Babur looked at the boy with amazement. Will this fellow usurp me and ensconce himself on the Peacock Throne? Babur wondered. Humayun coughed twice and Babur took the hint.

“That won’t be easy. You know those Dravidians there? They won’t ever accept defeat. They will rather swallow cyanide,” said Babur. “And those Malayalis? They can never be defeated because they will pretend that they are not defeated even if they are defeated. They will mimic our dress and manners and get one up on them. They will add coconut grated, coconut milk and coconut oil to our butter chicken and make it their own.”

Bal Narender laughed. “There is no people who cannot be conquered with the help of the gods. We have 33 million gods plus gaumata whom I will unleash on the people. People will fight among themselves for their own beloved gods and we will rule over them easily.”

Humayun coughed again. That was his last cough.

Babur rushed to the Peacock Throne before Bal Narender could move. But Bal Narender’s thoughts had gone in another direction: how to add twists to the dead history?




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl
47 comments
Read more

Joys of Onam and a reflection

Suppose that the whole universe were to be saved and made perfect and happy forever on just one condition: one single soul must suffer, alone, eternally. Would this be acceptable? Philosopher William James asked that in his 1891 book, The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life . Please think about it once again and answer the question for yourself. You, as well as others, are going to live a life without a tinge of sorrow. Joyful existence. Life in Paradise. The only condition is that one person will take up all the sorrows of the universe on him-/herself and suffer – alone, eternally. What do you say? James’s answer is a firm no . “Not even a god would be justified in setting up such a scheme,” James asserted, knowing too well how the Bible justified a positive answer to his question. “It is expedient that one man should die for the people, so that the nation can be saved” [John 11:50]. Jesus was that one man in the Biblical vision of redemption. I was reading a Malayalam period...
19 comments
Read more

The Little Girl

The Little Girl is a short story by Katherine Mansfield given in the class 9 English course of NCERT. Maggie gave an assignment to her students based on the story and one of her students, Athena Baby Sabu, presented a brilliant job. She converted the story into a delightful comic strip. Mansfield tells the story of Kezia who is the eponymous little girl. Kezia is scared of her father who wields a lot of control on the entire family. She is punished severely for an unwitting mistake which makes her even more scared of her father. Her grandmother is fond of her and is her emotional succour. The grandmother is away from home one day with Kezia's mother who is hospitalised. Kezia gets her usual nightmare and is terrified. There is no one at home to console her except her father from whom she does not expect any consolation. But the father rises to the occasion and lets the little girl sleep beside him that night. She rests her head on her father's chest and can feel his heart...
19 comments
Read more

The Real Enemies of India

People in general are inclined to pass the blame on to others whatever the fault.  For example, we Indians love to blame the British for their alleged ‘divide-and-rule’ policy.  Did the British really divide India into Hindus and Muslims or did the Indians do it themselves?  Was there any unified entity called India in the first place before the British unified it? Having raised those questions, I’m going to commit a further sacrilege of quoting a British journalist-cum-historian.  In his magnum opus, India: a History , John Keay says that the “stock accusations of a wider Machiavellian intent to ‘divide and rule’ and to ‘stir up Hindu-Muslim animosity’” levelled against the British Raj made little sense when the freedom struggle was going on in India because there really was no unified India until the British unified it politically.  Communal divisions existed in India despite the political unification.  In fact, they existed even before the Briti...
16 comments
Read more

Loving God and Hating People

Illustration by Gemini AI There are too many people, including in my extended family. who love God so much that other people have no place in their hearts. God fills their hearts. They go to church or other similar places every day and meet their God. I guess they do. But they return home from the place of worship only to pour out the venom in their hearts on those around them. When I’m vexed by such ‘religious’ people I consult Dostoevsky’s novel The Brothers Karamazov in which there are some characters who are acutely vexed by spiritual questions. Let me leave Ivan Karamazov to himself, as he has been discussed too much already. In Book II, Chapter 4 [ A lady of Little Faith ], a troubled woman comes to Father Zosima, the wise monk, and confesses her spiritual struggle. “I long to love God,” she says. She knows that she cannot love God without loving her fellow human beings, or at least doing some service to them. The truth is, she says, “I cannot bear people. The closer they ...
11 comments
Read more