Resumo de Cuckold - Kiran Nagarkar

Cuckold is an extraordinary story, and a work of genius. It weaves together different strands in an absorbing work of historical fiction. The author freely admits that he has not tried for historical veracity.

The historical facts that the story revolves around are thus: Babur invaded India in 1525 and defeated the emperor of Delhi Ibrahim Lodhi in the first battle of Panipat. At the time, the Rajputs had formed a loose coalition under Rana Sanga, the king of powerful Mewar. Babur and the Rajputs met in a major clash soon after the Panipat battle in which the Rajputs were comprehensively defeated. With this, Babur consolidated himself as the most powerful king in northern and central India and the Mughal dynasty that followed ruled India for hundreds of years. They form the centerpiece of Indian history for those years. Nagarkar treats the Rajput/Babur battle as a key. If the Rajputs had won, Indian history would have been very different. This invests his story with a significance that it would not otherwise have.

The other thread of the story is Mirabai, the saint-poet of northern India. It seems to be a historical fact that Mirabai was the daughter-in-law of Rana Sanga and the wife of his first son Maharaj Kumar Bhoj Raj.

Kiran Nagarkar takes as his central protagonist the Maharaj Kumar and builds up his story. Nagarkar is a great storyteller and weaves a fascinating story of the relationships of the Prince. With his wife Mirabai he hardly has a marital relationship as she is 'already betrothed to the Lord'. However he is unable to overcome his fascination with her. There are palace intrigues between the Maharaj Kumar and his younger step brother and step mother who are consumed by ambition for the crown. He has several other colorful friendships, and his interactions in these relationships are used to build out his personality. The Maharaj Kumar is painted in an interesting way. He basically seems to embody all the feelings that a modern day liberal might have. He does not enjoy the killings of war, he is not a staunch Hindu and does not hate Muslims. He is able to take a broad view of history and not get sucked into internicine conflicts. However he is tormented by self-doubt. He can see the approaching doom from Babur, and makes efforts to face it. But the rest of the Rajputs including his father the king, don't have his understanding. He is unable to bring them over to his way of thinking in order to create an effective opposition to Babur.

There is an enormous poignance in the latter part of the book where the Rajputs march to their doom against Babur and through the eyes of the protagonist, all the mistakes they are making are obvious to the reader. However, this is a highly fictionalized version, so one must take all this with a pinch of salt. Nevertheless it is a highly credible and believable read.

?Cuckold? by the way means: someone who?s wife is unfaithful .
The author has won the prestigious Sahitya Akademi award of the Government of India for this book.

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