The first Sikh king's last wife

A gold digger awed by money and power? A doting sister to an irresponsible brother? The Messalina of the Punjab?

Possessive mother of an heir apparent plucked from her and converted to Christianity? A regent queen who jeopardised the Khalsa army to quench her own desire for vengeance? A lustful widow who dared to break taboos imperilling her own ascendance in the royal court? A shrewd tactician whose blind trust became her undoing?
 

Among the epochal works that have detailed the Sikh empire, the lives and times of its first king, Ranjit Singh, the Khalsa army’s various military campaigns and the life of Ranjit’s last son Dalip Singh, there seemed to have been something missing. That’s until Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Last Queen detailing the life of Jindan Kaur, the youngest wife of the first Sikh king Ranjit and the mother of the empire’s last exiled king Dalip Singh, hit the shelves.
 

Ms Divakaruni’s book is a path-breaking, poignant, exhilarating and almost surreal account of the little-known Jindan Kaur.

Narrated in first-person,  Ms Divakaruni lives the life of Jindan, taking the reader on a kaleidoscopic journey till her death, and, it wouldn’t be unfair to say lets her own body and soul be hijacked by that of Jindan’s. The author breathes so much life into the queen’s life that one cannot help wonder how long it would have taken Ms Divakaruni to emerge from playing the role of the queen she so masterfully portrays in her book.
 

Would Ms Divakaruni still be imagining herself as a queen riding her horse Toofani while driving through her hometown Houston? Would she still be holding up her palm to fellow shoppers at Walmart like a queen regent would to her subjects on the streets of Lahore? Would her husband Mr Murthy have had to endure being repeatedly called “Sarkar” by his doting wife still captivated by Jindan months after penning her exceptional work?
 

Never mind Ms Divakaruni’s predicament. Those who read her recreation of Jindan’s life would certainly remember it better than any other work on a rather insignificant facet of the Sikh empire.
 

The author traces the life of Jindan from her childhood, her marriage to Ranjit Singh, her transition to a mother and queen regent, and her life as an exile in Kathmandu and later London. To her credit, Ms Divakaruni doesn’t overtly romanticise the fascination of Jindan, the dog trainer’s daughter in Ranjit Singh’s court, with the king who is her grandfather’s age. Ranjit Singh, known for his ostentatious life, many wives and concubines, love for wine and the Kohinoor, captivates Jindan simply because he is the king. Why would an ageing, pockmarked man attract the eye of a beautiful village belle from Gujranwala unless he was wealthy and powerful?
 

This would resonate among many practical young women even today; those who fall for the bigger car, the bigger house and that man with the fattest wallet and a green card. But comparing Jindan to modern-day gold diggers would be a travesty. Ms Divakaruni immaculately portrays the practicality of Jindan’s fascination for the old king. It isn’t just about unrequited, blind love.

In many ways it is an escape to a better world from her own miserable rural existence and her overbearing father. After all, on the terrace of the gurdwara before the king promises to marry her when she turns 18, Jindan even offers to be his concubine.
 

While Jindan’s tryst with a flailing Ranjit Singh doesn’t last long, the match produces a son who would become the crux of her precarious existence after the king’s death. Ms Divakaruni subtly brings out the court machinations and rivalry among Ranjit Singh’s other wives to discredit Jindan who rises to be the queen regent. It’s the parts of the book when Jindan is on her own without the assuring presence of Ranjit that the reader is on tenterhooks. The pace at which events unfold in the dismantling of the Sikh empire, the assaults of other Sikh clans on Ranjit’s kingdom, the betrayal by the Dogras, the rise of the Khalsa army in political decision-making under Jindan, and the eventual annexation by the British makes the book unputdownable.
 

Though the focus is Jindan, the book offers interesting insights into the lives and times of Ranjit Singh’s other allies in Jammu and Nepal, the workings of the Khalsa court and how India’s most powerful empire was decimated even as other kingdoms rose in rebellion in 1857. To bring a relatively unimportant and obscure element of Sikh history to such glorious life would take a master writer to be on the top of her creative game. The book is a testament to that.

The Last Queen

Author: Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Publisher: Harper Collins

Price: Rs 599

Pages: 354