Shadow Princess Book

Hand down, it really isn't your typical Bollywood romance.

Shadow Princess is the final book of Indu Sundaresan's Taj Mahal trilogy. This time the heroine is Jahanara Begum, the first born daughter of Shah Jahan and his beloved queen consort Mumtaz Mahal.

The love story between Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal, emperor and empress of the Mughal Empire, needs no introduction since this romance has been immortalized by the Taj Mahal, the white marble mausoleum Shah Jahan built for his wife. But what is a lot less famous is the stories of the royal couple's children (4 sons and 3 daughters) and how Mumtaz's death affected the royal family and the fate of the royal couple's children, especially Jahanara Begum's.

The author revealed the tale of Princess Jahanara and the unusual position she had been placed in after her mother's death, the 17 years old Jahanara inherited half of her mother's fortune and the statue of Padshah Begum, mistress of the harem and First Lady of the Empire, which instantly made her the most powerful and wealthy woman in the empire. But power and wealth was followed by endless responsibilities to support both her father and her family, court intrigues, sandals (mostly the suspicion of incest between Jahanara and her father), her younger sister Roshanara Begum's jealousy and the hostility among her four brothers. Plus her fledgling romance with Najabat Khan, a noble in her father's court, was also jeopardized because the Emperor was unwilling to allow his favorite daughter to get married.

I'm not very sure why Shah Jahan would forbid his daughters to get married, supposedly the daughters getting married would weaken the emperor's hold on his throne but I still can't see how would marry off a few daughters would create troubles for the emperor. I guess it must have something to do with the princesses' sons might grow up and then challenge the throne, but it isn't well explained in the story.

If you expected to see some Earth-shaking romance like the ones in the Bollywood movies, you will be disappointed. Sure there are affection, heartache and doubts between the heroine and Najabat Khan plus there is a 'forbidden' aspect in their love since they couldn't get married, but their romance is pretty much down to earth. As years passed Jahanara took other lovers, Najabat Khan took other women as his wives and started a family of his own, yet the two continued to love each other from afar through the decades. I understand not many people like this development but I found it to be quite refreshing.

The heroine's younger sister, Roshanara is pretty much written off as a jealous spoiled brat in this story, but historically she seems to be a skilled player in the power game and she actually helped one of her brothers (Aurangzeb) to become the next emperor. Therefore, I do hope Roshanara could have more room in the narration...because it does feel like Roshanara was even more shadowed by both her famous mother and her powerful, more beloved older sister. I mean, by the later half of this book, even the princes have more space and screen time than Roshanara herself, argh.

Once again, the author built her world with a lot of fine details about the cultures, food, rituals, customs of the society of that time. Also, once again the struggle for the throne plays an important part in the latter half of the story.

I also do like how the author skipped a generation to write the stories of Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal's children instead of writing the romance between the emperor and empress because let's face it, too many people had already written stories about these two (though their stories are very much worth telling), yet the stories about their children seem to have a bit more rooms for imagination and development.


My review for the first book:

Chinese review for the first two books of the series:


A Chinese article about the historical Jahanara Begum: 

A Chinese article about the historical Mehrun Nissa, great aunt of Jahanara: