A father wrote a typical letter to his son, “As I asked, you have written your letters, but you didn’t read them over, if you tried you could not.” He added that the handwriting and spelling were not good enough, and gave him advice on how to write better. “Probably your laziness in writing is due to the fact that you try to make it too fancy. From now on, write with uncomplicated, clear, and plain words. This will cause less difficulty both for you and for your reader.”
These words are not recent, they were written almost 500 years ago, and the writer was none other than the Mughal emperor Babur, telling his son Humayun that he just did not know how to write! Babur was an excellent writer, and he quotes this letter in his memoirs, Tuzuk-i-Baburi, written in Chagatai Turkish, a Central Asian language.
Memoirs are one of the sources of history, though they have to be assessed for their objectivity. Babur’s circumstances and background forced him to become a king, but reading his memoirs it seems to me he was a writer at heart.
One night, out on a campaign, but resting in his tent in the monsoon season, he was glancing at his books and papers, when a huge storm arose. The wild wind blew the tent away and rain poured in. Babur was more concerned about his papers than himself. First he covered all the papers with thick carpets. Then another tent was erected, and instead of going to sleep he lit a fire and spent the rest of the night drying the papers over this.
Yet this man became a king when he was just eleven years old, an age that today would be considered a child, one who would probably be studying in class VII. His date of birth is estimated as February 14, 1483, and his memoir begins with this statement: “In the month of Ramzan, in the year 899 (June 1494) in the province of Farghana, in my twelfth year, I became king.” Farghana was in the present region of Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, occupied at that time by Turks, Mongols and Uzbeks.
What made Babur an extraordinary writer were both his objectivity and his powers of observation. Beautiful descriptions of Farghana and its capital Andizhan follow. The river Andizhan passed through Farghana, and the kingdom had plenty of grain, wonderful fruit, melons, grapes and pears. Babur had a large extended family, apart from his father, mother and sisters and brothers, there were uncles and other relatives.
Babur goes on to describe them all in a realistic way, without criticism or praise. For instance, about his father, Umar Shaykh Mirza, he says that he was short, he had a round beard and he was fat. When he had to fasten his tunic, he had to hold in his stomach, if he let it go, the ties often broke!
Battles often took place in the region, each kingdom trying to expand its territories. Umar Shaykh ruled in Farghana, while in Samarkand to the west was his elder brother Ahmad Mirza. Sultan Ahmad Mirza and Sultan Mahmud Khan of a nearby kingdom joined together to fight Umar Shaykh, but just when they were about to attack, Umar died in an accident.
He was flying his doves on the top of his fort, and slipped, falling into a ravine. He was 39 years old, and his eleven year old son Babur, became the king. Babur faced endless troubles. In 1497 he conquered Samarkand, but could not retain it for more than a few years. He lost his own kingdom of Farghana too. But in 1504, he managed to conquer Kabul. Soon he conquered Ghazni in the Afghanistan region.
While these conquests and battles were going on, Babur constantly observed everything, and provided descriptions of what he saw. We learn about Kabul’s provinces, its plants, fruits, animals and meadows. It has a good climate, he says, and plums and citrus fruits grow well. He even describes each meadow, and comments on those where the horses are troubled by flies, and other which are clear. Even in those times Kabul was a city with people from many different regions.
He says there were eleven or twelve languages spoken there, including Arabic, Persian, Turkish, Mongolian, Hindi, Afghani, Pashai, Parachi, Gabari, Baraki, and Lamghani. Finally, of course, Babur came to India, winning the battle of Panipat in 1526 and setting himself up as the emperor. Detailed descriptions of India follow in his memoirs, of the mountains, rivers, animals, plants, rulers, and everything he sees. Elephants were something new to him. He says, “One of the beasts is the elephant, which the Hindustanis call hathi. They are found up to the borderlands of Kalpi, and the further east one goes from there, the more wild elephants there are. Elephants are captured and brought from these regions. In Kara and Manikpur, thirty or forty villages gain their livelihood by capturing elephants.” He adds that the elephant is a huge and intelligent animal, understands what it is told and does what it is ordered to do. After descriptions of its height and its other aspects, he explains how it is used in war. A vast number of animals are described in detail, rhinoceros, nilgai, deer, monkeys, birds, aquatic animals, fish and even frogs. He says frogs are like frogs anywhere else, but the difference is they can run seven or eight yards across the surface of the water! Of course there are also accounts of battles and hunts, the post system between Agra and Kabul, what they ate and drank, and a lot else.
Many see Babur only as a conqueror, but he was a keen observer too, and his memoirs present a picture of the region from Farghana to India, a good source for the history of those times.
(A PhD in ancient Indian History, the writer lives in Dehradun and has authored more than ten books)