THE MINIATURIST - Kunal Basu.

India Today, February 2003

Zil-I-Ullah, The Shadow of God. Insan-i-Kamil, The Most Perfect Man. Akbar. The undisputed heartthrob of Indian history, and most recently, the objet de l'amour of Bihzad, The Little Master, superlative artist, tortured genius, and humble protagonist of the time machine that is Kunal Basu’s second novel, The Miniaturist. With pure Persian ancestry, raised under the tutelage of his father, the chief artist of Akbar’s imperial workshop who hopes that his ‘Persian flower’ may take firm root in Mughal Hindustan, Bihzad is deprived of any education but that pertaining to painting. Not even allowed to study the Qu’ran lest its words distract him from perceiving the world in images, the illiterate Bihzad becomes as much a work of art as his miniatures.

As the boy grows into a man, the narrative evokes in startling visual, a time of unparalleled wealth and grandeur of the Mughal Empire in Hindustan, its accompanying greed, rapacity and astonishing cruelty to man and beast. While Akbar is weighed in gold and silver in Agra and Fatehpur Sikri, boiling oil sets aflame drunken elephants, and prisoner’s eyes are put out with hot irons. Meanwhile vivid secret paintings of Bihzad’s “shameless” love are stolen and exposed. He is banished from Hindustan by royal decree, and is forced to wander the world alone, hitching rides on caravans through hostile and dangerous terrain filled with robbers and warlords, dust storms and disease...

While The Miniaturist is a wonderful picaresque adventure and a classic coming-of-age extravaganza, it is more than that. Despite the homophobic provisions of the law of the time, the narrative suggests the celebration of homosexual love, particularly in the Sufi tradition, and while it is a historical joyride, it is also a timeless discourse on the nature of art - its function and it’s meaning in a mercenary world. “Everywhere he went in the markets and the rest houses, he heard the same tales over and over: treachery and might. Greed and surrender… He worried about artists condemned to find beauty in an ugly world.” Named after the artist Kamal-al-din Bihzad “the jewel of Tabriz and Herat” – Bihzad is forcefully precipitated into purity and idealism, only to be destroyed by the reality: markets and merchants, not love and beauty make the world go around.

As a penniless exile, against all odds, Bihzad whose “gift is his curse” reaches Hazari, a desert kingdom at the foot of the Hindukush, nestled between Arabia, Persia and Hindustan. Here he is taken in and protected by an old acquaintance, Halil Khan, the discarded head eunuch of Akbar’s harem. From then till the very end of the novel, everywhere he goes, Bihzad is rescued by the generosity of strangers and intensity of his friendships and while we watch Akbar’s famous transition from warrior to mystic and Mughal artists overtake their Persian masters, Behzad learns that the world is not so bad after all. “A friend’s embrace is sweeter than a century of prayer” say the wandering saints, and at the end of the novel as the pardoned artist stands vigil over the dying emperor, it’s hard to not to proclaim: Rumi has found his Shams! This novel is a delicious 16th century blend of Mongols, Turks, Persians, Afghans, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Sufis, wine, opium, friendship, lust and love with a fascinating homoerotic bouquet. A heady brew, definitely worth the calories.

© Tara Sahgal