The next day we sent for Hakeem Alavi Khan who, we were told, had the healing powers of Jesus (upon Whom be peace). He was bent under the weight of years and his long white beard; he walked with the aid of a stick. He had the audacity that old men gain when they know they have not very long to live. He began reprimanding us. ‘If you do not learn to control your temper, your temper will control you.’ he said.

We agreed we were quick to temper. ‘Not only quick to anger, Your Majesty.’ retorted the hakeem, ‘but dangerously ill-tempered; anger is a species of madness. If not checked, it becomes incurable.’ His words were more bitter than his medicines. But after the braying of sycophants and flatterers, this man’s blunt speech sounded like the music of the lute. It was from his tongue that we heard of the havoc that had been caused in the city. We tried to explain to him that it was the people of Delhi who had first laid hands on our soldiers and we had but given them freedom to retaliate.

‘La haul valla quwwat!’ exclaimed the old hakeem. ‘Retaliate against women and children! Kill innocent people! Is that the kind of justice that prevails in your country?’

We did not take offence but let him speak on. Thereafter we sent for Hakeem Alavi Khan more to hear what he had to say than for his prescriptions. While he had the temerity to bring our shortcomings to our notice, he also gave us aphrodisiacs compounded of crushed pearls and Yemen honey. For although we were in robust health, we felt that the thirty-three ladies in our harem and now the young and ardent Noor Bai might strain our constitution.

We cannot recall whether it was the advice of Hakeem Alavi Khan or the ministrations of Noor Bai that changed our mind. We passed no sentences of death for fifteen days. We began to laugh and joke with our companions. We asked Qazmaruddin Khan, who was Chancellor of the Mughal Exchequer, if it was true that he had 850 women in his harem. When he admitted that it was so, we remarked, ‘You should take another hundred-and-fifty and become a mim-bashi (commander of one thousand).’ People laughed and laughed till tears came into their eyes. The joke was repeated to us many times by many flatterers.

We left the Mughal to his own counsel in the hope that he would have the good sense to make peshkash of his own accord. But Mohammed Shah’s skull was stuffed with cunning instead of commonsense. He tried to match our patience with guile. He had it conveyed to us that our two households should be linked by a marriage alliance. We gave our consent in the belief that he wanted an excuse to pay his dues in the from of dowry. Consequently our well-beloved son, Prince Nasrulla Mirza, the second fruit of our loins, was betrothed to the daughter of Yezdan Baksh, son of Kam Baksh, son of Emperor Aurangzeb.