Jehangir’s grave crisis

Two-laning work on the Jammu-Poonch road is in full swing these days, with giant rock breakers and excavators throbbing night and day against the Himalayan limestone. Long tunnels are being blasted to make this far corner of land accessible.

Sometime ago, I was hurtling down to Jammu in the fastest car, north of Chenab, to catch a train when my eyes fell on an old wall, the colour of bronze. The car was already a few hundred yards away.

“What was that building?” I asked the driver, Ajjam Khan, who belonged to these parts. He was, as usual, all set on improving his own speed records on the home track, the Jammu-Poonch Grand Prix.

“Kya maloom, koi toota phoota khandhar hai (Can’t say, it’s an old derelict building),” he said, without an iota of interest.

“Turn back,” I told him. The tyres crunched on the gravel, and we turned back through the white-powdered cloud of the broken road. Snow-capped mountains, fresh white against blue, loomed on the horizon. Mughal Emperor Akbar had given it the status of an imperial road. A short side-road led us to a fortress on the banks of a river. Here, at Chingus Serai (Entrails Inn) lies the first grave of Akbar’s son, Emperor Jehangir.

In the summer of 1627, Emperor Jehangir had fallen ill during a visit to Srinagar. He died at Bhimber and his body was carried to this serai. Mehr Al Nisa (Nurjahan), his Persian queen consort, resorted to a charade so that she could maintain an undisturbed chain of succession to the throne till she could reach Lahore.

At this serai, Jehangir’s entrails were surgically removed to prevent the body from decomposing. His body was mounted on a ‘howda’ on a royal elephant for the journey to Lahore — to give an impression that the Emperor was still alive. Nurjahan, however, was eventually imprisoned by Prince Khurram (Shah Jahan), who ascended the throne.

Jehangir’s entrails were buried in a marble tomb in the central court of the serai, 23 km from Rajouri.

Spread over 4 acres, with 6-metre-high crenellated walls, the site remained in a state of neglect till about the mid-1990s, when it was restored due to the efforts of the local Brigade Commander, Brig KS Sindhu.

Out of 72 rooms in the restored serai, one has been left in its original state.

Though a small resting station, the Chingus serai, the fifth out of the 14 serais on the imperial Mughal Road from Gujrat (now in Pakistan) to Srinagar, bears the same design of medieval serais as can be found all the way from Agra to Istanbul.

Jehangir was a connoisseur of paintings. He took notable pride in the ability of his court painters like Bichitir. Jehangir had five copies of a King James’ portrait made by his court painters and invited Thomas Roe, who wrote about Jehangir’s golden chain of justice, to spot which was the original King James painting he had brought from England. Roe, who was the envoy to the Mughal court at Agra, was unable to spot his own king’s original painting, such was the sophisticated standard of Jehangir’s artists. A patron of architecture, Jehangir had ordered noted Persian architect Ali Mardan Khan to design the serai on this table land, next to the Sukhtao river, at Khanpur village.

Earlier known as Khanpur serai, the place got the unusual name of Chingus after the internment of Jehangir’s entrails. The royal pavilion towards the south inside the serai has a large garden, echoing the penchant of the Mughals for pleasure gardens.

Over the centuries, this serai has served as a police station, barracks, an Army camp and a military supply depot. Restored, it today lies in the embracing shadow of NH 14, about 12 5 km from Jammu.

Jehangir’s more resplendent and regal mausoleum today stands in Shahdara in Lahore, Pakistan.

This humble grave of the Emperor in the foothills of the Pir Panjal is only visited by courting couples, who can find privacy in one of its many caverns.

Plastic trash of disposable cups, plates, bottles and wrappers left  by picnickers defiles the place with casual freedom and disregard. It is hoped that the serai will come under the umbrella of the Archaeological Survey of India and get the salutary blue board, declaring it as a protected monument.