On Immortality…

On the outskirts of Agra lies Sikandra. I managed a brief visit to it when I was returning to Delhi. Sikandra is where the tomb of King Akbar is. Overall, I daresay, it is even more imposing than Taj Mahal. However, unlike the Taj, it is in a very dilapidated state and one just has to imagine its grandeur from the decrepit structure.

The entry to the main mausoleum is through a small courtyard kinda room, which again has not been preserved very well. Anyways, from this courtyard, there is a narrow passage of maybe about 40 – 60 feet with a slightly negative gradient, sloping downwards. This passage culminates in medium sized room of about 40×40 feet.

The room is entirely bare, poorly lit from a derelict bulb (or tubelight, cannot remember exactly). At the centre of the room lies a cenotaph (kabra). There are some joss sticks lighted near it and some coins thrown over it.

I donot know, but whenever I think of it, I cannot but feel a sense of irony. For there had lain King Akbar, King Akbar the Great.

Our glorious history over the last 4000 years has produced a lot of kings, philosophers, mathematicians, poets, dramatists, economists and many such more people, par excellence. Talking about Kings, we would have probably several hundred or thousands of kings who would have ruled some part of our mainland in the last 4000 years.

However, most historians agree that there have been three great Kings – Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka and Akbar – Kings who have left such an impact on the nation that even after hundreds or thousands of years after their demise, their names are revered.

Unfortunately, the resting places of the Chandraupta Maurya & Ashoka are not known. So, in a sense, it was very special for me to visit Akbar’s tomb.

Herein lay King Akbar, the greatest ruler of his time with most of the Indian mainland under his conquest. A man who was fair, just, tolerant, and in his way a path-breaker. A man who was secular, founded a religion and much more. I have respected him even more when I had come to know that he had slept with more than 5000 women in his lifetime !

No, my purpose here is not to give an achievement chart of anybody. Akbar’s achievements are well documented already. It is just that when I was in that room, and saw him buried some feet beneath the ground, it just hit me. Is this it?

For all the achievements and the conquests, the sands of time erase everything. Naah, even before that death erases everything. Everything to dust. But am I missing something here?

For being probably the most powerful King in the world at that time, for ruling over thousands and thousands of square kms of land, for having a magnificent tomb built – what do you end up with? A    6 feet x2 feet piece of land where you are buried.

Let me also relate an anecdote. The previous night in Agra, post dinner, I had gone off to have a kulfi. The kulfi-walla was wearing the Anna topi (it was August and Anna fever was at a pitch high). I asked for a kulfi and he said he had run out of stock. A little gal came and asked for the kulfi and he told her the same thing. I could not resist myself and told him that he should stock more kulfis. And boy, he started off. He said he was satisfied by how much he was making and that was all about it. He said people buy 2 houses, 3 house, but show me how you can sleep in more than one house at the same time. Same for the cars. People have 2 cars, 3 cars, but show me how can you ride all at the same time.

The point he has making was there is only so much you need. Anyways, will there ever be any reconciliation between the desires and needs of a man. For needs are limited and for desires, there is no end.

Coming back to Akbar, lying in the ramshackle, room, I again think – is this what it is? All your genius and your riches and achievements to dust. Was there an angle of needs and desires? Or of greed? Was Akbar greedy or great or both? What drove him?

Is it really very relevant?

And then another thought also hits me. Sikandra probably gets one hundredth or even lesser visitors than Taj Mahal. And the irony could not be greater. For the men who lay there were very different. For one was a great builder of monuments & buildings and the other a great builder of an empire. Unfortunately, the empire builder is a forlorn figure today.

Then I think again and I realize that I am wrong. Akbar is not the dead- body lying in that bare room. It does not matter if visitors do not throng there. Akbar (or for that matter – Ashoka, Chandragupta Maurya and others) is manifestation of the changes that these people have effected – the ramifications of which are still felt in some form or the other. Or if I may say so, it is immortality that they have achieved with their actions.

And it really does not matter where you died. Or whether, there is a Samadhi made for you. What matters is what you are or were, and how you are remembered when you are no longer there. That is immortality.

And that is something to live and die for.