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THE COURTESAN AND THE KING
How did an illiterate twenty three year old Courtesan make headlines in the global press for months? How did she cause the downfall of a very powerful monarch?
Mumtaz Begum entered the employ of the Maharajah of Indore at age thirteen and soon became his favourite. But the gilded cage was not for Mumtaz. She tried to escape again and again. Like an animal on the run, she was hunted down and brought back. Till she met a man called Bawla and discovered love. This dealt a blow to the royal ego. And hundreds of the Royal employees were sent out to bring her back. Alive.
This narrative, based on intensive research in Newspapers, Police and Judicial archives of 1925 are the real events behind the brutal murder of Abdul Kadir Bawla on Malabar Hill, Bombay. It is about the abdication of the thirteenth Maharaja of Indore.
Mumtaz Begum entered the employ of the Maharajah of Indore at age thirteen and soon became his favourite. But the gilded cage was not for Mumtaz. She tried to escape again and again. Like an animal on the run, she was hunted down and brought back. Till she met a man called Bawla and discovered love. This dealt a blow to the royal ego. And hundreds of the Royal employees were sent out to bring her back. Alive.
This narrative, based on intensive research in Newspapers, Police and Judicial archives of 1925 are the real events behind the brutal murder of Abdul Kadir Bawla on Malabar Hill, Bombay. It is about the abdication of the thirteenth Maharaja of Indore.
262 pages, Kindle Edition
Published April 12, 2024
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December 20, 2025
Sadiqa Peerbhoy's fictionalized account of the Bawla murder case of 1925, when a wealthy Bombay corporator named Abdul Kadir Bawla was murdered while protecting his lover, Mumtaz, from being kidnapped. Mumtaz had been mistress/concubine/sex slave to Tukoji Rao Holkar, Maharaja of Indore, since the age of 13; when she ran away from Indore and came to Bombay, he sent his men to pursue her and bring her back—which eventually resulted in the murder of Bawla. The case was a famous one of the time, drawing attention even outside India.
Peerbhoy uses two narrative styles to tell the story: some chapters, especially the ones in the first half of the book, are told from the point of view of Mumtaz, as she—in 1982 an old woman, living forgotten in Bombay—looks back at her life. The other chapters offer a third-person account of the larger picture: the world of the tawaifs, the relations between the princely states and the Raj, and the attack and its aftermath.
Peerbhoy does a very good job of shining the spotlight on Mumtaz, to build the character of a woman who, from her childhood, was trained in music and dance, and groomed to entice men. From the age of 13 (when she is ‘hired’ by the Holkar) till 23 (or 22, or 24: the book is inconsistent on this count), when Bawla is murdered, Mumtaz’s life is reconstructed. Her feelings, her character, her sense of frustration and fear and a growing need for freedom from Holkar; the desperation which leads her to run away. The romance with Bawla, and where it might have led.
I enjoyed this book a lot. It is a vivid exploration of not just the life of a very interesting character, but also of other elements. Of India in the early 20th century, for one, with its schisms, its gaps between powerful/powerless, British/Indian, man/woman. Of the growing momentum of the freedom movement, and simultaneously the growing emancipation of women, which called for an end to the practice that had sustained the tawaifs for centuries. Of the virulence and unbridled power of people like Tukoji Rao Holkar (and, though she does not spell it out, the way sex was, and still is, used as a means of asserting power).
The book deserved to be better-edited. It’s not bad; Peerbhoy’s prose flows well, and she has obviously a very good command over the language. But there are typos here and there, and the occasional error that could have been weeded out by a good editor. Also: why on earth is Mumtaz again and again referred to as ‘illiterate’? She can even read English, and there is mention of her learning Persian. Possibly not very well-read, or with a very erratic education, but not illiterate.
Despite that, a very good book, and much recommended.
Peerbhoy uses two narrative styles to tell the story: some chapters, especially the ones in the first half of the book, are told from the point of view of Mumtaz, as she—in 1982 an old woman, living forgotten in Bombay—looks back at her life. The other chapters offer a third-person account of the larger picture: the world of the tawaifs, the relations between the princely states and the Raj, and the attack and its aftermath.
Peerbhoy does a very good job of shining the spotlight on Mumtaz, to build the character of a woman who, from her childhood, was trained in music and dance, and groomed to entice men. From the age of 13 (when she is ‘hired’ by the Holkar) till 23 (or 22, or 24: the book is inconsistent on this count), when Bawla is murdered, Mumtaz’s life is reconstructed. Her feelings, her character, her sense of frustration and fear and a growing need for freedom from Holkar; the desperation which leads her to run away. The romance with Bawla, and where it might have led.
I enjoyed this book a lot. It is a vivid exploration of not just the life of a very interesting character, but also of other elements. Of India in the early 20th century, for one, with its schisms, its gaps between powerful/powerless, British/Indian, man/woman. Of the growing momentum of the freedom movement, and simultaneously the growing emancipation of women, which called for an end to the practice that had sustained the tawaifs for centuries. Of the virulence and unbridled power of people like Tukoji Rao Holkar (and, though she does not spell it out, the way sex was, and still is, used as a means of asserting power).
The book deserved to be better-edited. It’s not bad; Peerbhoy’s prose flows well, and she has obviously a very good command over the language. But there are typos here and there, and the occasional error that could have been weeded out by a good editor. Also: why on earth is Mumtaz again and again referred to as ‘illiterate’? She can even read English, and there is mention of her learning Persian. Possibly not very well-read, or with a very erratic education, but not illiterate.
Despite that, a very good book, and much recommended.
Displaying 1 of 1 review