When Wazir Khanam married Mirza Fakhru, the third heir apparent to the Mughal throne, on the cold evening of January 24, 1845, she probably thought this was the pinnacle of her success – and the last stop in her tumultuous journey.
The 31-year-old Khanam was already the mother of four children from various liaisons. But undaunted by her circumstances and confident of her beauty, Wazir bargained hard to secure the most advantageous terms for the marriage contract. It involved a dower of one lakh Shah Alami rupees, to be paid to her later.
Wazir, who composed ghazals under the pen name Zuhra or Venus, was welcomed into the Red Fort by Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar. She was elevated to the title of “Shaukat Mahal”, the splendour of the palace.
The match gave a boost to the rising poetic career of her teenage son, Nawab Mirza Dagh Dehlvi, who accompanied her to her new residence and was to be brought up and educated as the son of Mirza Fakhru.
By the time of Wazir’s death in 1879, three of her sons and one daughter had become well-regarded poets. She had moved between households and kingdoms. But despite her adventurous life and position in the household of the Mughal emperor,…
Source: The courtesan who became the begum of a Mughal prince
