The Clue is in the Couplet

By casting Ghalib as his crime novel’s sleuth, Raza Mir has hit on something enjoyable

- Aditya Sinha

MURDER AT THE MUSHAIRA

Raza Mir

ALEPH BOOK COMPANY

The last Mughal emperor’s poet laureate, Mirza Ghalib, using his grey cells like Hercule Poirot should be enough to conclusively recommend Murder at the Mushaira. Raza Mir has, in this engaging historical crime novel, hit the right note by capturing Ghalib’s eccentricity and channelising it towards Sherlockian mystery-solving. As with all great dramas, there is intrigue—the victim is a fellow (if lesser) poet who also spies for the British East India Company. Set in the week leading up to the 1857 war of Independence in Delhi, Ghalib has to race against time in order to help the rebellion against a harsh and villainous capitalist entity that has slowly seized power from a dissolute Mughal dynasty busy with wine and poetry—the very essentials, ironically, of Ghalib’s existence. The novel, barring minor hiccups, is well-written and comes with an emotionally overwhelming ending.

The murder happens after a mushaira at the haveli of Nawab Iftikhar Hasan, a profligate nobleman. The victim, discovered the next morning, is Sukhan Khairabadi, a generally disliked fellow whose wife, Faizunnisa Khatoon, entertains half of Shahjahanabad. Roshan Ara Begum’s daughter Syeda Zainab and the latter’s friend, Hyderi Begum Zutshi, a painter of Mughal miniatures, provide two sets of romantic intrigue.