When Emperor Akbar’s new Rajput bride Hira Kunwari’s brother Sujjamal dies in mysterious circumstances within days of the Agra wedding, the needle of suspicion points in many directions. After all, Sujjamal had no dearth of enemies in both the Amer and the Mughal courts, and even the Emperor, who is keen to preserve the Rajput-Mughal strategic alliance from the many perils that besiege it, has a motive for murder.
Resolving the case with dispatch and discretion acquires enormous socio-politico-militaristic significance; in addition, Akbar’s conjugal rights with his bereaved and suspicious neo-bride are at stake.
When the trusty old faithful Birbal is entrusted with the whodunnit mystery, he finds himself grappling with an impossible murder, the Mughal-era equivalent of a locked-room crime. All the circumstantial evidence indicates Sujjamal was alone in the Mughal garden when he was, in fact, murdered, with only two mango trees bearing mute witness to the ‘crime without a criminal’. Driven only by a strong sense of fairness, and committed to ensuring that there is no opportunistic miscarriage of justice in the rush to bring closure to the case, Birbal negotiates a minefield of court intrigues and works with Sherlockian sagacity and a keen sense of human nature that is worthy of a Father Brown, to publicly expose the murderer(s).
The climactic scene where Akbar’s favourite courtier masterfully builds his case with evidence makes for gripping kitabkhana drama.
Sharath Komarraju, whose earlier works in the genre of mythic crime fiction, particularly the Hastinapur series, won much critical acclaim, expands the frontiers of his ‘factional’ explorations with The Tree. Truth to tell, the plotline for this novel may have broadly worked in any another time-scale setting, but having framed it in a certain period, Komarraju does a slick job of embellishing the minutiae to lend it temporal verisimilitude. It’s easy to be borne aloft on the author’s light-winged prose and be transported to the Agra of Akbar’s time.
The novel’s denouement, it’s fair to say, is not calculated to endear it to easily-inflamed Rajput sensibilities in the era of Padmaavat. On that count, it’s a good thing the Karni Sena isn’t given to even the most rudimentary reading experiences. Who knows what casteist-communal aggrievements this breezy pulp fiction may have wrought…
The Tree Bears Witness: A Birbal Mystery; Sharath Komarraju, Westland, ₹350
