Reflections: Wine and Tulips in Kabul

Many similar raids followed, and similar towers were built, to encourage submission to Babur’s authority

• Many similar raids followed, and similar towers were built, to encourage submission to Babur’s authority
• But it was not all fiscal policy and decapitation
• Babur enjoyed himself too
• He loved nature, and describes the local flora and fauna in exquisite detail

He developed a lifelong passion for gardening

• He developed a lifelong passion for gardening
• Unlike the despised Mongols, the Timurids were cultured
• Babur longed to be a great poet
• His poems are not, unfortunately, much good, but his advice on prose style is
• In a letter to his son Humayun, he complains about the obscurity of the young man’s vocabulary: “In future write without elaboration; use plain, clear words. It will be less trouble for you and for the reader.”

Poetry went with another taste Babur developed in Kabul: for wine

• Poetry went with another taste Babur developed in Kabul: for wine
• As a young man, he did not drink
• When on a visit to Herat his cosmopolitan cousins encouraged him to
• He would have tried it, but his prime minister, who was travelling with him, told the cousins to lay off
• During an 11-year gap in the narrative, he took to the bottle with an enthusiasm that in the modern age would have seen him shipped off to rehab

Babur’s life became a long series of parties interspersed with brief interludes of warfare and administration

• Babur’s life became a long series of parties interspersed with brief interludes of warfare and administration
• There was music, poetry, beauty – and vast quantities of alcohol
• Babur struggled with his habit – though not very hard
• He wrote that he was planning to give up in his 40th year, so “I was drinking to excess, now that there was less than a year left.”

At one party Babur saw a very surprising sight: a woman drinking

• At one party Babur saw a very surprising sight: a woman drinking
• She made a pass at him
• “I got rid of her by pretending to be drunk”
• Babur was not much interested in women
• He explains that he had married early, and neglected the girl
• He uses that to introduce the subject of his passion for a boy called Baburi whom he sees in the bazaar
• But shyness prevents him from approaching the boy
• Still poetry and parties were not enough