Reflections: Wine and Tulips in Kabul

“How can one forget the pleasures of those lands?”

• “How can one forget the pleasures of those lands?”
• Once he had got his affairs sorted in India, he wrote, he would “set out immediately.”

He never did

• He never did
• His health failed, and two years later he was dead, at 47
• He was buried at Agra, disinterred sometimes between 1539 and 1544 and buried again on a green hillside with a stream running through it

An inscription placed there by his great-great-grandson Shah Jahan, creator of the Taj Mahal, describes it as “this light garden of an angel king”

• An inscription placed there by his great-great-grandson Shah Jahan, creator of the Taj Mahal, describes it as “this light garden of an angel king”

And his grandson Akbar had his favorite place north of Kabul illustrated for his autobiography

• And his grandson Akbar had his favorite place north of Kabul illustrated for his autobiography
• For Akbar may have established an empire in India, but he longed for Afghanistan