History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c81.s4.28

v5.c81.s4.28

Poor Buland Akhtar! We can well sympathise with him in his distress. He had been brought up ever since his birth among the rude Rajput peasantry, without seeing any city or Court, or talking with any cultured person. He did not even know the polished Hindustani language. Aurangzib was shocked and his Court was amused to find a grandson of the Emperor who could speak only the Rajput patois (*Rajasthani boli*)! Buland Akhtar felt overcome with shyness like a country youth suddenly brought to a large and polished city. Moreover, he had been taught by his life among the Rathor nationalists to regard Aurangzib as a sort of demon and the relentless enemy of Akbar and Akbar's family; and now he was being torn away from the protectors of his boyhood and the comrades of his youth and delivered over to this very Aurangzib. He thought the wisest course under the circumstances not to open his lips at all but to pretend dumbness, like the clownish new son-in-law of the Bengali folktale.