Zahiruddin Muhammed Babur, who lived between 1483 and 1530, was the founder of the Mughal dynasty in the Subcontinent.
In his autobiography, the Baburnama, he provides an extensive record his longing for a young boy. Unfortunately, this infatuation also coincided with his marriage. Though wed at the age of 17, to one Ayisheh Sultan Begum, he soon loses both his interest in and fondness for his wife. “Once every month or forty days,” the emperor recalls, “my mother, the khanim, drove me to her [Ayisheh] with all the severity of a quartermaster.”
“During this time there was a boy from the camp market named Baburi,” he writes.
Even his name was amazingly appropriate. I developed a strange inclination for him – rather I made myself miserable over him.
Before this experience I had never felt a desire for anyone, nor did I listen to talk of love and affection or speak of such things. At that time I used to compose single lines and couplets in Persian. I composed the following lines there:
‘May no one be so distraught and devastated by love as I;
May no beloved be so pitiless and careless as you.’
Occasionally Baburi came to me, but I was so bashful that I could not look him in the face, much less converse with him. In my excitement and agitation I could not thank him for coming, much less complain of his leaving. Who could bear to demand the ceremonies of fealty?
Another time, coming suddenly across the subject of his affections, Babur recalls being so embarrassed that he nearly went to pieces.
In the throes of love, in the foment of youth and madness, I wandered bareheaded and barefoot around the lanes and streets and through gardens and orchard, paying no attention to acquaintances and strangers, oblivious to self and others.
When I fell in love I became mad and crazed. I knew not this to be part of loving beauties.
Sometimes I went out alone like a madman to the hills and wilderness, sometimes I roamed through the orchards and lanes of town, neither walking nor sitting within my own volition, restless in going and staying.
I have no strength to go, no power to stay. You have snared us in this state, my heart.
In his autobiography, the Baburnama, he provides an extensive record his longing for a young boy. Unfortunately, this infatuation also coincided with his marriage. Though wed at the age of 17, to one Ayisheh Sultan Begum, he soon loses both his interest in and fondness for his wife. “Once every month or forty days,” the emperor recalls, “my mother, the khanim, drove me to her [Ayisheh] with all the severity of a quartermaster.”
“During this time there was a boy from the camp market named Baburi,” he writes.
Even his name was amazingly appropriate. I developed a strange inclination for him – rather I made myself miserable over him.
Before this experience I had never felt a desire for anyone, nor did I listen to talk of love and affection or speak of such things. At that time I used to compose single lines and couplets in Persian. I composed the following lines there:
‘May no one be so distraught and devastated by love as I;
May no beloved be so pitiless and careless as you.’
Occasionally Baburi came to me, but I was so bashful that I could not look him in the face, much less converse with him. In my excitement and agitation I could not thank him for coming, much less complain of his leaving. Who could bear to demand the ceremonies of fealty?
Another time, coming suddenly across the subject of his affections, Babur recalls being so embarrassed that he nearly went to pieces.
In the throes of love, in the foment of youth and madness, I wandered bareheaded and barefoot around the lanes and streets and through gardens and orchard, paying no attention to acquaintances and strangers, oblivious to self and others.
When I fell in love I became mad and crazed. I knew not this to be part of loving beauties.
Sometimes I went out alone like a madman to the hills and wilderness, sometimes I roamed through the orchards and lanes of town, neither walking nor sitting within my own volition, restless in going and staying.
I have no strength to go, no power to stay. You have snared us in this state, my heart.
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