This story is a historical epic that takes us in the mid 19th century (1856) when the East India Company wants to annex the independent kingdom of Awadh, the richest state in northern India. An insurgency is then declared in Lucknow, the capital of a thousand palaces. The exiled king Wajid Ali Shah, will be the Begum Hazrat Mahal, the fourth wife of the sovereign, who will then head to the insurgents. Helped Jal Lal, whom she falls in love, she fiercely oppose the English, who respect nothing, neither the customs nor the refined civilization, nor the peaceful coexistence of Muslims and Hindus to win thanks to their ruthless supremacy army.
The style is simple and fluid writing and this accentuates the historical veracity of the fate of the heroine, Hazrat Mahal, his courage, his will and abnegation that prefigure Gandhi's work, less than a century later (1948).
And shame on all colonial powers whatsoever.
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