Mughal Empire

It isn't.

It's a land mass of which there are princely states, Mughal states, and so on.

But it becomes a sort of coherent whole under this one independent company, which is, you know, you think about it, that's absolutely bonkers.

I mean, that's like sort of, you know, I don't know, Jeff Bezos owning Uruguay or something.

So my, you know, obviously most people who go to India for the first time do the Taj Mahal and the kind of what they call the golden triangle in the North, which is very much, I describe to people the India in your head.

It's bright colors, it's energy, it's beautiful buildings, it's forts and palaces and Hot pink saris and, you know, the arid landscape and the Mughal kind of history.

And it's just beautiful, beautiful,

beautiful.

Like that's my face that's waiting in the arrival stall.

But they can't believe it when I say, they say, so who are we with us in India? It's like, well, I will be.

you know and that's when the people who don't know me and they're like oh oh that's amazing and and you get you know they get really excited about the fact that you're there but not only that when you're when you're a small company the hand-holding that you can give people on the way you know all the planning all the reading you can give them the background information hey you should see this or go to this or hey is anyone going to you know like over the weekend I was in Melbourne hey, if you're in Melbourne, go and see the Cartier exhibition because there's an amazing section about Mughal and Indian jewellery.

And like, you know, you're giving them all these tips and chances are half of them will be in Melbourne before, you know, we go.

It doesn't easily fit into canonical categories of style or the entire monument.

You can't say that it's a Mughal site or it's a Sultanate site.

So there was that kind of puzzle.

And so I sort of started exploring that.

And that's how the project came to be.

You've used the word puzzle, and that really comes through in your book as well, because as much as you've identified the different styles and the different influences and the different artisans that might have... that might have worked at Makli and the regions that they might have originated from, this articulation of it being a puzzle still is very much apparent in your book.

And the fact that you don't try to fit it into a single label, such as Timurid or even Mughal, or like you said, Sultanate, I think that's another layer within the book.

And I'm really appreciative of that fact as well.

So he's ecstatic with his vision of Kali.

And remember, he saw the statue thrown into the water by the Mughals.

And he said in a Kshatriya expression of valor, if I was here, mother, I would have defended, single-handedly, I would have defended this temple against the Mughals.

Yeah, Shanta, bring Sudeshwari, Hiranya Varneshwari.

I would love to worship her tonight.