216. Seeds of British India: England’s First Ambassador to the Mughal Court (Ep 2)

Summary

Empire Podcast Episode 216: Seeds of British India - England’s First Ambassador to the Mughal Court

Host: Goalhanger
Guests: William Dalrymple, Anita Arnand, Nandini Das
Release Date: December 31, 2024

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Introduction to the Embassy of Sir Thomas Roe

In Episode 216 of Empire, titled "Seeds of British India: England’s First Ambassador to the Mughal Court," William Dalrymple, Anita Arnand, and Nandini Das delve into the intricate beginnings of British diplomatic relations with the Mughal Empire. The discussion centers around Sir Thomas Roe, England’s inaugural ambassador to India, and his ambitious yet tumultuous mission to establish a foothold in one of the world’s most affluent and complex empires of the 17th century.

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Background: The Mughal Empire and England in the Early 1600s

Nandini Das sets the stage by contrasting the vastness and wealth of the Mughal Empire with the relatively modest stature of early 17th-century England. She notes, “The Mughal Empire controlled about one-third of the world's economy at this point, making England a mere speck in comparison” (11:15). This disparity underscores the formidable challenge Sir Thomas Roe faced in his diplomatic endeavors.

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Sir Thomas Roe: The Man Behind the Embassy

Anita Arnand introduces Sir Thomas Roe as an Essex native with strong connections but little prior success in diplomacy. Described as a “young man with very good connections” (09:02), Roe’s appointment was partly a result of his financial desperation following an unsuccessful expedition to find El Dorado. His personal struggles, including familial tensions and financial woes, add depth to his character, portraying him as both a flawed and determined figure.

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Initial Struggles and Cultural Missteps

Upon arriving in Surat, Roe and his entourage encounter immediate setbacks. William Dalrymple recounts the chaotic welcome, emphasizing the cultural chasm between the English and the Mughal courtiers:

“The embassy presented by the mural… was nothing like the reality. Roe was received not with awe but with customs inspections and disdain” (06:46).

Anita Arnand highlights Roe’s poor gifts—such as a virginal and a carriage— which failed to impress Jahangir:

“Roe unloads both of these things and he goes, oh, right. We need emergency artisans to repair both of them before I can give them or bring them anywhere near the Mughal emperor” (27:27).

These missteps reflect the broader issue of European diplomats' inability to adapt to Mughal customs, particularly in the realm of gift-giving and ceremonial behavior.

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Navigating Mughal Grandeur and European Humility

A significant theme in the episode is Roe’s evolving understanding of Mughal culture. Nandini Das contrasts Roe’s detailed accounts of Mughal opulence with Jahangir’s lack of mention of Roe in his memoirs (07:31). Anita Arnand explains how Roe learns to navigate the intricate protocols of the Mughal court:

“Roe absolutely sets the tone of the European shirtiness, shall we say, when encountering Mughal grandeur” (19:08).

The speakers discuss the rigid bowing customs required to please the Emperor, which Roe and his men found humiliating:

“One is that you touch your hand to your forehead while bowing down from your waist three times… or kneeling down and touching your forehead to the ground” (18:15).

Roe’s gradual adaptation to these customs marks a turning point in his embassy, moving from cultural insensitivity to a more respectful and strategic approach.

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Building Relationships: From Frustration to Understanding

Despite initial failures, Roe begins to form meaningful relationships within the Mughal court. Anita Arnand shares a pivotal moment when Roe and Jahangir bond over discussions about English beer:

“He falls to asking me questions how often I drank a day and how much and what in England, what beer was how made” (37:28).

William Dalrymple adds that Roe’s genuine interest and honest portrayal of himself helped bridge cultural gaps, fostering mutual respect and understanding. This interpersonal connection is crucial, as it humanizes both Roe and Jahangir, moving beyond initial prejudices and misunderstandings.

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The Legacy of Roe’s Embassy

The episode explores the long-term impact of Roe’s mission on British-Indian relations. Anita Arnand asserts that Roe’s detailed diaries provided invaluable insights for future English endeavors in India:

“The East India Company kept these diaries… they would pass it on to later voyagers” (48:12).

William Dalrymple reflects on how Roe’s emphasis on courtly behavior and understanding Mughal etiquette laid the groundwork for the East India Company’s eventual success:

“They become the real pros at this a century later” (52:16).

Roe’s embassy, despite its challenges, established essential diplomatic foundations and demonstrated the importance of cultural sensitivity and strategic alliances in imperial expansion.

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Conclusion: Lessons from History

In wrapping up, Nandini Das emphasizes Roe’s wisdom in diplomacy:

“It is better to lose time than temper in negotiation” (53:54).

The hosts acknowledge Roe’s complicated legacy—his initial failures tempered by his eventual successes and the enduring lessons his embassy offers for understanding early British imperialism in India.

William Dalrymple concludes:

“What fascinates me even more about Roe is the little interpersonal relationships he also builds up” (53:18).

This episode highlights the nuanced interplay of power, culture, and diplomacy that shaped the early seeds of British India.

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• William Dalrymple [07:46]: “Jahangir doesn't even bother mentioning him once in his memoir.”
• Anita Arnand [18:15]: “There are two options… bowing down from your waist three times… or kneeling down and touching your forehead to the ground.”
• Nandini Das [37:28]: “It is better to lose time than temper in negotiation.”
• William Dalrymple [52:16]: “They become the real pros at this a century later.”

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This comprehensive summary encapsulates the critical discussions and insights from Episode 216 of Empire, providing listeners with an in-depth understanding of Sir Thomas Roe’s pioneering yet challenging mission to the Mughal court, and its lasting implications on British-Indian relations.

Transcript

[William Dalrymple]

If you want access to bonus episodes reading lists for every series of Empire, a chat community, discounts for all the books mentioned in the week's podcast ad, free listening and a weekly newsletter, sign up to empire [e-mail].

[Anita Arnand]

This episode is brought to you by Google Gemini. With the Gemini app you can talk live and have a real time conversation with an AI assistant. It's great for all kinds of things.

[William Dalrymple]

Like if you want to practice for.

[Anita Arnand]

An upcoming interview, ask for advice on.

[Nandini Das]

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[Anita Arnand]

Or brainstorm creative ideas.

[Nandini Das]

And by the way, this script was actually read by Gemini. Download the Gemini app for iOS and Android today.

[Anita Arnand]

Must be 18 to use Gemini Live.

[Nandini Das]

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[Anita Arnand]

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[Nandini Das]

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[William Dalrymple]

You, I was just looking on ebay.

[Nandini Das]

Where I go for all kinds of things I love.

[William Dalrymple]

And there it was, that hologram trading card. One of the rarest, the last one I needed for my set.

[Anita Arnand]

Shiny like the designer handbag of my dreams. One of a kind. Ebay had it and now everyone's asking.

[William Dalrymple]

Ooh, where'd you get your windshield wipers? Ebay has all the parts that fit my car. No more annoying, just beautiful.

[Nandini Das]

Whatever you love, find it on ebay. Ebay things people love.

[William Dalrymple]

St. Stephen's Hole the echoing reception area of the Westminster Parliament is decorated with a series of sprawling 1920s murals entitled the Building of Britain. This sequence illustrates what was then regarded as the greatest turning points of British history, such as King Alfred's defeat of the Vikings. One of these murals, painted by William Rosenstein, contains a fresco that purports to show the beginning of British diplomatic relations with India. The painting shows Britain's first ambassador to India, Sir Thomas Rowe, being received by the Mughal emperor Jahangir in 1614. The image depicts a meeting of equals. Rowe is raffish, confident and self possessed in his hose and Jacobean breeches, standing before the emperor airily waving a letter from James I. He's wearing theatrical buckled shoes and a dashing cape and he looks Jahangir in the eye as he trumpet blows and courtiers bow. Jahangir looks Dazzled, as the caption puts it. Rose succeeds by his courtesy and firmness at the court of Ajmeer in laying the foundations of British influence in India.

[Nandini Das]

Don't do that ever again. Hello. Hello. Welcome to Empire.

[William Dalrymple]

That was very good.

[Nandini Das]

No, I mean silly.

[Anita Arnand]

Very.

[Nandini Das]

Bertie Worcester at the end. Don't do that again. It is Empire, in case you just thought you'd tuned into Edwardian Jackanori with me, Anita Arnan and me, William. Yes. Okay. So that's. I mean, that's something that you wrote a while ago about this. Look, this is a really exciting episode for us because we've already talked a little bit about Johangir and we sort of fell out in the last episode. Because we fell out.

[William Dalrymple]

We often disagree.

[Nandini Das]

Well, I mean, we basically fall out every day. But this, on this occasion, it was about the fact that you thought Jahangir was David Attenborough. David Attenborough and I thought he had the makings of a chainsaw killer. Hannibal Lecter and he was like a. Who like cutting things up for the sake of it anyway. Well, I don't know. We're gonna find out because there's somebody I trust implicitly who's on the program to sort this out.

[William Dalrymple]

We haven't grown up in the room.

[Nandini Das]

As when these episodes happen and we fall out, we decide to get somebody who we both respect to a duty.

[William Dalrymple]

Enormously in this case. Yeah.

[Nandini Das]

And then literally agree with me. It is. It is the fabulous Nandini Das the Magnificent author, runner up of this year's Wolfson Prize. You was robbed.

[William Dalrymple]

You was robbed. He was robbed.

[Nandini Das]

We have a fabulous courting India, which is about this moment that William just Bertie Worcester just through. Which is the start of a relationship between Britain and India that will then morph into what will eventually become the Raj. First of all, welcome Nandy. We haven't heard your voice yet. Hello. Hello. Hello. It is very early and we're very grateful that you're joining us, Anita.

[Anita Arnand]

Thank you. I'm still voiceless. I'm recovering from Will is reading.

[William Dalrymple]

She's gonna take an either side. I can see already.

[Nandini Das]

We'll never recover nothing. There'll be support groups, two against one, bringing around the country. You don't understand. We were at the Wolfson together. We're great mates. Now you're in big trouble.

[William Dalrymple]

I sadly was far away in Cochin when you were.

[Nandini Das]

Yeah.

[William Dalrymple]

I say it's one of the quieter parties, it's fair to say.

[Nandini Das]

Well, you weren't there, so it definitely was. It's a very esteemed Prize, for those of you who don't know the Wilson. It is for, you know, the glory of glories. It is the glory of glories, the world of writing history and the pride. I felt sort of, you know, there were, you know, two South Asian women. Women, first of all, women. Hello, Hello. What the short, great. And then sort of brown women. I was very, very delighted by it. Who were writing about Asia.

[William Dalrymple]

There were more South Asian women, you said, on the shortlist, than there were at the party.

[Nandini Das]

Thanks for sharing that tidbit, but yes, true story. Anyway, Nandini, so the story of courting India is the story of the said painting that William was talking about as well, which is this phenomenal relationship that develops between a man called Sir Thomas Roe and who is a diplomat.

[Anita Arnand]

That's right.

[Nandini Das]

And Jahangir, who is either the greatest brown Attenborough of our day or bit nuts. Anyway, so the great Mughal leader, first of all, just tell us why this relationship is the bedrock for everything that follows. I mean, it sounds like quite a tall claim.

[William Dalrymple]

We should also just maybe butt in here to say that you cut me off before I came to the climax of that reading, which is the point that that whole had gone on for.

[Anita Arnand]

A while, it's true.

[William Dalrymple]

But the whole thing hinged on the sentence, which was, nothing could have been further from the truth than the idea of the embassy presented by the mural. The fact was, and this is what Nandini tells us.

[Nandini Das]

Well, I just want to hear from her now.

[William Dalrymple]

Tell us, tell us, tells us. Was there anything that the British made up in that mural was not true?

[Anita Arnand]

Well, I kind of like to think of it as a before and after picture. And this is the after bit, you know, the photoshopped version of the story. So part of it is true. Ro did have a petition in hand, which he waved at Jahangir, and he did meet Jahangir. The awestruck look on Jahangir's face, perhaps not so much.

[Nandini Das]

Yeah, Because, I mean, the reason Ro is interesting is because he writes in minute. Well, like Jahangir does about every day that happens to him. And you certainly don't get the impression from Ro's writing and definitely not from Jahangir, that Jahangir was in awe at all and that Ro thought he was in awe at all.

[William Dalrymple]

And the lovely thing is that while, as you say, writes in great detail about everything that happens to him on this trip and every nuance of Jahangir's reaction to him and everything else, Jahangir doesn't even bother mentioning him. Once in his memoir.

[Anita Arnand]

Well, this is the most glorious thing and also really frustrating for anyone trying to write about these two people, because I'd have pages and pages of Ro writing in his diary about every little thing Jahangir did or wore. Jahangir's love of bling, Jahangir's love of his pet cranes, all kinds of stuff. And I turn to the same pages in Jahangir's memoirs. You could pretty much track them day by day. And all he's talking about is the mating habits of his pet cranes.

[Nandini Das]

Yes. He was obsessed with those signs at.

[Anita Arnand]

All of the English ambassador, like David.

[William Dalrymple]

Attenborough, as we say.

[Nandini Das]

First of all, because we're kind of leaping into the middle of a story where I think we ought to sketch out a little bit of who we're talking about. So, first of all, let's just talk about. Because clearly we're going to get to this relationship, which will be uneven and misreported in years to come. But tell us who we are talking about in the form of Thomas Roe, because we talked about Jahangir quite a lot in the last episode. Who is he? What's his origin story and why is he important?

[Anita Arnand]

Well, I guess you know, quite a few people, when Roe gets appointed as the first English ambassador to be formally sent out by the country, would have been asking exactly the same thing. Who the hell is he?

[Nandini Das]

Who is this guy?

[Anita Arnand]

Yeah, Very, very bluntly put. He's a young man with very good connections. Never goes wrong as a formula for success. He's best mates with Prince Henry, who's the crown prince, or had been the crown prince till he played too much tennis and then died.

[William Dalrymple]

We should perhaps explain at this point that we're talking about the 17th century rather than today, because it does sound.

[Anita Arnand]

See, I inhabit the 17th century, so I forget about that. Thank you, William. Yes. Okay, deep breaths. Let me set the scene. Elizabeth I died. James I of England, James VI of Scotland is on the throne. So this is around 1603. It takes the fairly early East India Company, this is a fledgling trading company, about 10 years to convince James that they really can't do without a man on the ground in India. If they need to bring home all the fancy stuff that English buyers want, you know, all the wool and gold and pearls and everything, and also the spices to spice up English food. James doesn't want to go down that route at first for a very, very simple reason, which is that he's completely broke at this point. I mean, he's having to sell Knighthoods to earn some money into the Crown's coffers. But ultimately they come to this deal around 1614, which is that the East India Company, this Neo trading company, which has only been in operation for about a little bit more than a decade at this point, is going to bankroll the embassy and James is simply going to rubber stamp it. And the reason for that is that Jahangir doesn't otherwise won't give the English the time of the day. They're too small an entity. You know, this tiny little island somewhere.

[William Dalrymple]

Can you just, in a second give us a little sketch of the relative size and importance. Importance of, on one hand, the Mughal Empire and on the other hand England in. What are we talking about, 1610, when the idea comes to a head.

[Anita Arnand]

Yeah. So, I mean, in terms of size, you know, England is a mere sport in comparison to the vast expanse of the Mughal Empire. 150 million square miles almost, and 150 million people. So it's a huge stretch.

[William Dalrymple]

A fifth of mankind, in fact, is ruled by the Moguls at this point, which is quite.

[Anita Arnand]

It is. But for the English, the main thing that interested them at this point, of course, is money. And there I had my favorite factoid, courtesy of one of the East India Company merchants on the ground, who's doing exactly that, trying to give the English in London a sense of the scale of the Mughal Empire compared to themselves. And he writes that the personal revenue of the Mughal Emperor, which is Jahangir at this point, is the equivalent of 54 million sterling pounds, which is about 10 times the entire national revenue of England.

[Nandini Das]

Great.

[Anita Arnand]

At this point.

[William Dalrymple]

That's a very good one.

[Anita Arnand]

Isn't that great?

[Nandini Das]

That's astonishing.

[Anita Arnand]

This is Jahangir's own income, not the country's. Just one additional income. Yeah.

[Nandini Das]

One thing you haven't mentioned about Thomas Rowe, and I won't hold it against you because I've come to like you, Nandini, is that Thomas Rowe was an Essex boy. I mean, I just. We very rarely get looking as an Essex girl to these claims to fame.

[William Dalrymple]

And is buried in said marshes to this day.

[Anita Arnand]

Yeah.

[Nandini Das]

But RO is interesting, as you say, because he has influence, but he also, I mean, the East India Company who have to bankroll his visit, they are quite pissed off about it because the prospect of having to pay for somebody to go and impress Jahangir's court and not be in their control, there's a slight tear going on here. They're not delighted that the King is getting involved and that Roe is going Out. Not initially anyway.

[Anita Arnand]

Well, actually, initially no one is delighted. And this is the greatest thing about it, because Roe, in the meantime has also stood for elections for the Parliament and managed to really annoy James the first as well by going against his tax raises in Parliament. So James doesn't particularly like him. The people within the East India Companies, there's a big faction who think he's just a young man with good connections, you know, a posh boy who knows the right people.

[Nandini Das]

A Nepo baby, as we would put it these days. Yes. What is he doing here?

[William Dalrymple]

Also, his sort of previous travels haven't been an enormous success either, have they?

[Anita Arnand]

Well, this is the only reason Ro agrees to this embassy, because he's sunk. He's basically sold off his estate to go on a wild goose chase to South America. Before this to look for El Dorado to Guiana. Yep. He's looking for the Golden Lands and he doesn't find it. He writes back an enormously grumbling letter. He's very good at writing grumbling letters, Anita. I mean, he's the master of the grumble.

[Nandini Das]

I revel in his griping. It's beautiful.

[William Dalrymple]

He does a good gripe.

[Nandini Das]

You're really there with him.

[Anita Arnand]

He's like, oh God, I felt his pain every step of the way. He made it known that he was suffering, but at that point, when he loses all his money, he's also in love. Yes, he's fallen in love, he's married someone and his mom in law hates him. So this is the ultimate kind of prod for any young man in the make to make a success of his next appointment. And that's what he does, to go.

[William Dalrymple]

And try and make his fortune. Yeah. So he's failed to find El Dorado and he's now going off to the richest ruler in the world in order to try and recoup his personal fortune, but also to turn around the fiasco of previous attempts to try and get into the Mogul Court. Tell us about Hawkins. The previous guy the Company had sent out, who wasn't an official diplomat, was just a kind of rollicking sea captain. What happened then?

[Anita Arnand]

Well, Hawkins is one in a string of figures, English merchants, adventurers, dare we say some of them are fairly close to being con men who end up at the Mughal court trying to get a trading license which they hopefully then can sell off to the East India Company or act as a third kind of contact between the East India Company and the Mughal Emperor. Hawkins can speak in Persian. He has a smattering of Arabic. He has a long kind of experience in trade and he reckons the way to get into Jehangir's good crisis is by just, you know, being good company. And he does that. He even gets to the stage where Jehangir marries him off to one of his wards from the harem. Hawkins tries to wheedle out of it by saying, I can only marry a Christian woman. And Jahangir goes, aha. As it happens, I do have one of those.

[William Dalrymple]

I've got a nice Armenian.

[Nandini Das]

Here's one I made earlier.

[Anita Arnand]

So Hawkins is a little bit stuck and he gets married. But the problem for Ro is that when he lands in Surat in his ship and he says, here I am, the English ambassador, newly sent by my wonderful king, people just laugh in his face because they go, yeah, seen one of those before.

[Nandini Das]

We've had one through here not so long ago. The thing about Hawkins and Hawkins is one of a number of ambassadors and let's just talk about that before we get onto Ro's start in this new career of trying to woo Jahangir. It isn't easy, first of all, to woo Jahangir because, you know, Hawkins is light by Jahangir. Jahangir gives him not only an Armenian girl, but a title. He gives him a title of Khan. So, you know, there's some warmth. But he doesn't get those trade deals that he wants. And of him, I think this is a sort of paraphrase from Rowe's account of Hawkins failure. He says Hawkins offended the customs of the court by his English pride, unwilling to humble himself as required by their ceremonies. And there is a sort of a theme of that with not just the English pitching it wrong, but others as well. Somebody that we've talked about, Willie, you and I. Jean Baptiste Tavernier, who is also you know, sort of presents himself.

[William Dalrymple]

To the court, a fancy Frenchman.

[Nandini Das]

Fancy Frenchman who sees the Koh I Noor diamond and is, you know, our first sort of reporter of the Koh I Noor Diamonds existence. But he's also kind of slightly snooty. They've come to ask for something from the richest country in the world. But he says to Vernier in his the Mughals love ceremonies, but to us it's wasteful and ridiculous. So there is this sort of paternalism, if not snottery, about the Mughals from a lot of the, you know, the Portuguese are the same Django's court chronicler says about the Portuguese ambassador. It turns out the Portuguese ambassador behaved as if he were a sovereign himself. Such impudence was intolerable. So the Europeans behaved high handedly before Roe and the Mughals despised them for it. No wonder when Roe turns up going, ta da, everyone's like, yeah.

[Anita Arnand]

And well, partly the problem there is that the grammar book that the Europeans are following tend to believe that ambassadors particularly are reflections of their monarch. They're like little suns reflecting the bigger sun in a way. So if they debase themselves in front of, if they do a Kurnish or a taslim, the elaborate courtly bows that Mughal custom demands, it means their monarch in absentia is lowering themselves in front of this Eastern monarch.

[Nandini Das]

Describe that bow. So, I mean, I know what you're talking about, but just for those who haven't, what is this elaborate bow? What does one do to please a Mughal?

[Anita Arnand]

Well, there are two options at this point. One is that you touch your hand to your forehead while bowing down from your waist three times as you're approaching, and the other is really kneeling down and touching your forehead to the ground in front of the Emperor. Neither is an acceptable option for any of these European diplomats. The thing though is that the Portuguese really understand the power of the Mughals in a way that the later people post Roe don't quite, in a sense. And that's why Ro is so important, because he being the king of grump, he absolutely sets the tone of the European shirtiness, shall we say, when encountering Mughal grandeur and everyone else after him follows suit.

[William Dalrymple]

And we should say, shouldn't we, that the Mughal attitude to Europeans is not particularly war. Akbar calls the European immigrants in India an assemblage of savages.

[Anita Arnand]

Akbar is very charitable about them. He tells his court chronicler, you know, these people are here, what can we do? It is our duty to educate these savages. Yeah, roundabout's fair play. This is the same rhetoric that will continue within European circles for a while.

[Nandini Das]

Yeah. So no, I mean, this doesn't bode well for a successful mission. And indeed, when Ro first reaches Surat.

[William Dalrymple]

Yeah, it doesn't go well in Surat.

[Nandini Das]

I mean, it's just bad, bad, bad. So am I right in saying the Mughals had issued an edict saying, don't sell anything to English people without permission, especially not booze, because you know what they're like.

[Anita Arnand]

Yes. And that's partly because some of the men from the East India Company get drunk and go on a rampage. Wine is cheap.

[William Dalrymple]

Including Rose cook, doesn't he? Rose Cook gets sort of arrested for doing sort of soccer hooligan stuff in the streets of Surat.

[Anita Arnand]

Pretty much within 24 hours, hours after landing. I mean, in a way, I can understand why they would go so wild. English ships are not the best things to travel in in this period. And you're stuck in that box, that rotting, wooden, creaking box where rats eat at your toes if you lie to still for about eight months.

[Nandini Das]

I mean, I'd need to drink. I'm not joking. I mean, I can understand this.

[Anita Arnand]

You land in ajmer and you need a drink. But they go berserk, most of them. Rose Cook gets drunk and chooses to have a spat in the middle of the road with the governor's brother.

[William Dalrymple]

Not the right man to pick a fight with in any way.

[Anita Arnand]

Not at all. But the governor's brother is quite, you know, you can sense from the description, and this is why rose descriptions and the contemporary descriptions are so handy, because they're so kind of detailed. You can sense from the description that the governor's brother is going, here we go, there's another drunk European on the street. So he. This man calls out names in proper football hooligan style at this Indian nobleman, the governor's brother.

[William Dalrymple]

Not just anyone.

[Anita Arnand]

The nobleman just turns on his horse and says, kyakha, kyaketa.

[Nandini Das]

I know. The cook sort of takes it. What do you say to me? Which just sort of ran kyakheta means the governor's brother is saying, what is he saying? Yes, Kirk's going, what did you say to me? And it's just all completely. I mean, it's about to sort of devolve into some kind of, you know, punch up on the terraces.

[Anita Arnand]

Well, also, I mean, Roe goes there thinking that as the English ambassador, he's going to be greeted with a red carpet and trumpets. Instead, he gets a customs inspection.

[Nandini Das]

Yes.

[Anita Arnand]

I mean, the poor man, his dreams are dashed to the ground and he's.

[Nandini Das]

Sick as a dog. I mean, you mentioned the crossing. Roe really suffers and is really il. When he arrives in s. He's not in the greatest of moods because he's not being treated very well, but he's also feeling sick. I mean, really very sick. And then he has an additional thing to deal with, people who want to search his pockets and his crew and a cook who's frankly gone berserk and created a diplomatic incident within 24 hours.

[Anita Arnand]

Don't forget that he also has a chaplain who has a habit of getting really drunk. So not good for the moral health of the crew either. I mean, drink remains a theme throughout Rose Embassy.

[William Dalrymple]

This is Terry, who also writes in the kind of all this no, this.

[Anita Arnand]

Is the chaplain before Terry, right?

[William Dalrymple]

They go through chaplains like rock bands go through drummers.

[Nandini Das]

I mean, this is a rather inauspicious beginning to what you know is meant to be a beautiful, beautiful relationship, a lucrative relationship. But you've got the Mughals sizing up Ro and his men, not thinking much of them and you know, Ro having to cool his heels because he's not getting the invitation into the heart of the empire as he expected to, and also feeling rotten. But he nevertheless finally gets invited to go to Ajmer where he will perhaps get a glimpse of Jahangir himself. Join us after the break when we find out what happens.

[William Dalrymple]

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[Anita Arnand]

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[William Dalrymple]

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[Nandini Das]

Welcome back. So just before the break we left you with Ro getting a little bit sort of fed up and frustrated and irritable and waiting and waiting for this letter to come that will invite him to make this two month trip from Suret to Ajmer. It's sort of 600 miles, pretty hostile territory. I mean Nandini, in your book you describe it very, very well. It's dangerous country. Some of this before he can get to Ajmer. And a man who is sick after the ship. His health doesn't improve much on this journey, does it?

[Anita Arnand]

It doesn't. And Ro's health, frankly doesn't improve throughout his entire embassy. He's a man made of dysentery by the end. And, boy, does he tell us all about it.

[William Dalrymple]

Too much detail at every point.

[Nandini Das]

I love it. I love that we know the inner workings of his gut and everything else. This is such brilliant sort of primary source material. It's thrilling to have somebody who. You can just imagine who's talking about their last movement being catastrophic, because you can trust them.

[William Dalrymple]

To this day, when you meet any English traveler in India, the first thing they'll talk about is their gut movements. And do you use Lottamin or. What's your Imodium?

[Nandini Das]

No, but in all seriousness, I mean, do you not find that if somebody is willing to be that frank about things that are that ick, you can kind of trust a lot of what they write down because it's contemporaneous and in that spirit written.

[Anita Arnand]

It is. And you get such a good sense of Rowe's personal voice from his letters. I have to admit, I didn't like to like the man, but I kind of sympathize with him. He agonizes about his cut movements. He doesn't have enough good wine, his mum doesn't write to him. All kinds of stuff.

[William Dalrymple]

And most of all. And what's becoming increasingly clear, is going to be a big problem. He's got crappy presence.

[Nandini Das]

Oh, I love this so much. He is constantly worrying about it and.

[William Dalrymple]

He blames the company for making him look like a pauper.

[Anita Arnand]

This whole problem started right back in London, where the East India Company got all the advice it needed from its subordinates in India and then promptly ignored all of it. All of it. So they said to them, the East India Company merchants, or as they were called, the Factors, wrote to them and said, whatever you do, please do not send another musical organ.

[Nandini Das]

We're fine for musical organs, thanks.

[William Dalrymple]

Guess what?

[Nandini Das]

We've got six. They sent a musical organ underneath. That's what they sent.

[William Dalrymple]

A musical organ and a virginal, which is what a kind of harpsichord is.

[Anita Arnand]

Yes. It's a very early version of. If you think about the piano, take off the back and have a single set of strings. It kind of comes close to a virginal, but it's also very, very delicate. Not the kind of thing that you soak in seawater in a ship's hold.

[Nandini Das]

For eight months, drag across 600 miles to Ajmer on the back of a camel. I mean, it's just not. It's.

[William Dalrymple]

It turns like rubbish at the end of it.

[Anita Arnand]

Well, particularly because there's no one there who can play it.

[Nandini Das]

Nobody can play it. They've already seen it. And poor Thomas Rowe is in absolute knots going, oh, God, I'm gonna have to meet him. It's not going well. All I've got is this ruddy virgin.

[Anita Arnand]

Anita, they sent a second present. Yes. All wasn't lost.

[Nandini Das]

Right.

[Anita Arnand]

Ro had a second present. A Showstopper. A carriage. This is really fashionable.

[William Dalrymple]

The former Lord Mayor of London's carriage, no less, wasn't it?

[Anita Arnand]

Well, it was. The Lord Mayor is commissioned, but it was newly commissioned for this embassy. And in a way, this would have gone down well. They had a track record for this. So Thomas Smythe, who was the governor of the East India Company, had taken a carriage to the Russian czar. In fact, that carriage still exists and was used till the 1980s, I think, for stealing processions. Yeah.

[Nandini Das]

Gosh.

[Anita Arnand]

It's now in the Kremlin, which is why I couldn't get permission to use an image in the book, but blocked by Putin personally. But again, the problem was that this was made of wood and it's creaky and it has velvet. It's, you know. Ro unloads both of these things and he goes, oh, right. We need emergency artisans to repair both of them before I can give them or bring them anywhere near the Mughal emperor. And the case isn't helped by the. The Governor of Surat, who was the first person to look at the presence, making snarky comments about the English king sending a pipe and a cart.

[William Dalrymple]

That's just so great.

[Nandini Das]

I mean, poor Row and Rowe agonises so frequently about, is he gonna like it? Of course he's not gonna like it. It's a crap present. But he might like it. No, he's not gonna like it. It's a really crap present. But he might. I mean, he could like it. No, he's not gonna like it. It just goes on and on and on. And the thing is, the presents are important because what the ambassador presents is the tone that will be. I mean, describe some. Like the Persian embassy, for example, the gifts exchange with the Persian embassy and Jahangir. Describe that.

[William Dalrymple]

They've got some proper meaning.

[Nandini Das]

They didn't bring a virginal. What did they bring?

[Anita Arnand]

This is the thing. Ro has to stand there. You have to imagine the scene. So this is the Darbar of Jahangir with all its bling, the golden canopies, the elephants, the works, the trumpets. And then Ro is standing there with his petition on the side of the Lalbari, the red rope that separates the commoners from the Emperor's body. And he has to wait there to present his gifts while the persians bring in 30 elephants dressed in gold and silver, with enormous kind of platters of gold, silver and silk and carpets. Oh, God. Carried by these said 30 elephants. So he has to wait there, like, while this kind of goods train goes past him. And then he has to bring out his pipe and cart.

[Nandini Das]

Hello.

[William Dalrymple]

And he also has a pair of hunting doggies. He's just got two dogs rather than 30 elephants. He's got two arif wolfhounds that he's brought with.

[Anita Arnand]

Well, Jahangir was rather pleased with hunting dogs because he's hunting mad, like James the First himself. So that's not bad. But the problem was that RO did not start off with two. He started off with a whole troop of hunting dogs. But, you know, again, 8 1c voyage.

[Nandini Das]

Dogs in a shop just don't like it either. Dogs and virginals don't like it. But the other thing is that, you know, what it's very interesting about RO is that he knows and he is acutely aware. Like any of us who've turned up with a bottle of Baby Sham to a party where everyone else is bringing verve Clicquot. He's sort of like, I'll just put it on the sideboard where no one will notice. Where's mine? He's sort of squirming in embarrassment and cursing the East India Company.

[Anita Arnand]

I think this is where you feel for Ro, because he takes his job so seriously. He is very honest.

[Nandini Das]

Yes. But he also knows he understands the Mughals better than any of the others, and he doesn't. What's notable is that unlike all of the other ambassadors I mentioned before, he does not once look down on them. You know, right from the start, he writes that this is overwhelming, this opulence is overwhelming. He writes quite in praise of Jahangir and what he's like and his person and his sort of, you know, nobility and how he. I mean, just speak to that for a moment, because it is very different to the accounts that have hitherto reached Britain of, you know, these weirdos, these savages. You know, when they have bling, it's over the top and they're all disparaging. Ro doesn't react that way.

[Anita Arnand]

Well, RO does and doesn't. In a way, RO is very, very torn.

[William Dalrymple]

Yes. There's quite a lot of criticism in there, isn't there?

[Anita Arnand]

Yeah, he is very torn.

[William Dalrymple]

He likes the bling, but he's not impressed by other Things, Yes.

[Anita Arnand]

What happens with most of these very early travelers is that they absolutely don't have that sense of a power difference that we have post empire. In a sense they are deeply conscious that the Mughal empire controls about one third of the world's economy at this point. It's hugely powerful and England, Mulk Inglistan is a tiny dot which is barely on its horizons and the Portuguese have.

[William Dalrymple]

Been busy talking the English down just to add to the absolutely saying it's a meaningful, an impoverished nation.

[Anita Arnand]

The Portuguese have about an 80 odd years history already in India at this period. So the English are newcomers. So what happens in not just Rose account, but in Hawkins and all the other early accounts is this weird push and pull mixture of absolute awe on the one hand because they're awed by the grandeur of the Mughals, but also an immediate knee jerk response to try to cut that awe down to size. So just to give you an example.

[Nandini Das]

Yeah, go on.

[Anita Arnand]

Ro talks about in one of the very early moments when he's gone to the Darbar, he talks about the grandeur, he talks about the emeralds the size of pigeon eggs. He talks about Jahangir's habit of wearing a different set of jewels every day. He talks about the diamonds on Jahangir's shoes which would buy your country, that kind of stuff. And then he says, well, it's all very well, but isn't this all a bit naff? I mean it's like a newly rich London merchant's wife who puts her fancy shoes in the dresser alongside her Chinese porcelain so that people can see how rich she is.

[Nandini Das]

I take what you're saying, but because it's so sort of nakedly stupid, you know, it's like, you know, you know, the most beautiful woman in the world turns up. Yeah, but you know, I think she's got too much sticker. Look at that colour. I mean, I was thinking more of which sort of struck me as different, particularly from Hawkins, I suppose, comparing it to. He talks about Jahangir and he says he's a man to be won by outward ceremonies and pompous more than solid arguments. The customs of these people, he says about the cultural difference, you know, the customs of these people are not to be despised for by then we must trade or not at all, you know. So he sort of talks in that way rather than writing back going, do you know what these weirdos do here? Which was seen to be what the ambassadorial missives were before.

[William Dalrymple]

And also he's aware of his own poverty compared to The Moguls. He knows how shabby he is. And then there's that moment when the worst of all the presents he's been given are these wooded animals. And the emperor says they look ridiculous and ill shaped and of no beauty other than a lump of wood. Oh, dear.

[Anita Arnand]

He's so conscious. I think what is really interesting about Rowe's account is that he is so prepared not to like Jahangir because he knows he's a man. He's seen all the films, basically, or rather the theater of the period. He's fully prepared to find a Tamburlaine. Christopher Marlowe writes this play about an Eastern tyrant, Tamburlaine, who crushes all the other kings of the world and then dies at the end of his play a miserable death. But let's forget that bit. So Ro is fully prepared to find an Eastern tyrant. And then he goes to India. He stays there for these four years, hanging on to the margins of the court. And slowly he. He gets to know Jahangir as a human being. So by the end of his journal, there's this wonderful moment where he talks about the heart of the king. And I find that really touching because he is a bystander at this point in the giant drama that is unfolding in Jahangir's court. All the kind of factional infighting going on within the family. And Ro understands Jahangir's own pain in not being able to bring that family together in a way. And he says, you know, all these people are fighting around him. No one understands the heart of the king in this matter, which I find really touching. He also talks about Jahangir's, you know, sheer pleasure in talking to people about Jahangir's generosity, his ability to talk to Hindu hermits and sense of humor, you know, they bond about over the making of English beer.

[William Dalrymple]

That's right. There's a lovely. Can I read the passage? So with many passages of jests, mirth and brags, B R A G G S braggies concerning the arts of his country, he fell to asking me questions how often I drank a day and how much and what what in England, what beer was how made and whether I could make it here. So he's going to try a good pint of best bitter. In all of which I satisfied his great demands of state. All that Rowe wants to talk about is trading privileges and getting a place at the table. And all Jahangir's interested in is what people are drinking down at the pub in Essex.

[Nandini Das]

But what's really admirable I think about Ro is that he watches and he doesn't judge. He tries to. Immediately tries to work him out. He tries to work out Jehangir like, you know, with all his crappy presence that he's always lamenting, oh, the bloody East India Company, they're giving me another piece of crap to give it. I've got to think of something. He starts supplementing it with his own things. You know, he starts giving away, like, little amulets that he has that he thinks, and pictures of value. But they think, you know, they might amuse Jahangir because he's starting to work out that this is a man who has the world's wealth. So sometimes little sort of, you know, tchotchkes which are different will amuse him. And he's right, isn't he?

[Anita Arnand]

Absolutely. I mean, he takes a tactical decision where he actually writes to the East India Company, not that they listen to him saying, you know, don't try to compete with the Persians and the Rajputs in wealth, because, frankly, you're not going to be able to do that. Just send someone with 200 quid to the German tech fairs, essentially, to the German fairs, and buy some curiosities, because that's what Jahangir is interested in. And when they don't do that, Poirot has to delve into his own suitcases and take out stuff that he thinks vaguely that Jahangir might like, and he constructs these things. So there's one point during a New Year's festival when everyone gives gifts to the emperor and the emperor gives gifts back. Rou has run out of presents by that stage. He's even given his own gloves away. So he takes a little box that he had bought in Ajmer and puts a little jewel inside, an emerald, a white emerald that he had bought in South America and got carved in London inside it. So it becomes a little box within a box within a box. And Cihangir is quite, you know, pleased with that little curiosity, in a sense. But it is a struggle for Ro all the way through. The lifesaver for him is art really.

[William Dalrymple]

His picture of his girlfriend. Yes, his little miniature.

[Anita Arnand]

One thing that the English did really well in this period was not art on a grand scale, but little, intimate miniature portraits. And they're easy to carry. They survive terrible weather, frankly. So Ro has quite a few of those. And he takes this picture of a woman which. And I love the fact that Rowe's Victorian editor has a little note saying, well, this must be a picture of his wife.

[Nandini Das]

Yes. May well not have been, but it's.

[Anita Arnand]

Probably the picture of a painting of a woman he had fallen in love with who had died very, very young that he had taken with him. And he has a little bet with Jahangir about the relative merits of Indian Artists vs English Artists.

[William Dalrymple]

Jahangir says he can copy it, doesn't he? And that Ro won't be able to tell the difference.

[Anita Arnand]

Yeah. So Jahangir places a bet, says, look, I'll get my best man to make multiple copies. If you can pick out your original from the copies, you can have all of them. And if you can't, then you have to give my best painter, and I suspect it's probably Abul Hassan. You have to give him some reward suitable for his standing in court.

[Nandini Das]

Would you like a virginal?

[Anita Arnand]

No one would like that. Virginal.

[Nandini Das]

Okay. Copper eight in the back.

[Anita Arnand]

Oh, the thing that I forgot to say earlier, not about the virginal, but about the carriage, is Jahangir's politeness. I mean, he's the perfect party host, really. He says politely, thank you. Thank you very much for this carriage, which is falling to bits, and then completely remakes it. So Ro, the next time he goes.

[Nandini Das]

To court, he gives it a new.

[William Dalrymple]

Trim inside, doesn't he? He's fine with the woodwork, but he doesn't like the trim. He doesn't like the seats inside.

[Anita Arnand]

Willy. He didn't even like the nails used. So he replaces all the English iron nails with gold and silver nails.

[Nandini Das]

Oh, my God, it's so brilliant. So he basically replaces everything and says, thank you for your lovely gift. It's gorgeous.

[Anita Arnand]

And then he copies. He makes an exact copy for Noor Jahan as well.

[Nandini Das]

Oh, really? You didn't say. Did he manage to pick out the right painting or not? Or did he have to give a present over to the best painter?

[Anita Arnand]

There are two stories to this. So Rose says that he didn't. His chaplain, Edward Terry, says, well, the ambassador actually did, but he pretended he didn't.

[Nandini Das]

Oh, anyone. Diplomat.

[Anita Arnand]

He lost the bet.

[Nandini Das]

Okay, he lost the bet. Which would have pleased Jahangir.

[Anita Arnand]

No, Rose says that Jahangir was so pleased, he craked like a Northern man.

[Nandini Das]

Well, that's a lot of craking, as we know. Yeah.

[William Dalrymple]

Okay, can I just read? There's a wonderful description. At the peak of the embassy, when they go to Mandu, which is one of my favorite places in India, this wonderful mountaintop in Madhya Pradesh. And it's at this point that I think Ro is most dazzled. And he suddenly realizes quite how rich, quite how magnificent, quite how he can never, ever, ever even hope to begin to equal one of the courtiers, never mind one of the main Mughal nobles. He said, even if I squandered five years of pay, it would not have furnished me with one indifferent suit comparable to the others around the Emperor. He spent five years buying the right bling. He couldn't even look like one of the serving boys, he's saying. And he looks with envy at his English coachman who came with the coach and who defects to Mogul service and is raised with great estate to very fine clothes and a great pension. And then he just describes this incredible ceremony, which is just one of the great moments of his account. He says the celebrations were held in a very large and beautiful garden, the square within all water, on all sides, flowers and trees in the midst of pinnacle where were prepared scales of massy gold in which the Emperor would be weighed against jewels. Here attended the nobility all round it on carpets until the king came, who at least appeared clothed, or at least laden with diamonds, rubies, pearls and other precious vanities so great, so glorious. His head, neck, breast, arms, all above the elbows at the wrists, his fingers, each one at least two or three rings are fettered with chains of diamonds, rubies as great as walnuts, some greater. And pearls such as mine eyes were amazed at in jewels, which is one of his felicities. He is the treasury of the world, buying all that comes and heaping rich stones as if he would rather build with them than wear them. So they've taken on quite a guy.

[Nandini Das]

Yeah. We haven't really said whether all of, you know, Rose wiliness has managed to yield anything. Does he manage to get stuff from Jahangir that he needs? I mean, he sort of comes armed with these sort of bits of paper with his signature, which, you know, that's not how moguls do business. But does he get the treaties that he's after? Does he manage to turn the tide of the Portuguese influence? Because certainly he does confront Django's son Khoram about it, who's not really giving him the time of day. And he says, well, you know, I think you might be under the spell of the Portuguese, if you don't mind me saying. I mean, he does push back a bit, doesn't he?

[Anita Arnand]

He does push back. I mean, the problem with RO at this point is that although the East India Company had just asked him to get a trading license, essentially this is a license that would allow them to have a permanent base in Surat so that they could stock up throughout the year at low periods of price and then send goods home. What Ro thought he would want to achieve is just kicking the Portuguese out, completely kicking out the Catholic competitors. So he takes on a little bit more than he had to, really, and he doesn't get that. And you're absolutely right. The main problem, the main thorn in Ro's side throughout is Kurum, who will later become the emperor. Shah Jahan.

[Nandini Das]

Shah Jahan. Right, right, right, right.

[Anita Arnand]

And Ro is wonderful. I mean, I think it's really astonishing, the level of insight we get into this man. Shah Jahan later is wonderful at creating his own man it his own history in a sense. But from Ro we get a really interesting insight into the young man. He was this very uptight, very quiet, extremely private person. Rou doesn't like this at all. Compared to Jahangir, this is worlds apart. You know, Jehangir is affable and ready to joke and laugh and drink. Khurram did not drink till this point at all. He kept himself to himself. He is extremely suspicious of these new Europeans. And what he does throughout is he keeps playing the Portuguese and the English off against each other. He knows absolutely well that he can't let one European power monopolize the seas. The Portuguese at this point essentially have a kind of cartel, a protection racket. They basically tell the Mughals, if you give us money, we are not going to rob your ship when they go on Red Sea trade, essentially, or to the Hajj. Rou tries to say, if you give us the exclusive trading license we want, we'll protect you from the Portuguese. Hurram is having none of that. He keeps playing the two off against each other and Rou doesn't quite understand that. He doesn't get that. For him, as a Protestant Englishman, he's convinced that he has full rights to this trade. And of course, the Catholics are not to be trusted. He doesn't see why the Mughals would.

[William Dalrymple]

Want to play Jesuits. He talks about, doesn't he?

[Anita Arnand]

Yeah, exactly.

[Nandini Das]

You're right. I mean, it is interesting to have that insight of the man who will become the known and remembered and pretty much only pegged with the construction of the Taj Mahal. And we'll come to that later. I mean, what is the legacy? Because we're coming to the end of our time together. What is the legacy of this first embassy to India?

[William Dalrymple]

And what does he actually get at the end of it, after all this effort, after all these hunting dogs and carriages and virginals, what does he get to show his bosses back home?

[Anita Arnand]

Well, the one thing that he should have got, really, and wanted to get was Noor Jahan's offer. Noorjahan, actually, who's Jahangir's favorite 20th wife, says to him, look, stop dealing with Khurram on the western side of India. Why don't the English set up a settlement on the eastern side of India in this place which I know quite well, called Bengal? And Roe writes back to the East India Company about this, and they just ignore it. Of course, that's where the British Empire later will establish its base. So, you know, Ro kind of has an early dibs at that, which he missed. Mrs. What he gets is a kind of partial trading license. He gets temporary permission to set up base in Surat and in Ajmer, where he can have warehouses, the English can have warehouses, and that's all fine. He definitely does not get that exclusive trading license that he had been rooting for. You asked about the kind of legacy of this embassy, and I suppose there's the tangible legacy is the establishment of the warehouses, which would give the English a toehold, at least in India. But the intangible legacy, the things that aren't material, is significantly more, I think, and that's through Rose Diary. I mean, this is the first detailed description of the Mughal empire that will come to the English. And we know that the East India Company kept these diaries. You had to file your diary in order to get paid. So everyone wrote pretty detailed diaries and they would pass it on to later voyagers. So in a way, all that grumbling from Ro that we've been laughing about, absolutely sets the scene for later English dealings with India. And in a way, a lot of the assumptions that the English make in the late 17th, 18th century about the Mughals, about India in general, stem from Row Row's journals.

[William Dalrymple]

Do they learn the lessons? Do they send out better presence in centuries to come, in decades to come?

[Anita Arnand]

Short answer, no, because, you know, the governors don't really take any of this to heart. They don't also take to heart another of Roe's lessons. There's a wonderful moment, 40 years on, at the end of his diplomatic career, when Roe is brought back to Charles I, who's James son. Charles is on the brink of bankruptcy. England itself is on the brink of civil war at this point. And Roe is called back to the Parliament to advise Charles on how to recoup English economy. And in his final speech to his countrymen, the comparison that Roux brings up is again of the Mughal emperor. And he says, the only advice I can give our king is to open up the gates for free trade and let people of different religions do business while preserving their religions, as indeed they do in India under the Mughal emperor. And that's what makes the Mughal emperor one of the greatest and wealthiest emperors in the world.

[Nandini Das]

So interesting.

[William Dalrymple]

And one of the things that really gives the English the edge in the centuries to come is that they do eventually learn to operate skillfully within the Mughal system and to understand Mughal courtly idiom. Its officials do learn good Persian, the correct etiquette, the art of bribing with the right presence at the right time. And in the end, despite all this sort of slipshod stuff, at this point, they actually do outmaneuver all their rivals, the Portuguese, the Dutch and the French, and manage to gain imperial favor. And you could even argue that in the long run, the company's success is facilitated by its scrupulous regard for Mughal authority. Soon the company will begin portraying itself to the Mughals not as a sort of corporate entity, but as this sort of strange being, Company Bahadur, which is a sort of Indo, Mughal, English sort of construction, which is all these things put together. And they get, thanks to, in a sense, the mistakes they make in ro's time.

[Anita Arnand]

Absolutely.

[William Dalrymple]

They become the real pros at this a century later.

[Anita Arnand]

And thanks also to Rowe's insistence on courtly behavior as well. He really understands by the end of his embassy that there's a particular grammar of behavior in the Indian courts, just as there is a particular grammar of behaviour in European courts. And he's really keen to convey that back to the East India Company. And that is one lesson that they do learn, that actually these things matter, they carry weight. But what fascinates me even more about Roe is the little interpersonal relationships he also builds up. You know, he draws his superiority as a European and a Protestant and as Christian around himself like armor faced with Mughal grandeur. But there are chintz in that armor through which he has these chance friendships with his Hindu interpreter called Jadhu, with this other exiled Persian nobleman whom he treats like a father figure. So those moments of friendship also emerge, and I think that's important to acknowledge.

[Nandini Das]

I think we're out of time. But just one line I want to sort of leave hanging in the air from ro, which just, you know, sets the template of what it should, should mean to be a good ambassador. Rowe once writes, it is better to lose time than temper in negotiation. They are wise words. Some of our leaders could do with learning them even today. Nandini, it's so very, very good to talk to you. Nandini Das's excellent, superb book is Courting India. It is an outstanding book and you'll have so much more than we've given you. Just a taster of. Of the writings and experiences of Rowe.

[William Dalrymple]

It's a really, really rich work. I absolutely loved it.

[Nandini Das]

Yeah, me too.

[William Dalrymple]

How it didn't get the Wilson Prize is a mystery. But you was robbed.

[Nandini Das]

Anyway, thank you so much. Anyway, till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Arnand.

[William Dalrymple]

And goodbye from me, William Dalrymple.