Word: shahs
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...Bahadur Shah Zafar II, the Mughal Emperor of India, led an enviable existence. He no longer hunted, as he once loved to do, but he still read and wrote poetry, flew his kites, talked to his numerous sons and grandsons, and, from his residence in the Red Fort, enjoyed the views of his beloved city, Delhi. The city was all that was left of Zafar's dominion, but even there he wasn't really in charge; the year was 1857, and the British East India Company ruled Delhi and most of the rest of India. Then, in the course...
There is nothing offhand about The Peacock Throne, named after the Red Fort seat from which the 17th century Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan held sway over all Hindustan. Saraf casts a scientist's eye on the country of his birth and finds it still preoccupied with holding sway. He starts with Indira Gandhi's 1984 assassination by Sikh bodyguards and the spasm of anti-Sikh violence that ensued. Kartar Singh, a Sikh who runs a Chandni Chowk appliance store, narrowly escapes death in the rioting - and leverages that experience to gain influence in a Hindu nationalist party...
...biggest nightmare situation of all came after two EDS managers were jailed in Tehran amid the revolutionary chaos of 1978. While bargaining with the tottering regime of the Shah for his men's release, Perot organized a commando team from among his EDS employees and hired a former Green Beret colonel, Arthur ("Bull") Simons, to lead an improbable rescue mission. Incredibly, it succeeded. Perot's operatives persuaded a revolutionary mob to storm the jail where the EDS men were held, then spirited the Americans 500 miles to safety in Turkey. Perot's feat was popularized by Novelist Ken Follett...
...himself. He dissected tyrannies large and small, in the high offices where power is held and guarded, and on the street, in the slums, and on the road, where gestures of kindness and casual acts of cruelty constantly occur. To my mind, Another of Day of Life and Shah of Shahs, about the mechanics of the Islamic revolution in Iran, are his finest works. Others might vote for The Emperor, about the court of Ethiopia's longtime dictatorial emperor, Haile Selassie, or The Soccer War, which covers time spent in Africa and South and Central America...
...seem strange in the land of the Taj Mahal - one of the greatest-ever public displays of affection, built by the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan as a mausoleum for his late wife - that an increase in public displays of affection is so notable, but this increase is a departure for a culture that has long kept hidden its romantic emotions. In the recent past, unmarried couples would not hold hands in public, let alone kiss or cuddle. Affairs were hushed up, as Gandhi's was for more than eight decades...