THE Shahanshah of Iran, the Shah of Shahs or the Aryamehr — the rising sun of the Aryan race — as he preferred to designate himself, had an irresistible urge to have his proud person portrayed in full Napoleonic grandeur. Painters, poets and sculptors were commissioned from all over the world to immortalize ‘Him’, along with the regime and the ‘roi-soleil’. Even pen-pushers such as Roshan Sanghvi and Qurratul Ain Hyder from India, were engaged to produce a glamorous account of the new royal palace constructed in the hills and its larger-than-life occupants who were supposed to live for ever like the mythical Khusrau and Shireen in domestic harmony and public felicity. The Shahanshah, however, had actually, been brought back from forced exile during the republican movement of Mosseddegh in the early ’50s, thanks to his overseas patrons and the tribal lashkars which helped to restore the Crown with a vengeance as it were. The Shahanshah found it expedient to picture himself in the flowing robes of a pilgrim, at the House of God at Mecca and a brutal significant before the tomb of Imam Reza in Meshed. Another image drawn by Oriana Fallaci, however, of a ‘prophet of his people’ directly inspired by Heaven with a ‘mission for my homeland’ became universally recognized as an absurdist dream. His own self-portrait at the original-tor of a ‘White Revolution’ turned out to be another huge mis-representation. His newly gained oil-wealth, which reached its apex after the phenomenal raise of prices by OPEC, enabled him to purchase a huge cache of state-of-art weapons systems from the West including a number of mid-air refueling aircraft — as if he was going to conquer Australia. An unusual novel on the late Shah of Iran has been rendered into a vivid Urdu version titled ‘Shahanshah’ by Ajmal Kamal in a recent issue of the quarterly ‘Aaj’, writes Muzaffar Ali Syed It is surprising how a puppet prince who had initially been brought from his school in Switzerland during World War II to “cooperate” with the Allies in place of his deposed and exiled father, and who had been the main target of a constitutional upsurge focussing on the nationalisation of the foreign-controlled oil company leading to his flight from the scene, suddenly presented himself after being placed on the peacock-throne again to entertain megalomaniac ambitions of functioning as a regional overlord. Maybe he was encouraged to play this role to serve the interests of his masters but he might also have enjoyed being used by them. His stick and carrot policy at home, however, did not seem toE’ work in the face of a popular opposition spearheaded by a radical group of religious leaders who also managed to mobilise the students and intellectuals on their side. It was certainly no less than a real Titan who set the world came to witness in the late ’70s only the pathetic search for a decent burial on the part of a runaway from retribution who had fought a relentless battle against his own people to outlive them as the most powerful Emperor of their long history. The story of his desperate struggle for retaining his single-handed hold on the events at home and abroad has since been told by a number of modern historians and political scientists, but none has done it so well as the Polish journalist Ryszard Kapuscinski whose ‘documentary novel’ titled the “Shah of Shahs” provides a moving portrait of a superficially modernised but essentially medieval potentate who refused to adjust himself with the socio-economic situation of his country. Equipped with the observational skills of a news-reporter, the time-sweep of a well-read historian of the immediate and the distant past as well as the imaginative ’empathy’ of a first-rate novelist who can place himself under the skin of almost any character, Kapuscinski has drawn a truly oriental picture of individuals and the time and place of their operation. He builds up his kinetic images with the help of certain ‘stills’ published in the newspapers and memoir-books. He remembers the events after they have happened but makes them so alive that they seem to be happening in front of us. The nervousness of the author’s brother in occult in the projection room palace or maybe the violence of a crowd pooling in a public square is sharply outlined to fix itself in the mind of the reader. Apart from on-the-spot observations, historical memories and feats of creative imagination, there is the authorial wisdom offering a broad analysis of the images invoked along with intellectual comments on the direction, motivation and possible consequences of any precipitous event. But these, do not come heavy on the reader unlike the theories and doctrines of political historians. The notes on the power and “temptation” of oil, the working of Shahanshah’s secret police the SAVAK, the “triumph” of the “petro-bourgeoisie” and the resurgence of the “mosque power” as the main instrument of a radical insurgency, have been “discussed” in a dispassionate manner. Yet, the dominant note is that of a tragedy, not a triumph or a smooth change-over. All this torture, bloodshed and colossal waste could have been avoided if the ruler knew the “extent of patience” bearable by the people. They could do anything once they got over their inability to face oppression. The Revolution, however, is an ambiguity which can be translated into a better future only with a great deal of wisdom and hardwork. This unusual novel, or whatever one chooses to call it, has been rendered into a vivid Urdu version titled ‘Shahanshah’ by Ajmal Kamal in a recent issue of his quarterly, Aaj.