IF ROMEO AND JULIET GOT MARRIED

THE WOMAN BEHIND LOVE'S GREATEST MONUMENT Colin Falconer Mumtaz Mahal In the west we think of Romeo and Juliet as the archetypal lovers, the ultimate romantic couple. Yet India has perhaps better claim to the accolade than Italy; if you want to find a monument to the world's greatest love story, you will find it in one of India’s most polluted and industrialized cities, not the cobbled medieval streets of Verona. India’s Juliet was born Arjumand Banu Begum, in Agra, northern India, the niece of the Empress Nur Jehan, wife of the Emperor Jehangir. She was fourteen years old when she was engaged to Prince Khurram - later to become the Shah Jahan. But she had to wait five years for the marriage, for a date chosen by court astrologers as propitious for a happy marriage. For once, the court astrologers got it exactly right. In the intervening years the Shah had already taken two other wives; but after he married Arjumand he was so taken with her that he sur